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PERMIT NO. G-83
INSIDE THIS ISSUE

2012: A YEAR IN REVIEW – PRESERVING AND INTERPRETING WORLD WAR II JAPANESE 

AMERICAN CONFINEMENT SITES

•	 Introduction 

•	 Overview of the Fiscal Year 2012 Grant Program Process

Status of Funding for the Fiscal Year 2013 Japanese American Confinement 

Sites Grant Cycle

FISCAL YEAR 2012 GRANT AWARDS

 FY2012 Project Descriptions by State 

•	 Arizona

•	 California

•	 Colorado

•	 Hawai‘i

•	 Idaho

•	 Illinois

•	 Oregon

•	 Texas

•	 Utah

•	 Washington

•	 Wyoming

MAP OF GRANT FUNDING BY STATE (2009-2012)

GRANT FUNDING BY SITE (2009-2012)

PROJECTS COMPLETED DURING FISCAL YEAR 2011-2012

•	 JACL Twin Cities Chapter Records Oral Histories of Japanese American Internees Living in Minnesota

•	 Passing the Legacy Down: Youth Interpretations of Confinement Sites in the Western United States

•	 JACL Livingston-Merced Chapter Builds Commemorative Memorial at Site of Merced Assembly Center

•	 What Camps? Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i Answers Question With Traveling Exhibit on Internment Camps 

in Hawai‘i

•	 Two JANM Projects Result in the Recordation of Stories of Nisei Docents, and Plans for New Exhibit on Japanese 

American World War II Experience

•	 Tule Lake Committee Prepares for Restoration of “Jail Within a Jail,” with Historic Structure Report

•	 Three Grants Help Preservationists and Local Community Preserve Amache’s Past 

•	 Densho Captures the Lesser Known Stories of the Japanese American Incarceration

CONTACT INFORMATION
1

Fall / Winter 2012

National Park Service

U.S. Department of the Interior

Japanese American

Confinement Sites

Grant Program

2012: A YEAR IN REVIEW – PRESERVING AND INTERPRETING WORLD WAR II 

JAPANESE AMERICAN CONFINEMENT SITES

The National Park Service (NPS) is pleased to report 

on the progress of the Japanese American Confinement 

Sites Grant Program. On December 21, 2006, President 

George W. Bush signed Public Law 109-441 (16 USC 

461) – Preservation of Japanese American Confinement 

Sites – which authorized the NPS to create a grant 

program to encourage and support the preservation and 

interpretation of historic confinement sites where Japanese 

Americans were detained. The law authorized up to 

$38 million for the life of the grant program. Congress 

first appropriated funding for the program in 2009.

Over the past four years, the program has awarded 83 

grant awards totaling nearly $9.7 million to private 

nonprofit organizations; educational institutions; 

state, local, and tribal governments; and other public 

entities. The projects, which involve 17 states and the 

District of Columbia, include oral histories, preservation 

of camp artifacts and buildings, documentaries and 

educational curriculum, and exhibits and memorials 

to preserve the confinement sites and share the stories 

associated with these significant places. Japanese 

American Confinement Sites grants are awarded 

through a competitive process in which $2 of Federal 

money matches every $1 in non-Federal funds and “inkind” contributions. As of 2012, these projects have 

leveraged at least $5.5 million in non-Federal funds. 

The most recent Fiscal Year 2012 grant awards, featured 

in this report, include the expansion of an online 

encyclopedia that focuses on all aspects of the Japanese 

American experience; the return of a former barrack 

continued on page 2 

Mia Furuichi Fong (model for the bronze statue) at the February 2010 dedication for the Merced Assembly Center Memorial. 

Photo courtesy: The Merced Assembly Center Memorial JACL Collection
2

National Park Service

2012: A YEAR IN REVIEW

continued from page 1 

building to the Amache confinement site in southeastern 

Colorado; and a program to engage high school students 

in Hawai‘i in the study of World War II confinement and 

similar justice and equality issues that resonate today. 

