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Death, Sex & Money

Death, Sex & Money - The Children Of Heart Mountain

Death, Sex & Money

Slate Audio

Careers, Sexuality, Business, Health & Fitness, Relationships, Society & Culture

4.6 • 7.7K Ratings

šŸ—“ļø 11 December 2019

ā±ļø 34 minutes

šŸ§¾ļø Download transcript

Summary

At an annual pilgrimage back to a former Japanese American incarceration site, we hear from peopleĀ reliving complicated childhood memories, andĀ descendants looking for answers.

For more about Japanese American incarceration and the language we use to talk about it now, check out this episode from the NPR podcast Code Switch, called "America's Concentration Camps?"

Sign up for our newsletter atĀ deathsexmoney.org/newsletter, and every Wednesday we'll send you podcast listening recommendations, listener letters from our inbox and updates from the show.

Follow our show on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @deathsexmoney.Ā Got a story to share? Email us any time atĀ deathsexmoney@wnyc.org.Ā 

Support Death, Sex & Money today atĀ deathsexmoney.org/donate.


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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor, we're at war, and what was happening to us was sort of the fallout.

0:12.1

This is death, sex, and money.

0:15.2

How do you live your life?

0:16.8

The show from WNYC about the things we think about a lot.

0:20.0

You're going to get in here and give me a kiss.

0:22.5

And need to talk about more.

0:24.5

Money can't buy happiness.

0:26.7

I'm Anna Salle.

0:33.2

Esther Abe was the first former incarcerie I met at Heart Mountain last summer.

0:38.3

She's in her 80s now and hadn't seen this place since World War II when she was a young girl.

0:44.1

You know, I haven't been back here since we used to live here.

0:47.9

Here is where Esther and her family were once held under guard of military police by the U.S. government,

0:56.0

because they were Japanese-American.

1:03.5

It's just off the highway about 13 miles outside of Cody, Wyoming, between farms and sagebrush-covered fields.

1:08.2

On the horizon is a mountain with two rounded peaks, Hart Mountain.

1:16.0

We just accidentally found a website, and we had like three weeks notice that we had to, you know,

1:17.7

pack up for this vacation.

1:20.5

But we found out there having a pilgrimage.

1:24.5

This gathering is part reunion and part witnessing.

1:28.8

Esther traveled with her grown son and daughter to show them where she was forced to relocate as a girl from her home in Washington State.

1:33.0

So it came to life for my daughter. She saw our name in the registrar's books. And it kind of

1:40.1

walk her up. Oh, this is true. Were there any flashes of memory that came back, what you did when you were a little girl? You know, there was something happened that I didn't expect. I saw that Heart Mountain. On the horizon? I saw that, and I kind of choked up. I didn't realize I was going to be that abortion. But no tears, just choking up. What do you think that was?

...

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