Category Archives: History

Heart Mountain Pilgrimage Set for Aug. 10-11 – Rafu Shimpo

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Heart Mountain Pilgrimage Set for Aug. 10-11 – Rafu Shimpo.

CODY, Wyo. — This year’s Heart Mountain Pilgrimage will be a multigenerational arts festival and will be held on Friday and Saturday, Aug. 10 and 11.

Reservation deadline is July 1. Register online at www.HeartMountain.org.

The focus of the event will be to bring in the younger generations to continue the efforts of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation.

The weekend will be centered on three documentaries. Each is different in its message, reminding the audience of the World War II internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans while asking the question: “Could this happen again?”

“Ken Watanabe’s America: Japanese Americans and Post-9/11 America” will be shown at the Wynona Thompson Auditorium on Friday evening following the pilgrimage dinner at the Holiday Inn. A panel discussion is scheduled after the movie.

Saturday events will be hosted at the Heart Mountain Interpretive Learning Center. An outdoor arts fair featuring local and Heart Mountain artisans and authors will run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Among other presentations and demonstrations outside, Eric Muller will introduce his new book, “Colors of Confinement: Rare Kodachrome Photographs of Japanese American Incarceration in World War II” (University of North Carolina Press, 2012) with a short presentation and book-signing.

Inside the center, two films, “Hiro: A Story of Japanese Internment” and “An American Contradiction,” will have alternating schedules throughout the day. Each film will be introduced by the filmmakers with a short question-and-answer period after the screening.

There will be several showings of each film throughout the day. Guests will be invited to explore the exhibits and the outdoor arts fair while waiting for the movies. Food vendors will be available and a bus will take people from the ILC to the honor roll, walking tour, and hospital complex.

Lee Nellis, a private contractor with Y Loop Road Trips, is working with the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation and will be offering Heart Mountain hikes on Thursday, Aug. 9, Friday, Aug. 10, and Sunday, Aug. 12. Reservations for the hike can be made through him at www.ylooproadtrips.com or by calling (307) 250-9382.

Schedule of Events

Registration will include entry to the following events:

• Reception hosted by Youth Council on Friday, Aug. 10, from 4 to 5 p.m. at Holiday Inn in Cody.

• Pilgrimage Dinner on Friday, Aug. 10, at 5 p.m. at Holiday Inn Ballroom.

• Presentation of “Ken Watanabe’s America” on Friday, Aug. 10, at 7:30 p.m. at Wynona Thompson Auditorium in Cody.

• Interpretive Learning Center Arts Festival on Saturday, Aug.11, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 1539 Road 19, Powell.

Featured Programs

• “Ken Watanabe’s America: Japanese Americans and Post-9/11 America.” In the years since 9/11, Arab and Muslim Americans have faced harassment and discrimination. One group of Japanese Americans took a stand, and defended their countrymen. Ken Watanabe, the star of “Letters from Iwo Jima,” traveled to America to get to know these brave Japanese Americans.

He met and extensively interviewed Norman Mineta, a Nisei who was interned at Heart Mountain during World War II and who was the U.S. secretary of transportation when 9/11 occurred. In this film, Watanabe explores the link between the Japanese American experience and the discrimination experienced by Arab and Muslim Americans in a post-9/11 world, and shows that those who know their history are not doomed to repeat it.

• “An American Contradiction.” Seeking knowledge about her country’s history and heritage, filmmaker Vanessa Yuille journeys to her mother’s birthplace, Heart Mountain. Former internees reflect upon the experience of leaving their homes as children and the wartime hysteria that stripped them of their lawful rights.

This dark chapter of American history not only contrasts with the natural beauty of the landscape but also calls into question the definition of what it means to be an American. Through her investigation, Yuille challenges the audience to correctly define the true nature of what happened there.

• “Hiro: A Story of Japanese Internment,” 2012 Student Academy Award winner. Filmmaker Keiko Wright explores the life of Hiroshi Hoshizaki, a retired grandfather of six, who was imprisoned in an internment camp during his adolescence. As the film follows him on own journey to confront the events and memories of his past, the viewer learn of his experiences while imprisoned at Heart Mountain and the traumatic repercussions on him and his family.

The voices of “Hiro” tell a story of the political hysteria, racism, and scars that internment evoked during the World War II era — feelings that still echo to this day.

• “Colors of Confinement: Rare Kodachrome Photographs of Japanese American Incarceration in World War II.” This book presents 65 color photographs of life at Heart Mountain shot by Bill Manbo, an internee who was an amateur photographer, along with four essays interpreting the photographs. One of the essays is a reminiscence by Bacon Sakatani, and another is by Eric Muller, the book’s editor.

Travel Information

The following hotels have rooms blocked for the event:

• Holiday Inn in Cody, (307) 587-5555. Discount code: K1HMWF

• Comfort Inn in Cody, (307) 587-5556. Discount code: K4HMWF

• Buffalo Bill Cabins in Cody, (307) 587-5555. Discount code: K3HMWF

• The Cody in Cody, (307) 527-3360. Discount code: Heart Mountain Reunion

• Super 8 in Powell, (307) 754-7231. Discount code: Heart Mountain Foundation

Air Travel

• Yellowstone Regional Airport in Cody (COD). Two miles from the central business district of Cody. The Cody Hotels listed above all provide shuttle service to and from the Cody airport. Time to the hotels from the airport is around 5 minutes. If staying in Powell, the drive is approximately 30 minutes.