The 17 grants awarded in 2012 range from $24,132 

for the University of Idaho to further excavate 

the Kooskia Internment Camp site in northern 

Idaho, to $714,314 to the Topaz Museum to build 

a museum and education center in Delta, Utah for 

the Topaz Relocation Center outside of town.

As several new projects begin, many of the past funded 

projects have been completed, and will continue to 

serve as resources for education, inspiration, and longterm preservation of these sites and stories. Completed 

projects highlighted in this annual report include a 

planning document to help guide preservation efforts of 

the historic jail and stockade at the Tule Lake Segregation 

Center, interpretive materials that tell the history of lesser 

known sites in Hawaii, and oral histories that expand our 

knowledge of this history. 

Collectively, these projects provide a deeper insight 

into the broader history of the confinement of Japanese 

Americans in the United States during World War II. 

The NPS is fortunate to have the opportunity to work with 

the various Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant 

Program recipients to make sure the experiences of those 

who persevered are not forgotten and to inspire younger 

generations to become stewards for site preservation and 

carry these stories and lessons forward. 

“The National Park Service is honored to help preserve 

through these grants the stories and historic sites of 

fellow Americans who endured a shameful chapter our 

nation must never forget,” said NPS Director Jonathan B. 

Jarvis, in announcing the FY2013 grant cycle. “With the 

help of Congress, this important program continues to 

preserve vital testimony—in words, images, scholarship 

and places—to the need to guard our constitutional rights 

against injustice, prejudice, and fear.” 

Manzanar Relocation Center, Inyo County, California. Photo courtesy: Manzanar NHS/Katsumi Taniguchi Collection 
Public Law 109-441 - Preservation of Japanese American World War II Confinement Sites

3

Eligible Sites and Projects 

As defined by Public Law 109-441, eligible 

confinement sites include the ten War Relocation 

Authority camps: Gila River (AZ), Granada (CO), 

Heart Mountain (WY), Jerome (AR), Manzanar (CA), 

Minidoka (ID), Poston (AZ), Rohwer (AR), Topaz 

(UT), and Tule Lake (CA), as well as other sites – 

including assembly, relocation, and isolation centers – 

identified in the NPS report Confinement and Ethnicity 

and as determined by the Secretary of the Interior, 

where Japanese Americans were detained during 

World War II.

Seven major categories of activities are eligible for 

Japanese American Confinement Sites grants: capital 

projects (such as construction of new interpretive 

centers); documentation (such as archeological 

surveys); oral history interviews; interpretation 

and education related to historic confinement sites 

(such as wayside exhibits or educational curricula); 

preservation of confinement sites and related historic 

resources (such as restoration of historic buildings or 

collections conservation); planning projects (such as 

resource management plans); and non-Federal real 

property acquisition (allowed only at Heart Mountain 

(WY), Honouliuli (HI), Jerome (AR), Rohwer (AR), and 

Topaz (UT), per stipulations of Public Laws 109-441 and 

111-88).

Overview of the 2012 Grant Program Process

For the 2012 grant program, the NPS mailed postcards 

announcing the availability of grant applications and 

guidelines in early August 2011 to a mailing list of 

approximately 8,000 individuals and organizations. 

On September 1, 2011, the NPS also announced 

the availability of application materials through 

local, regional and national press releases, the grant 

program website, and other correspondence. 

By the application deadline of November 1, 2011, the 

NPS received 42 applications, requesting over $7.2 

million in Federal funds. During the week of November 

14, 2011, the Japanese American Confinement Sites 

Grant Program selection panel convened to evaluate 

the grant proposals. The panel was composed of NPS 

staff from the Intermountain, Midwest, and Pacific 

West Regions. Appointed by NPS Regional Directors, 

the six panel members represented a variety of 

backgrounds and disciplines, including expertise in 

architecture, history, curation, anthropology, public 

affairs, and planning. The panel members met at the 

NPS Intermountain Regional Office in Lakewood, 

Colorado, to review all eligible applications. The panel 

evaluated and ranked each proposal using criteria and 

guidelines that were established based on public input. 

