Sam Mihara, who was incarcerated at Heart Mountain as a child, received the Salem Award for Human Rights and Justice from the House of Seven Gables Settlement House in Salem, Massachusetts, on Nov. 10.

The award was granted in recognition of the work Mihara has done to educate Americans about the Japanese American incarceration during World War II and to prevent similar human rights abuses from happening again.

Before the award ceremony, Mihara visited the Salem Witch Trials Memorial, which is devoted to the 20 victims — 14 women and six men — who died during the trials between February 1692 and May 1693.

Salem was the last stop in a week that saw Mihara speak on a panel at the US-Japan Council annual conference in Washington and two high schools in Massachusetts about the incarceration.

Since 2011, Mihara has spoken in person to more than 100,000 people about the incarceration that forced him and his family from their home in San Francisco and into the prison camp at Heart Mountain.

Mihara is a member of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation board.

During his family’s incarceration, Mihara’s father went blind because he was denied access to his doctor in California and his grandfather died of mistreated cancer. Mihara tells these stories in his book, “Blindsided.”

The Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation preserves the site where some 14,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated in Wyoming from 1942 through 1945. Their stories are told within the foundation’s museum, Heart Mountain Interpretive Center, located between Cody and Powell. For more information, call the center at (307) 754-8000 or email  info@heartmountain.org.