“Seeing and holding the documents that you provided was the most amazing experience. It made it come to life for me…It changes how I feel in my heart, and it makes me happy to know more about what my family went through.”
Carol Yanagawa, Heart Mountain descendant
Shirabeyou!
– Let’s Learn! –
Shirabeyou, or “Let’s Learn!” is an exciting new program from the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation. Because our Japanese American history was written out of many school textbooks, and because many incarcerees were too ashamed or pained to talk about their experiences, many camp descendants have little information about what their relatives went through. This new offering provides a way for former incarcerees and their descendants to begin the process of discovery and healing.
Read through our Frequently Asked Questions to get a sense of the scope of the research, who it is best suited for, and how to request a session.
This service is available for members at the Sustainer level ($250) and above.
Check out the membership page for details and to become a member!
Ready to initiate your family research? Fill out the forms below:
Frequently Asked Questions:
More Research:
Want to conduct your own research? Here are some resources to get you started! These are the most common resources used by Heart Mountain staff conducting research:
Free Resources:
National Archives
NARA records for each family incarceree: start here by typing in the name of incarceree(s) to find records. Searchers can also use this form to type in the name of the camp in which the incarceree lived and the last name. Please note that some people may not show up in a search because the Archives files cut off longer first names, names are sometimes misspelled and people born in camp aren’t included.
Final Accounting Record for Family
The final accounting records for Heart Mountain incarcerees can be found here. This contains the date the family entered camp, the name of the assembly center, the date they left camp, and their destination.
Heart Mountain Sentinel search
A simple Google search of “Heart Mountain Sentinel” and the name of the incarceree often turns up some references in the paper between 1942 and 1945.
Densho
Densho is a wonderful resource for a wide array of information on incarceration.
Paid Resources:
Ancestry.com
This site can generate multiple pieces of information about family members, including Census records, shipping manifests that show if they traveled to the United States by boat and among other details.
Newspapers.com
This site is good for newspaper mentions of incarcerees before and after they were in camp.
USCIS alien files
Immigration records for first-generation Japanese Americans can be obtained from the U.S. Customs and Immigration Service for a fee. The alien case file number is often found via an Ancestry.com search.
WRA files
War Relocation Authority records can be obtained from the National Archives for a fee. Like the USCIS records, we can inform family members we will file for these records if they pay the processing fees. These files are a great source of information, and we can use them to build our own archives. Click below for the request form: