Historian and educator Sam Mihara will deliver the 2024 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities on the history of Japanese American incarceration during World War II and his personal experiences as a prisoner at a U.S. relocation camp on Jan. 15 at the Japanese American National Museum and the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center in Little Tokyo, it was announced Friday.
The National Endowment for the Humanities’ Jefferson Lecture is the highest honor the federal government bestows for distinguished intellectual achievement in the humanities.
Attendance at Mihara’s “Memories of Injustice” lecture is free and will stream online at neh.gov.
“Sam Mihara has made it a personal mission to educate people across the world about this painful chapter of American history,” NEH Chair Shelly C. Lowe said in a statement. “Through research and reflection on his own experience, Sam shares personal insight on how to learn from history and find unity. His dedication stands as a powerful reminder of the resilience of the human spirit and the courage of all those who endured suffering and injustice.”
Mihara is a second-generation Japanese American, born and raised in San Francisco. When World War II broke out, the U.S. government forced Sam, at the age of 9, and his family to move to the Heart Mountain War Relocation Camp in Wyoming — one of 10 prison camps across the country used for the internment of more than 120,000 Japanese Americans evicted from their homes following the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941.
Mihara said he lived with his family in a one-room Heart Mountain barrack for three years, held captive against their will by barbed wire fences and armed sentries. After the war ended, Mihara’s family returned home to San Francisco. He went on to earn bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering from UC Berkeley and UCLA, and worked for more than four decades as a rocket scientist, including as an executive on space programs for the Boeing Company.
Following retirement, Mihara chose to become active in public education about Japanese American relocation and internment and in the preservation of the Heart Mountain historic prison site where he and his family were incarcerated. He has spoken to over 120,000 students of all ages in the US, Asia and Europe about his experiences, and he tours nationally to speak to educators, schools, historians, law firms, law schools and government agencies.
“I am truly honored to be designated as the 2024 Jefferson Lecturer,” Mihara said. “As the first Japanese American to be selected, the award is very meaningful to me and to the large audiences that learned the truth about a major American injustice against a race.”
Tickets to the lecture are free of charge and distributed on a first-come, first-served basis. To reserve a ticket, go to eventbrite.com/e/jefferson-lecture-in-the-humanities-tickets-1089942069069?aff=oddtdtcreator.
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