Join us to honor Dr. Takashi Hoshizaki, a Heart Mountain resister and a board member of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation (HMWF). As a US citizen, he was incarcerated without due process, turned eighteen while behind barbed wire, and resisted the draft stating, “I will fight if you restore my rights.” Convicted of draft resistance in 1944, he spent two years in federal prison and was pardoned by President Truman on December 24, 1947. Now ninety-nine, Hoshizaki is one of the few surviving resisters from America’s concentration camps during World War II. He will talk with Shirley Ann Higuchi, Douglas Nelson, and Aura Sunada Newlin, in a dynamic conversation moderated by David Ono.

Hoshizaki will receive the HMWF’s Douglas W. Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award for his work building the foundation and leading the effort to ensure that the principled resistance to the draft for men unjustly imprisoned is remembered. His story influences the work of the HMWF and the innovative Mineta-Simpson Institute at Heart Mountain, which will open on July 27, 2024 during the annual Pilgrimage.

This program is presented in partnership with the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation and the Mineta-Simpson Institute at Heart Mountain.

Setsuko’s Secret by Shirley Ann Higuchi and Heart Mountain: The History of an American Concentration Camp will be available for purchase from the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation with author signing following the event.

Photo by Stan Honda