The panel recommended 17 proposals to receive funding. 

These recommendations were forwarded to Secretary 

of the Interior Ken Salazar, who announced the 

awards on March 22, 2012. In announcing the 

awards, Secretary Salazar reflected, “If we are to tell 

the full story of America, we must ensure that we 

include difficult chapters such as the grave injustice of 

internment of Japanese Americans during World War 

II. The internment sites serve as poignant reminders 

for us—and for the generations to come—that we must 

always be vigilant in upholding civil liberties for all.”

 Japanese Americans registering for mass removal in San Francisco, 

April 25, 1942. Photo courtesy: Densho (denshopd-i151-00061), 

National Archives Collection, Photo by Dorothea Lange
4

National Park Service

As a Federal agency, the NPS 

fiscal year begins on October 

1 and ends on September 30 

each year. At the time of this 

publication, Congress has not yet 

passed the government’s formal 

operating budget, known as an 

appropriations bill, for Fiscal 

Year 2013. 

In order to ensure that NPS 

has the administrative ability 

to successfully award Japanese 

American Confinement Sites 

grants in 2013, the grant program 

will proceed with the 2013 

grant cycle. Japanese American 

Confinement Sites grants will 

be awarded dependent on funds 

appropriated by Congress.

As we receive updated 

information about funds 

available for the 2013 cycle, 

we will post it on the Japanese 

American Confinement Sites 

grant program website: http://

www.nps.gov/history/hps/hpg/

JACS/index.html

STATUS OF FUNDING FOR THE FISCAL YEAR 2013 JAPANESE AMERICAN 

CONFINEMENT SITES GRANT CYCLE

A groundbreaking ceremony for the Topaz Museum and Education Center 

was held in Delta, Utah on August 4, 2012. Photo courtesy: Manzanar NHS 

Architect’s rendering of the Topaz 

Museum and Education Center. 

Photo courtesy: Shah Kawasaki 

Architects 
Public Law 109-441 - Preservation of Japanese American World War II Confinement Sites

5

FISCAL YEAR 2012 GRANT AWARDS

In 2012 – the Japanese American Confinement Sites grant program’s fourth year – 17 awards provided nearly 

$2.9 million to projects in 11 states. A list of the funded projects follows. 

Please note: projects are listed by the states of the 

grant recipients. In some cases—marked with an 

asterisk (*)—the grant recipient is from one state and 

the confinement site associated with the project is in 

another.

FY2012 Project Descriptions by State 

ARIZONA

Recipient:	 Developing Innovations in Navajo

Education, Inc.

Project Title: Japanese-American Leupp Citizen

Isolation Center Project

Grant Award:	 $290,000

Site(s): Leupp Citizen Isolation Center, 

Coconino County, AZ

 

Description: Developing Innovations in Navajo 

Education, Inc. will produce a documentary film on the Leupp Citizen Isolation Center, which 

was on the Navajo reservation at Leupp, Arizona. The film will center on internee and artist/ 

painter Taneyuki Dan Harada, and also will juxtapose the Japanese American and Navajo 

cultures in confinement.

CALIFORNIA

Recipient:	 Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation	 	

Project Title: Telling the Stories of Japanese American Detainees on Angel Island during World War II

Grant Award:	 $25,573	

Site(s): Angel Island Detention Station, Marin County, CA

 

Description: The Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation will compile and showcase resources, 

including recently discovered wall writings, about the experiences of Japanese Americans who 

were detained on Angel Island in San Francisco Bay. Most detainees were from Hawaii.

