The Eagles of Heart Mountain : a true story of football, incarceration, and resistance in World War II America
(Book)

Includes bibliographical references (pages [307]-373) and index.

"In the summer of 1942, the federal government forced 120,000 Japanese Americans from their homes in California, Oregon, Washington, and Arizona and sent them to incarceration camps across the West. Eleven thousand of them landed on the outskirts of the Wild West town of Cody, Wyoming, at the base of Heart Mountain. Heart Mountain Relocation Center would be their home for the next three years. They eked out a life, establishing Buddhist temples, digging sumo wrestling pits, and harvesting wild grasses to pickle into tsukemono. As armed guards watched their every move, they faced racism and discrimination, as well as frozen winters unlike anything most of the incarcerees had ever experienced. In that environment, little brought joy to the imprisoned. That is, until the fall of 1943, when the Heart Mountain High School football team, the Eagles, started its first season. The team was led by Babe Nomura, a speedy back primed to be crowned as one of the best athletes in Los Angeles before being snatched from his Hollywood home and sent to the camp. The rest of the players were ragtag: only two other teens had ever played competitive football. Their coach was a past-his-prime athlete who before camp spent his days as a produce vendor in Los Angeles's Grand Central Market. In lieu of thigh pads, the team broke down old boxes and shoved the cardboard into their pants. Despite every obstacle, the Eagles ran through the competition, who traveled to the camp from majority-white high schools across Wyoming and Montana. Up to five thousand fans lined the stony field, stacked six to eight bodies deep. The Eagles finished the season undefeated-and unscored upon. On the eve of the Eagles' second season, the federal government began drafting boys and men from the camps for the front lines. Incarcerees help nightly meeting in smoky barracks, fighting and debating their options. The Eagles had to choose: join the Army or resist the draft. Those who resisted stared down the largest mass trial in Wyoming state history, their names branded as traitors in newspapers across the country. Teammates were divided, and some were jailed for their decisions. Based on archival research and interviews with players, their families, former incarcerees, and camp employees, The Eagles of Heart Mountain is a book about a football team, yes. And it's more than that: it's about a group of people wronged by their government standing up and saying 'Enough.'"--book jacket.