(Lander, WY) – “Beyond Heart Mountain” program in the Wyoming Community Bank Speaker’s series at the Lander Pioneer Museum Thursday, June 30, at 7 p.m.
Alan O’Hashi will present a program on his book about Japanese internment camps and the overt and quiet racism in Wyoming during and after WW2 at the Pioneer Museum in Lander on June 30, at 7 p.m.
O’Hashi who was born in Cheyenne, Wyoming lived in Lander for many years.
He is the Executive Director and Producer Boulder Community Media (BCM). Alan and BCM work with community-based media producers, organizations, and socially-responsible businesses to develop their content via – the written word, electronic, and new media, the visual and performing arts in a culturally competent manner.
The bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 resulted in President Franklin D. Roosevelt signing Executive Order 9066 that rounded up 120,000 Japanese, mostly on the West Coast. After being sorted into 15 assembly centers, the Japanese were then relocated to 10 internment camps, including at Heart Mountain in northwest Wyoming.
Winter Goose Publishing released a memoir by Alan O’Hashi, now of Boulder, Colorado, entitled Beyond Heart Mountain coinciding with the 80th anniversary of E.O. 9066.
The author, like many Japanese who lived in the Rocky Mountain West, he and his family avoided the relocation camp experience by being interned in place His family found support in the once vibrant Japanese community on the 400 and 500 blocks of West 17th Street in downtown Cheyenne.
“My grandmother and grandfather Ohashi and their large family lived and worked in that neighborhood where I spent quite a bit of time between elementary and high school,” said O’Hashi. “I grew up as an obedient ‘Model Minority’ largely because of the bad treatment and discrimination my parents encountered.”
Other events at the Lander Museum will be the American Solar Car Challenge July 13, 14; a talk on Esther Hobart Morris July 21 at 7 pm; a walking tour of some of Lander’s historic houses on July 16; and a trek to the historic McKinney Ranch on July 23. For more information call the museum and 307-332-3373, on Facebook at: Pioneer Museum Lander Wyoming or on the web at www.fremontcountymuseums.com.
