What a delightful time I had speaking with Aura Sunada Newlin of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation. And my visit to The Heart Mountain Interpretive Center was deeply moving and inspiring. My time at the Center and spent in conversation with Aura left me feeling quite certain that we are living at a time when lessons that were unlearned in the 1940's remain some of the most pressing lessons needed in our time.
Aura Sunada Newlin is a fourth-generation Wyomingite, fourth-generation Japanese American, and Executive Director for the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation (HMWF). Her heritage involves intertwined stories of imprisonment at Heart Mountain and Tule Lake; segregated military service; and hardships suffered by railroaders who were fired because of their Japanese ancestry. Aura was elected to the HMWF board of directors in 2013 and served as board secretary for eight years. She is also on the board of directors for the National Consortium on Racial and Ethnic Fairness in the Courts and was a founding member of the National Steering Committee for Tsuru for Solidarity. She previously taught Asian American Studies courses at the University of Wyoming and was a tenured faculty member in sociology and anthropology at Wyoming’s Northwest College.
Aura earned a BA in ethnomusicology from the University of Wyoming and an MA in medical anthropology from Case Western Reserve University. Now focusing on the anthropology of law, she is a PhD candidate at Case Western Reserve University. Aura’s work has been profiled by the Women in Wyoming podcast and gallery exhibit; the University of Wyoming’s Featured Alumni series; and Wyoming PBS. She was named statewide Faculty Member of the Year by the Wyoming Association of Community College Trustees in 2018 and received the Community Member Award of the Shepard Symposium on Social Justice in 2021.
Website: www.HeartMountain.org
Facebook: facebook.com/HeartMountainWY
Twitter: twitter.com/HeartMountainWY
YouTube: youtube.com/HeartMountainWyomingFoundation
Listeners can contact HMWF at info@heartmountain.org
You can support HMWF by becoming a member: https://www.heartmountain.org/join-and-give/become-a-member/