• Billings Logan International Airport (BIL), Billings, Mont., 109 miles from Cody. The drive from the Billings airport will take approximately 2 hours. You will need to rent a car.

Both airports offer car rental services.

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Jamaica’s Port Royal Seeks World Heritage Status

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Jamaica’s Port Royal Seeks World Heritage Status.

KINGSTON, Jamaica — Archaeologists said Tuesday that they’ll ask the United Nations’ cultural agency to bestow world heritage status on Port Royal, the mostly submerged remains of a historic Jamaican port known as the “wickedest city on Earth” more than three centuries ago.

Receiving the designation from UNESCO would place Port Royal in the company of global marvels such as Cambodia’s Angkor temple complex and India’s Taj Mahal.

The sunken 17th century city was once a bustling place where buccaneers including Henry Morgan docked in search of rum, women and boat repairs.

In recent days, international consultants have conducted painstaking surveys to mark the old city’s land and sea boundaries to apply for the world heritage designation by June 2014, said Dorrick Gray, a technical director with the Jamaican National Heritage Trust, a government agency responsible for preserving and developing the island’s cultural spots.

Port Royal was the main city of the British colony of Jamaica in the 17th century until an earthquake and tsunami submerged two-thirds of the settlement in 1692. It boasted a well-to-do population of roughly 7,000 at the time, and was comparable to Boston during the same period.

After the quake, the remainder of the town served as a British royal navy base for two centuries, even as it was periodically ravaged by fires and hurricanes.

In his sprawling book “Caribbean,” American author James Michener described Port Royal as having “no restraints of any kind, and the soldiers stationed in the fort seemed as undisciplined as the pirates who roared ashore to take over the place night after night. They were of all breeds, all with nefarious occupations.”

Now, it’s a depressed fishing village at the tip of a spit of land near Kingston’s airport. It has little to attract visitors except some restaurants offering seafood and a few dilapidated historic buildings. The sunken, algae-covered remnants of the city are in murky waters in an archaeological preserve closed to divers without a permit.

But in recent decades, underwater excavations have turned up artifacts including cannonballs, wine glasses, ornate pipes, pewter plates and ceramic plates dredged from the muck just offshore. The partial skeleton of a child was found in 1998.

At a Tuesday press conference, experts said it’s among the top British archaeological sites in the Western Hemisphere and should be protected for future generations.

“There is outstanding potential here. Submerged towns like this just do not exist anywhere else in the Americas,” said Robert Grenier, a Canadian underwater archaeologist who has worked closely with UNESCO. He believes the Jamaican site has a strong chance of getting on the world heritage list.

Texas A&M University nautical archaeologist Donny Hamilton said the consulting team has completed the fieldwork for the world heritage assessment and is working on a management plan. He said Port Royal could become a sustainable attraction for tourists but first “there’s got to be something above the ground that people are going to want to come and see.”

Jamaican officials and businessmen have announced various strategies to renovate the ramshackle town over the years, including plans for modern cruise liners and a Disney-style theme park featuring actors dressed as pirates.

Some area businessmen have grown exasperated with the slow pace of development.

“Somebody has to act with a certain measure of dispatch,” said Marvin D. Goodman, an architect with offices in Kingston, across the bay from Port Royal.

Ft. Rosecrans National Cemetery, San Diego, California

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Ft. Rosecrans National Cemetery, San Diego, California

Ft. Rosecrans National Cemetery, San Diego, California Ft. Rosecrans National Cemetery, San Diego, California

Ft. Rosecrans National Cemetery, San Diego, California

Ft. Rosecrans National Cemetery, San Diego, California

Ft. Rosecrans National Cemetery, San Diego, California
Ft. Rosecrans National Cemetery, San Diego, California

Ft. Rosecrans National Cemetery, San Diego, California

My aunt took these photos yesterday, 5/27/2012, while at Ft. Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego.

Look at the sheer numbers of markers.  At ONE National Cemetery.  Just one. Seeing all these numbers made me think.  If this is one cemetery, add all of the markers from ALL of the National Cemeteries. Then, add all of the markers for those who are NOT buried at National Cemeteries.

It makes me incredibly sad.

When are we going to learn?  Not just the U.S., cuz this isn’t just a U.S. problem.  It is world-wide.

I feel like we are thumbing our noses at all those who have sacrificed for us.  Obviously our governments have learned nothing after centuries of fighting.  Will they ever?  We can tout and yell about how we remember.  It won’t mean anything until WE ACTUALLY REMEMBER AND PUT THOSE MEMORIES IN TO PRACTICE.  Actions speak louder than words.  I’m sorry our soldiers, and those all over the world, have to continuously provide the “action” with their lives while our governments learn and provide nothing.

They think they are providing a great service when they provide nominal health care, markers for graves.  The best service would be to actually remember why people have died and to act upon it by making this world a better place. That is why our soldiers died, hoping to make the world a better place. Now if only our governments could do that, what could be a better service to provide? What better rememberance?