Japanese-American Incarceration Survivor Honored With 2023 Salem Award

SALEM, MA — The Salem-based organization Voices Against Injustice will honor history educator and author Sam Mihara with its 2023 Salem Award for Human Rights and Social Justice.

The annual award recognizes and celebrates individuals and organizations who confront fear and social injustice with courage.

A World War II Japanese-American incarceration survivor, Mihara has focused his work on sharing the experiences of his family and highlighting mass incarceration and the detention of undocumented immigrants around the world.

In 2014, Mihara joined the Board of Directors of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation, which "works to preserve what remains of the World War II Japanese-American confinement site in Park County, Wyoming, and to tell the stories of the more than 14,000 people unjustly incarcerated at the site."

The Salem Award was founded in 1992 and is presented each year to a person who embodies the spirit of those who worked to expose the injustices of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 so that they will not be repeated.

"There is a commonality between the purpose of the Salem Award and the purpose of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation, that social injustice and the violation of human rights took place in both places," Mihara said. "Such injustice should never happen again to anyone."

He is the author of "The Life and Times of Sam Mihara," which describes his family's experience with Japanese American incarceration.

Mihara was nominated for the Salem Award by The House of the Seven Gables Executive Director, Dakota Russell.

"Sam inspires me because he made a choice, late in life, to revisit this painful chapter in his family's story," said Russell, a former executive director of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation. "He was willing to do that because he believed he could spark a little empathy and convince others to see the world through different eyes.

"It takes a lot of bravery to get up in front of audiences across the nation — audiences who often hold entirely opposing views — and tell a story that personal."

In 2022, Mihara received the Japanese American of the Biennium Award for Education and Humanities.

"The Board is honored to recognize Sam Mihara as this year's award winner," VAI Co-chair Sara Moore said. "His willingness to share his family's deeply personal story, and to connect the legacy of Japanese-American detention to contemporary social justice issues, provides an invaluable opportunity for both education and action."

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)