World War II Database

American politician John Winter of the state of Wyoming and other politicians visited the Heart Mountain Interpretive Center on the site of the war time Heart Mountain War Relocation Center internment camp for Japanese-Americans on 10 Jun 2025. Prior to his departure, he was caught on video in saying to three colleagues, with a chuckle, "If you're gonna go to the Jap camp, that's what I call it, we need to leave here by about 12:30". Two of them smiled in response.

Winter's careless use of a racial slur generated disappointment from fellow Americans.

Fellow Wyomingite and state legislator Tim French recalled the slur "Jap" being in wide usage, "but I'm not going to use it any more.... You mature and you grow up.... [Winter] shouldn't have said it."

Shirley Ann Higuchi, chair of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation which runs the interpretive center and daughter of a war-time Heart Mountain internee, noted "I feel that Rep. Winter should become better educated".

The Heart Mountain internment camp held a total of 13,997 Americans purely on the basis of their ancestry between Jun 1942 and Nov 1945, with a peak population of 10,767.

For more information:
WyoFile: Wyoming lawmaker uses slur for Japanese people before visiting Heart Mountain internment site
WW2DB: Internment of Japanese-Americans and Japanese-Canadians

Update 12 Jun 2025

John Winter apologized to AsAmNews for his use of a racist slur when referring to the WW2-era internment camp. "The term that I used just slipped out of my mouth as that is what it has always been referred to in my world as a kid.... I knew better, and I am sorry. I didn't mean to upset anyone. The Interpretive Center at Heart Mountain has a great program for disseminating information and I learned a lot that day."

For more information:
WyoFile: Wyoming lawmaker apologizes for anti-Japanese slur