Terumi (Tom) Hide was born to Japanese immigrants Mantaro and Kiyo in Washington State’s Yakima Valley in 1927. As a result of Executive Order 9066, the Hide family was forcibly removed from the Yakima Valley to the Portland Assembly Center in 1942. The family was eventually incarcerated at at Heart Mountain Relocation Center, Wyoming. During their years in the camp, the family spent a portion of 1943 in Lyman, Nebraska on work leave. In 1944, Tom entered his freshman year at Washington State College, where he competed as runner on the track and field team and was a member of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC). By 1945, Tom’s older brother, Makio (Mike) entered the army. As interest in the history and remembrance of the camps increased, Tom Hide played an active role in preserving the memory of Heart Mountain Relocation Center. Hide assisted in the transport of a Heart Mountain barrack to the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles and served on the Heart Mountain Reunion Committee. Tom Hide passed away on November 3, 2012 while residing in Anaheim, California.
Executive Order 9066:
In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which resulted in the incarceration from 1942 to 1946 of approximately 120,000 adults and children of Japanese ancestry, many of whom were United States citizens. They were expelled from their homes and placed in incarceration camps without due process and in violation of their civil rights. These camps were euphemistically referred to as “relocation centers” or “internment camps”. After decades of advocacy by the Japanese American community, in 1988 the United States issued a formal apology and began redress to survivors of Japanese incarceration during World War II.
The bulk of this collection relates to Tom Hide’s experience of incarceration at Heart Mountain and efforts to memorialize the incarceration experience. Materials from camp include a series of photographs, photocopies of the Heart Mountain high school newspaper, and pamphlets and artifacts from the camps. Materials of remembrance include papers and souvenirs from Heart Mountain reunions, materials related to the planning of Heart Mountain restoration projects, and materials documenting educational efforts related to incarceration. A much smaller portion of the collection consists of memorabilia from Washington State College. The collection also contains several published items about Japanese American experiences prior to and during World War II. Many of the published items are in Japanese.
The documents in this collection are arranged in four series: Biographical Materials, Incarceration, Washington State College, and Published Materials.
Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1925-2012. This series contains materials on Tom Hide. It includes an obituary, his funeral program, and photographs of the Hide family prior to and after the camps.
Series 2: Incarceration, 1942-2012. This series consists of materials about the Hides' incarceration at Heart Mountain Relocation Center, Wyoming and efforts to memorialize their experiences in the incarceration camps. This series is divided into 4 subseries. Materials in each subseries are arranged in chronological order.
Subseries 1: Documents from the Detention Camps and Assembly Centers, 1942-1965. This subseries consists mainly of ephemera from the camps, including pamphlets on resettlement, directories, ration books, programs from Heart Mountain High School, and photocopies of the school newspaper. This subseries also includes a scrapbook containing articles from the Rocky Shimpo during World War II and articles from Japanese language newspapers from Los Angeles after the war.
Subseries 2: Documents on the Preservation and Memory of the Camps, 1942-2012. This subseries consists primarily of materials related to the preservation and memory of Heart Mountain Relocation Center. This includes public programming about the camp, efforts to restore or transport barracks from the site, planning for the interpretive center built on the site in 2011, and reunions for those incarcerated at Heart Mountain. This subseries also includes articles reflecting on the significance of the camps and articles about redress.
Subseries 3: Photographs and Audio-Visual Materials, 1944-2001. This subseries consists of a series of photographs from the Hide family's time at Heart Mountain and on their work assignment in Nebraska during the incarceration. It also contains photographs of Makio (Mike) Hide in military uniform, video cassette recordings of Heart Mountain events and television shows, a DVD recording featuring an interview with Gail Nomura and Steve Sumida, audio cassette recordings of events about incarceration and music played by Japanese American musicians during World War II.
Subseries 4: Realia, 1942-1995. This subseries consists of artifacts from Heart Mountain and memorabilia from Heart Mountain reunions. This includes autograph books created at Heart Mountain, a bag used by Tom Hide during the incarceration, and several souvenirs from Heart Mountain reunions such as a rice paddle and baseball cap.
Series 3: Washington State College, 1944-1947. This series consists of memorabilia from Washington State College, including Tom Hide’s sweater, a pennant, photographic materials, an Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) patch and pin, and a suitcase with a WSC decal on the lid.
Series 4: Printed Materials, 1926-circa 1988. This series consists of several volumes related either to Japanese Americans prior to World War II or life in the detention camps in the United States and Canada. Of particular note are two volumes, one specific to the Japanese American community in the Yakima Valley and the other about Japanese Americans in Washington State. This series also contains materials about the Japanese American community of which Hide was a part following World War II in the South Bay city of Gardena in Los Angeles County and a series of Kokugo readers, which were printed to instruct readers on the official national dialect of Japan. Some of the volumes in this series are in Japanese.
Some items in this collection have been digitized and are available online as part of the
This collection is open and available for research use.
Copyright restrictions apply.
[Item description]
Tom Hide Collection, 1925-2012 (SC 014.1)
Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State University Libraries, Pullman, WA.
The Tom Hide Collection was donated to Washington State University by Patti Hirahara and Tom Hide. It was received in multiple installments from 2010 to 2013 (MS 2010-37; MS 2011-25; MS 2011-31; MS 2011-38; MS 2013-01; MS 2013-02; MS 2013-05; MS 2013-14).
This collection was processed by Steven Bingo in 2012. A grant from the National Park Service provided funding for processing and digitization of materials about Heart Mountain.
In 2021, in response to evolving societal understanding regarding the language used to describe the impact of Executive Order 9066, this finding aid was revised to more accurately provide context to the mass incarceration of people of Japanese ancestry during World War II.
George and Frank C. Hirahara Photograph Collection of Heart Mountain, Wyoming, 1932-2016
Okubara Family Collection, circa 1943-2008
Takeda Family Collection, 1938-circa 2012
Kenneth Nishiyori Collection, 1942-1944
George and Doris McIntyre Papers, 1944-1945
Mari Tsuruyama Okumura Collection, 1936-2014
Patti Hirahara Collection, 1955-2020
Terry Ishihara Collection, 1989-2012
Mike Mackey Collection, 1940-2002
Heart Mountain High School
Fusataro Nakaya Photographs, circa 1944
Nabata Family Collection of Heart Mountain Photographs, circa 1942-1945
Frank Chin Oral History Collection, 1974-1986
Inez Puckett McEwen Collection on Japanese-American Incarceration, 1942-1943
Japanese American Redress Collection, 1976-2000
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or places should search the catalog using these headings.