Recipient:	 Japanese American Citizens League

Project Title: Passing the Legacy Down: Youth Interpretations of Confinement Sites in the Western

United States

Grant Award:	 $150,130	

Site(s): Manzanar National Historic Site, Inyo County, CA

 Minidoka National Historic Site, Jerome County, ID 

 Tule Lake National Monument, Modoc County, CA

Description: Through its “Bridging Communities” program, the Japanese American Citizens League will 

educate more than 100 young people about the meaning of internment and the importance of 

preserving confinement sites.

The Hirano Family – left to right: George, Hisa and Yasbei, 

Colorado River Relocation Center, Poston, Arizona

Photo courtesy: National Archives, Record Group 210
6

National Park Service

Recipient:	 Venice Community Housing Corporation	 	

Project Title: 	 Venice Japanese American Memorial Marker

Grant Award:	 $50,000	

Site(s): Manzanar National Historic Site, Inyo County, CA

Description: The Venice Community Housing Corporation will design and build a memorial at the 

spot where 1,000 Japanese Americans from Venice, Santa Monica, and Malibu, California, 

reported for transport to the Manzanar Relocation Center. The project will also result in a 

K-12 curriculum on the internment. 

Recipient:	 East Bay Center for the Performing Arts

Project Title: Hidden Legacy: Japanese Traditional

Performing Arts in the World War II

Internment Camps

Grant Award:	 $138,586	

Site(s): Multiple

Description:	 Using historical footage and interviews 

with artists who were interned, the East 

Bay Center for the Performing Arts 

will produce a one-hour documentary 

film telling the story of how traditional 

Japanese cultural arts were maintained in 

the internment camps. 

COLORADO

Recipient:	 Colorado Preservation, Inc.

Project Title: Amache Barrack Relocation and

Rehabilitation

Grant Award:	 $241,124	

Site(s): Granada Relocation Center (Amache), 

Prowers County, CO

Description: Colorado Preservation, Inc. will relocate 

an original barrack, currently located off 

site, back to the former Granada Relocation 

Center (Amache), and rehabilitate the 

building for visitor interpretation. 

HAWAI‘I

Recipient:	 Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i

Project Title: ‘Just’ Youth: Taking the Lessons of

Hawai‘i’s WWII Confinement Sites to

Our High Schools

Grant Award:	 $64,795	

Site(s): Honouliuli Internment Camp, Honolulu County, HI, and other Hawai‘i sites

Description: The Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i will work with teachers on the use of lessons and 

resources that link Japanese American confinement to issues of justice and equality that 

resonate today. The project will culminate in a public event featuring student projects.

Japanese dance and music performance at Tule Lake Segregation 

Center, CA, 1942. Photo courtesy: Gift of Jack and Peggy Iwata, 

Japanese American National Museum (93.102.57)

Ink drawing with watercolor by George Hoshida, Kilauea military 

detention camp, 8-25-42. Photo courtesy: Gift of June Hoshida 

Honma, Sandra Hoshida and Carole Hoshida Kanada, Japanese 

American National Museum (97.106.1AC)
Public Law 109-441 - Preservation of Japanese American World War II Confinement Sites

7

IDAHO

Recipient:	 Friends of Minidoka

Project Title: 	 Minidoka Guard Tower Reconstruction

Grant Award:	 $280,378

Site(s): Minidoka National Historic Site, Jerome County, ID

Description: The Friends of Minidoka will reconstruct a historic guard tower at the entrance to Minidoka 

National Historic Site; the project also includes a reconfiguration of the parking area to 

make it more accessible.

 

Recipient:	 University of Idaho

Project Title: 	 Kooskia Internment Camp Archaeological Project (KICAP)

Grant Award:	 $24,132

Site(s): Kooskia Internment Camp, Idaho 

County, ID

 

Description: The University of Idaho will 

support the archaeological 

explorations of the Kooskia 

Internment Camp and the analysis 

of artifacts recovered.

*Under California, see the Japanese American 

Citizens League project, “Passing the Legacy 

Down: Youth Interpretations of Confinement Sites 

in the Western United States.”

