From the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation, Okumoto Collection. Inscribed on the back of the photo: "Young girl near guard tower-Ayaho Inouye." She is standing near a guard tower in the barren desert that was home to the Heart Mountain concentration camp.
This is a response to "Stop talking about Heart Mountain", which appeared in the Billings Gazette on March 1, 2017.
There is a dangerous trend today of abusing Japanese American incarceration history to justify surveillance, possibly registry, and even potential incarceration of Muslims in the U.S. We must push back against this wave of ignorance and xenophobic nationalism if we are to preserve the ideals that really can make this country great.
In a March 1st letter to the editor, C.T. Ripley displayed his lack of knowledge about Japanese American history with his letter published by the Billings Gazette. It starts with the question, "How long do we have to hear about the Japanese internment camps?"
I will return to this question later.
Let's debunk a few of the major lies or misleading statements.
