Actor Tamlyn Tomita, a descendant of Heart Mountain incarcerees, will lead a presentation of Chay Yew’s play “Question 27, Question 28,” about the experiences of the influential women who endured the incarceration of 125,000 Japanese Americans during World War II.
The presentation will take place at 9 a.m. on Friday, July 26, at the Wynona Thompson Auditorium at Cody High School, 1225 10th St., Cody, Wyo.
While there is a registration fee for the rest of the Heart Mountain Pilgrimage, the presentation of “Question 27, Question 28” will be free and open to the public.
First presented in 2004, the play presents the history of the Japanese American incarceration through the perspectives of the women who were imprisoned in a series of incarceration sites that included one at Heart Mountain.
An original member of the 2004 cast, Tomita will appear with women with long connections to Heart Mountain, Vanessa Yuille, a documentary filmmaker from Los Angeles whose mother was born in Heart Mountain; Mika Dyo, a Los Angeles actor whose ancestors were incarcerated at Heart Mountain; and Maggie Simpson-Crabaugh, the daughter of Heart Mountain board member Pete Simpson, who visited the camp as a Boy Scout in 1943.
Among her multiple film, stage and television credits, Tomita starred in ‘The Karate Kid II,” “The Joy Luck Club” and “Come See the Paradise.”
The play includes the memories of former Heart Mountain incarcerees, such as Amy Uno Ishii, who was later an advocate for redress for the Japanese American incarceration, and other notable women. They include artist and author Mine Okubo, who was incarcerated at the camp in Topaz, Utah, and Yuri Kochiyama, a prisoner at the Jerome, Ark., camp and longtime civil rights activist.
The Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation, a Smithsonian affiliate, preserves the site where some 14,000 Japanese Americans were unjustly 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 [email protected].