The Heart Mountain, Wyoming Foundation (HMWF) was formed in 1996 as a public nonprofit corporation and obtained its federal 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status in 1997. Since then, the organization has worked to preserve the site that represents a period in U.S. history following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, when 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry, two-thirds of them American-born citizens, were deprived of due process and forced to leave their homes and livelihoods to be incarcerated in "Relocation Centers."

The mission of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation is to:

• Preserve and memorialize the Heart Mountain World War II Japanese American Confinement Site and the stories that symbolize the fragility of democracy;

• Educate the public about the history of the illegal imprisonment of Japanese Americans at Heart Mountain during World War II and its impact on the Big Horn Basin; and

• Support inquiry, research and outreach to highlight the lessons of the Japanese American confinement and their relevance to the preservation of liberty and civil rights for all Americans today.