Just 74 days after the Japanese attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, President Roosevelt issued an order that forced 120,000 people of Japanese descent, most of whom were American citizens, into 10 detention camps in the western United States.

Some 14,000 of these men, women and children were interned at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center in northern Wyoming, where they lived surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards. Though some were released to help with farmwork, aid in the war effort or go to college, many spent the rest of the war in the bleak camp.

In August 2011 hundreds of former internees came to the opening of the Heart Mountain Interpretive Learning Center built on the site of the original camp. Kevin Miyazaki, whose own father, uncle and grandparents were interned at the camp, tells Heart Mountain’s dramatic story through historic photos and modern-day portraits in this multimedia presentation.