For decades, a bipartisan consensus in Congress has supported the National Park Service, National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS). Each agency has contributed to the success of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation and other institutions throughout Wyoming.
That’s why the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation is deeply concerned about the proposed elimination of the NEH, IMLS and the National Endowment for the Arts and the proposed $900 million cut to the National Park Service, which supports Japanese American confinement sites around the country.
We opposed the counter-productive cuts to these agencies included in executive orders issued during the last three months, just as we oppose the agency eliminations and defunding actions announced by the White House on Friday. The cuts threaten the existence of National Park Service sites at Japanese American incarceration camps in California, Colorado and Idaho. And they will weaken programs already approved by an overwhelming bipartisan majority, including the Norman Y. Mineta Japanese American Confinement Education (JACE) Act. They will also adversely affect the economies and opportunities in the communities that surround these sites.
Wyoming Senator John Barrasso pushed the JACE Act through Congress at the end of 2022, and spending for the program was set to begin with the new fiscal year on October 1. Heart Mountain has worked with organizations throughout the Rocky Mountain area to develop a program under the law.
The history presented at federally supported parks and institutions throughout Wyoming and the region is American history that reflects all that is good about our nation’s values. It also includes the times when some of our ancestors lost sight of what makes America great and how they righted wrongs and vowed to do better. These proposed cuts make it more difficult for Americans to share this part of our nation’s rich history.