This compelling documentary short follows the filmmaker, June Inuzuka and Denver Buddhist Temple priest, Reverend Okamoto, as they travel through the remnants of small Japanese communities in Wyoming, 2008.

 

June searches for her long lost great uncle's grave site as Reverend Okamoto intones sutras for the those who have passed. She made a promise to her Grandmother that she would find it but only knows these two facts: 

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1) He was a young man when he was killed in a coal mining accident and is buried somewhere in Wyoming.

   

2) His name was Hyasuke Yamasaki. 

 

In her search she discovers  the little known history of the early Japanese immigrants in the frontier west and their contributions to the coal mining and railroad industries. There is also a visit to the World War II internment site at Heart Mountain, Wyoming.

 

The Japanese immigrants may have been invisible to American historians but remnants of the thriving communities tell a different story.