The Eagles of Heart Mountain
The Heart Mountain Eagles were an all-Japanese American football team that played and defeated outside Wyoming high schools while imprisoned in a World War II incarceration camp.
Military & War
The War Brides Act of 1945
After WWII, Japanese war brides married American servicemen, but U.S. immigration laws barred them. Love crossed borders. Law did not.
Stanley Hayami
Incarcerated at sixteen and killed in combat at nineteen, Stanley Hayami left behind a diary that speaks with rare honesty from behind barbed wire and war.
Women’s Army Corps (WAC)
On December 13, 1943, Iris Watanabe became the first Japanese American woman to join the Women’s Army Corps, marking a breakthrough for Nisei women during WWII.
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor shook the nation — and fear quickly turned on Japanese Americans. Propaganda, arrests, and mass incarceration followed, reshaping more than 120,000 lives.
Claude Akira Mimaki
Born in California and imprisoned as an enemy, Claude Akira Mimaki volunteered for the U.S. Army from behind barbed wire, served in two wars, and went on to build a life and business in postwar Japan. His story traces the full arc of the Nisei experience, from exclusion to service to reinvention, lived across borders and decades.
Eric Shinseki
Eric Shinseki grew up hearing stories of three uncles who fought with the all-Nisei 100th/442nd. He carried their legacy through Vietnam, a near-fatal injury, and into history as the first Asian American four-star general.
Proposition 15 (1946)
California voters rejected Proposition 15 on November 15, 1946, marking the first time the state voted down an anti-Asian law and shifting the civil rights landscape.
Ted Takayuki Tanouye
Ted T. Tanouye, a Torrance-born hero of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, fought for America while his own family was incarcerated during WWII. His courage, sacrifice, and Medal of Honor legacy continue to define Japanese American history.