Our brand new podcast, Look Toward the Mountain, tells the stories of Japanese Americans who were incarcerated at Heart Mountain. Told through a combination of archival recordings, written accounts, and contemporary interviews, each episode delves into specific topics demonstrating the innovation, creativity, and resilience that enabled the Japanese American community to endure this unjust ordeal.
Philadelphia JACL Board Chair and Japanese American filmmaker Rob Buscher hosts and produces the podcast.
Episode 1:
Who We Were Before
The inaugural episode explores the stories of Issei Japanese immigrants, and the communities they and their American born children established on the west coast prior to WWII.
Listen to Episode 1:
Episode 2:
What Is This Place?
The second episode explores the Big Horn Basin of northwestern Wyoming and the people who called it home before the Japanese Americans arrived.
Listen to Episode 2:
Episode 3:
A New Normal
The third episode explores the routines and coping strategies that Japanese Americans adapted during the first months of incarceration as they began adjusting to their new circumstances living behind barbed wire at Heart Mountain.
Listen to Episode 3:
Episode 4:
Prison Food
The fourth episode explores how the Japanese American incarcerated at Heart Mountain coped with the distasteful army rations they confronted when they first arrived in camp, and the important role that food played in their daily lives during the incarceration.
Coming March 5
Credits:
Writers:
Ray Locker
Rob Buscher
Producer/Editor/Host:
Rob Buscher
Theme Song and Original Soundtrack Music:
Rob Buscher
Voice Over Casting:
Darrell Kunitomi