ILLINOIS 

Recipient: Japanese American Service Committee

Project Title:	 The Legacy Center Archives

Grant Award: $75,268

Site(s): Multiple 

Description: The Japanese American Service Committee (JASC) will preserve, catalog, and house the 

Legacy Center’s archival collection of artifacts, documents, and other materials related to 

Japanese American history and the internment period.

OREGON

Recipient:	 Oregon Nikkei Endowment	

Project Title: 	 Minidoka Oral History Project

Grant Award:	 $168,460

Site(s): Minidoka National Historic Site, Jerome County, ID, and other camps.

Description: The Oregon Nikkei Endowment will create access to recently converted, original footage 

oral history tapes of Japanese Americans interned at Minidoka Relocation Center. The tapes 

will be made available online, and through three educational DVDs.

Entrance to Minidoka incarceration camp, circa 1944.

Photo courtesy: Densho (denshopd-p15-00044), 

Mitsuoka Family Collection
National Park Service

8

TEXAS

Recipient:	 Friends of the Texas Historical Commission, Inc.

Project Title: Japanese American and Enemy Alien Confinement at Crystal City Family Internment

Camp, Texas

Grant Award: 	 $25,580

Site(s): Crystal City Family Internment Camp, Zavala County, TX; four other Texas camps, 

indirectly.

Description: Friends of the Texas Historical Commission, Inc. will conduct a low-invasive archeological 

survey of two key tracts at the Crystal City Family Internment camp, and draft a National 

Register of Historic Places nomination for the confinement site.

UTAH

Recipient:	 Topaz Museum

Project Title: Topaz Museum and Education Center Construction Project

Grant Award:	 $714,314

Site(s): Topaz Relocation Center, Millard County, UT and other sites

Description: The Topaz Museum will construct an 8,254-square-foot museum and education center in 

Delta, Utah, to foster the understanding and preservation of the Topaz Relocation Center. 

The museum will be located on the main street of Delta, which is the closest town to the 

Topaz Relocation Center.

WASHINGTON 

Recipient:	 Washington State University

Project Title: Enhancing Access to Heart

Mountain Collections at

Washington State University

Grant Award:	 $77,769

Site(s): Heart Mountain Relocation Center, 

Park County, WY 

Description: Washington State University will 

digitize, partially translate, and make 

more accessible on its website the 

university’s collections related to the 

Heart Mountain Relocation Center.

Recipient:	 Wing Luke Memorial Foundation

d.b.a. Wing Luke Museum of the

Asian Pacific American Experience

Project Title: Honoring a Legacy, Forging a Future:

Preserving the Stories and Collections

of World War II Veterans and Internees

Grant Award:	 $170,833

George Hirahara, formerly of Yakima, Washington, standing in the 

photographic darkroom that he built under his barrack – 15-9-A in 

Heart Mountain, Wyoming. Photo courtesy: George and Frank C. 

Hirahara Collection, WSU Libraries, MASC
Public Law 109-441 - Preservation of Japanese American World War II Confinement Sites

9

Site(s): Minidoka National Historic Site, Jerome County, ID

Description: The Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific 

American Experience will preserve and interpret 

historic materials compiled by the Seattle Nisei 

Veterans Committee, and create exhibits and an 

online database to help raise awareness of Japanese 

American incarceration and the concurrent military 

service of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

Recipient:	 Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project

Project Title:	 Japanese American Confinement Sites

Encyclopedia - Phase II

Grant Award:	 $362,450

Site(s): All 10 War Relocation Authority camps and other 

sites 

 

Description: Densho will market and expand its free, online 

encyclopedia to include more than 1,000 articles 

about the World War II incarceration of Japanese 

Americans. Articles will be linked to multitudes of 

primary resources and documents.

