Nearly 80 years after his birth behind barbed wire, my father returned to Heart Mountain incarceration camp. Three generations of our family, from ages 6 weeks to 79 years old, made the journey to Cody, Wyoming. From July 25-27, we joined more than 450 attendees at the annual Heart Mountain Pilgrimage, nearly half of whom were first-time attendees like us. The pilgrimage consisted of three days filled with opportunities to connect, share stories, and work through our family’s heartbreak.

Everyone remembers their first real heartbreak. It lingers like a memory you wish you could forget. Ever persistent, it is a reminder that time does not heal all wounds. For my paternal grandparents Kenzo and Ruth Kamei and father Kenneth, they could not escape their collective heartbreak. It was embodied in a place that held 14,000 people at its maximum, making it the third largest city in the State of Wyoming from 1942 to 1945: Heart Mountain incarceration camp.

Upon my first visit, I was struck by Heart Mountain’s peak. It stands iconic and distinctive at 8,123 feet above the Bighorn Basin, piercing the former incarceration site’s 46,000 acres in the center. Lore is that the name is derived from its resemblance to a bison heart by the Apsáalooke nation, commonly known as the Crow nation, the first people on the land.

“Heart Mountain” is an apt name for a place where intense emotional pain was felt through the incarcerees’ experience of great loss and deep longing for a normal life. Now barren land with overgrown fields, you can see the attempts to physically erase it. Barracks were auctioned off after the war for $1 to returning soldiers. What better way to mend a broken heart than to never have to see the cause of that pain? Yet, the site persists like the slightly tilted former hospital tower chimney, one of the only structures in its original place.

My father is one of 556 babies born at that hospital. This year, more than 40 former incarcerees joined the pilgrimage. Many of these survivors were infants and small children at the time. They are now in their 80s and 90s. My father was 10 months old when he and my grandparents left Heart Mountain in November, 1945. As an infant, he has no memories of his own. The pilgrimage was his homecoming. I worry my children will not remember that they, too, were there.

The Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation and the annual pilgrimage make sure we remember. It allows for the healing and breaking of the cycle of shame and generational trauma within the Japanese American community related to incarceration. It preserves the confinement site and its stories, educates the public about the history of illegal imprisonment, and supports research and civility. The pilgrimage highlights the dichotomy of carrying both pain and joy simultaneously.

The joy for the weekend was the celebration of the much-anticipated grand opening of the Mineta Simpson Institute — named after the late former U.S. Representative and Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta and the former U.S. Sen. Al Simpson — and the inaugural tour of the root cellars on the property, now being renovated for public display. There were also tours of the former hospital, a refurbished original barrack, the memorial park — which honors incarcerees who fought in World War II — and drumming demonstrations from San Jose Taiko.

The first-hand recollections of women’s wartime incarceration experiences were brought to life in a performance of “Question 27, Question 28” by playwright and theater director Chey Yew; actress Tamlyn Tomita, a Heart Mountain descendant; documentary filmmaker Vanessa Yuille, whose mother was born in Heart Mountain; actor Mika Dyo, a Heart Mountain descendant; and Maggie Simpson Crabaugh, the daughter of Heart Mountain Foundation board member Pete Simpson.

The play “Question 27, Question 28” refers to the United States War Relocation Authority and War Department document known as the “loyalty questionnaire.” These questions were Question 27, “Are you willing to serve in the armed forces of the United States on combat duty, wherever ordered?” and Question 28, “Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of America and faithfully defend the United States from any or all attack by foreign or domestic forces, and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor, or any other foreign government, power, or organization?”

This questionnaire and the discrimination applied to American citizens detained by their government, the majority of whom were United States citizens by birth and right, was one of the reasons Secretary Mineta always wore his American flag pin proudly. He spoke of his love for his country every time I saw him. He believed that it was only in a place like America that his story was possible. A place where two 10-year-olds could meet as Boy Scouts inside razor-wire fences and become lifelong best friends.

Secretary Mineta, a Democrat who served President Bill Clinton as Secretary of Commerce and President George Bush as Secretary of Transportation, and Al Simpson, a Republican who served three terms as U.S. Senator from Wyoming, were considered an “odd couple” but grew to call each other “brother.” Their friendship has become a rallying cry for understanding and a lesson that what happened at Heart Mountain should never happen again.

The Mineta Simpson Institute will be a dedicated retreat space, a home for workshops, and support programs designed to foster empathy, courage, and cooperation in the next generation of leaders. I feel fortunate to have grown up in San Jose Japantown, one of the three remaining Japantowns in the nation, and to be personally inspired by Secretary Mineta into a life of public service. The ribbon cutting of the Mineta Simpson Institute is a symbol of hope for all. Hope can lead to healing.

A Yonsei, now with a family of my own, the Heart Mountain Pilgrimage left me with a question for you: how might we turn our heartbreak into a breakthrough?

Ellen Kamei is the daughter and granddaughter of incarcerees from Heart Mountain, Wyoming. She is a current City Council member and former mayor of the City of Mountain View, Calif.