Newspaper article: Powell Tribune – “Heart Mountain still symbol of ‘Winter in my Soul’ “ By Michael Cassity – Wyoming Archives Dept. End of the article: “World War II generated real sacrifice throughout the nation. The sacrifice of the soldiers was obvious, real, and deep. The sacrifices of others, those who remained at home, far from the fighting, was no less real even if it was less dramatic. Those Sacrifices had to do with shortages of the necessities of life, with multiple cases of government-sanctioned business profiteering, and with a loss of the opportunity for political dissent. The people at Heart Mountain suffered both, and then some. They experienced the shortages and the exploitation like others. And their sons and fathers went to Europe in an all-Japanese unit to fight, returning with more decorations than any other unit in history. But they also suffered the wholesale denial of the birthright of American citizenship, the denial of freedom for which the nation was fighting, and the loss of dreams for themselves and their children that other Americans assumed. The irony in the whole situation was that the nation justified such treatment in the name of a fight against totalitarianism, against a system that subordinated the rights and needs of individuals to the whim of the state. No wonder then, that internee Miuki Oayama in 1943 could capture the depths of the experience in her famous poem of New Year’s Day, 1943: ‘Snow upon the rooftop – Snow upon the coal – Winter in Wyoming – Winter in my Soul’ “