During World War II, Heart Mountain, Wyoming, was the site of the fourth-largest Japanese American internment camp in the United States. Since 2011, the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation has educated visitors about the history of the camp itself and Japanese internment from its location in rural western Wyoming. A grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for pandemic relief in 2020 allowed the foundation to broaden its reach by greatly expanding its online presence.
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NEH funding provided the resources to produce videos such as this one, which chronicles the lives of pets at the camp.
Though the foundation has always engaged its local community, its ability to reach a wider audience has been hampered by its remote location—much of the tourism to the area is aimed at nearby Yellowstone National Park. In addition to providing salary support, the 2020 NEH grant enabled the small organization to build the capacity required to produce a bevy of online content. NEH funds covered the purchase of necessary equipment to produce quality podcasts, videos, and online exhibitions. Exhibitions such as “History Often Rhymes: COVID-19 and the Racialization of Disease,” which explores the racist backlash against Asian Americans provoked by COVID-19, help the foundation show that the history of the Heart Mountain internment camp—and the historical trends that led to its existence—did not end when the camp closed.
The expanded online presence has also increased engagement with the foundation’s members, most of whom are former incarcerees or their descendants and no longer live near the site. Online videos about notable incarcerees have prompted members to comment with their own family stories; they have also allowed the foundation’s board members to participate directly in telling their own stories of internment. Several board members have even volunteered to be part of a virtual field trip that is in development, and to do interviews with students. In this way, NEH funding has made the site more accessible both for its stakeholders as well as the general public.