WYOMING

Recipient:	 Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation

Project Title:	 Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation Website

Project

Grant Award:	 $30,976

Site(s): Heart Mountain Relocation Center, Park County, WY 

 

Description: The Heart Mountain Wyoming 

Foundation will enhance 

access to the Heart Mountain 

Interpretive Learning Center 

by developing an online virtual 

tour, as well as web access to its 

archives and artifacts. It also 

will create an online, interactive 

curriculum.

Watercolor painting depicting a Japanese American 

family sitting at a table inside of their barrack in 

Heart Mountain Relocation Center, December 1942. 

Image courtesy: Estelle Ishigo papers (Collection 

Number 2010) - Department of Special Collections, 

Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA

 U.S. Army soldier playing ukulele next to woman on 

barrack steps, Rohwer Arkansas, 2-11-45.

Photo courtesy: Gift of the Walter Muramoto Family, 

Japanese American National Museum (97.292.3P)
10

National Park Service

GRANT FUNDING BY STATE

This map shows total (2009-2012) Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program funding by the states where the grantees are located. Also shown (with red symbols) are the Japanese American confinement sites that are the specific focus of those grant funds. In some cases, the grantee is in a different state than that of the confinement sites. For example, the Wing Luke Memorial Foundation, 

which is in Washington, received funding to preserve a historic collection related to the Minidoka Relocation Center in Idaho. In addition, some projects generally benefit all confinement sites and/or interpret the overall Japanese American internment experience. While this map shows the location of those grantees, it does not show every confinement site that benefits from those general projects.
Public Law 109-441 - Preservation of Japanese American World War II Confinement Sites

11

GRANT FUNDING BY SITE

This graph shows total (2009-2012) Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program funding by confinement site. Listed is each site that is the focus of a grant project. The last bar in the graph shows 

funding for general projects that benefit multiple sites – four or more – and/or interpret the overall Japanese American internment experience. 
On December 7, 1941, the day that Pearl Harbor was 

attacked, fifteen-year-old John Oshima was at the movies 

and didn’t get home until after dark. As he recalls, 

“...my parents were out of their gourd, wondering 

what happened to me.” Oshima’s recollections of that 

fateful day in Oakland, California, are included in the 

“Minnesota Japanese American Oral History Project,” 

funded by a $16,000 FY2009 grant awarded to the 

Japanese American Citizens League, Twins Cities Chapter. 

Oshima’s oral history also includes memories of his 

family’s experiences at the Tanforan Assembly Center, 

where they lived in two converted horse stables, before 

being transferred to the Topaz Relocation Center in Utah.

Developed under the guidance of filmmaker Bill Kubota 

and working in collaboration with the Minnesota 

Historical Society, JACL recorded interviews with eight 

Nisei Japanese Americans who live in Minnesota but once 

were incarcerated at Gila River, Minidoka, Tule Lake, and 

Topaz. The interviews and transcripts are available on the 

Densho website (www.densho.org) and in the archives of 

the Minnesota Historical Society. 

Project committee 

member Sally 

Sudo said 

preserving these 

stories not only 

educates younger 

generations about 

the internment 

of Japanese 

Americans 

during World 

War II, but helps 

ensure that such 

injustices are not 

allowed to happen 

again. Sudo, 

who spent her 

first- second- and 

third-grade years 

at Minidoka, is 

among the eight 

interviewees. She 

was only 6 years old 

when her family 

was forced to leave 

Seattle for the Puyallup Assembly Center. One weekend 

while there, she recalled, “the principal of our elementary 

school came to the gate, outside the barbed wire, and 

she had all these boxes of candy bars and she had tears 

running down her cheeks, and she was handing out these 

bars to the kids that she recognized from her school.”

National Park Service

During the last year, 11 projects that received Japanese 

American Confinement Sites grant program funding 

were completed. Following is an overview of these 

project success stories, all of which reflect the dedicated 

commitment and hard work of numerous groups to 

preserve, interpret and memorialize the history of the 

Japanese American internment during World War II. 

