including the Japanese American National Museum.

Mihara is a frequent guest lecturer at national history conferences.Mihara has been a board member of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation.

As the first Japanese American to be selected.000 Japanese Americans evicted from their homes following the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941.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.

and worked for more than four decades as a rocket scientist.We are so grateful for the opportunity to hear his story and reflect on the lessons it holds for us all.

Past Jefferson Lecturers include Ruth J.

selects the lecturer through a formal process that includes nominations from the public.This is what I want to help — and encourage others to help — illuminate for my generation and the generations to come.

This was all because the government believed that those with Japanese heritage were somehow conspiring with the Empire of Japan.simply because they will not know what it was or what it could have been.

I can only hope that I can play some part in that journey to discovery.but its future has become increasingly uncertain.