PROJECTS COMPLETED DURING FISCAL YEAR 2011-2012

12

John Oshima shares his memories of his family’s experiences 

at Tanforan and Topaz. Photo courtesy: Japanese American 

Citizens League, Twin Cities Chapter

Sally Sudo and her family left their home 

in Seattle for the Puyallup Assembly 

Center when she was 6 years old. Photo 

courtesy: Japanese American Citizens 

League, Twin Cities Chapter, 

Sally Sudo Collection

JACL Twin Cities Chapter Records Oral Histories of Japanese American 

Internees Living in Minnesota
“The Bridging Communities program has 

really opened my eyes to what is happening 

in the world and made me think about my 

position in society,” said high school student 

Emily Isakari. Student Veronica Eldridge had 

a similar experience, saying “It has made me 

confident in standing up for the rights of those 

communities being wrongly targeted, and I will 

always remember what I have learned through 

the program.” What is the program that had 

such an impact on these young people? It is 

the Bridging Communities, Passing Down the 

Legacy Program, which seeks to empower youth 

by recognizing similarities between the Japanese 

American experience during World War II and 

incidents of hate and intolerance directed at 

American Muslims in the aftermath of 9/11. The 

program was funded by a FY2010 $151,790 grant 

awarded to the Japanese American Citizens League. Ninety-eight high school students from the Japanese 

American and American Muslim communities in San 

Francisco, Seattle, and Los Angeles 

participated in the Bridging 

Communities Program. The students 

engaged in educational workshops 

and discussions, then visited 

Manzanar, Tule Lake, or Minidoka, 

where classroom ideas and theories 

about civil rights, tolerance, and 

identity were transformed into 

reality. The student experiences 

were captured in a video, also titled 

Bridging Communities, Passing 

Down the Legacy, by Marissa 

Kitazawa and Alex Margolin.

The experience had a profound 

impact on Shehzaib Rahim, who was 

only 8 years old when 9/11 happened, 

yet he still remembers the fear 

experienced by families of Middle 

Eastern descent. The Bridging 

Communities program so increased 

his interest in civil rights that Rahim 

told the Pacific Citizen he now wants 

to go to law school.

13

San Francisco Bridging Communities participants in front of the barracks at 

Tule Lake. Photo courtesy: Japanese American Citizens League

Participants learn to fold origami paper cranes, which are a symbol of peace. 

Photo courtesy: Japanese American Citizens League

Public Law 109-441 - Preservation of Japanese American World War II Confinement Sites

Passing the Legacy Down: Youth Interpretations of Confinement Sites in the 

Western United States
14

National Park Service

Of the 4,669 Japanese Americans who were 

rounded up in the Merced Assembly Center 

in the San Joaquin Valley of California 

before being shipped to the Amache 

internment camp in southeastern Colorado, 

approximately 1,000 of them were children. 

That fact is poignantly reflected in a lifesize bronze sculpture that shows a young 

Japanese American girl, holding a doll on 

her lap and sitting upon a stack of suitcases, 

in which are all the belongings that her 

family was allowed to pack before their 

forced relocation during World War II. The 

statue is part of the Merced Assembly Center 

Commemorative Memorial, which received 

Japanese American Confinement Sites grant 

funding and was dedicated at a February 

2010 ceremony attended by approximately 

800 people, including 150 former internees. 

“That could have been me,” June Abe Kawamura told a 

Merced County Fair reporter as she looked at the statue 

during the ceremony. In the summer of 1942, Kawamura, 

her parents, and seven siblings were held at the assembly 

center. Behind the statue is a wall with the names of those 

detained, along with the inscription, “Bring Only What 

You Can Carry.”

With the help of a FY2009 grant of 

$25,000, the Japanese American Citizens 

League, Livingston-Merced Chapter 

created a five-panel storyboard for the 

memorial. The storyboard follows the 

journey of Japanese Americans from their 

arrival in the San Joaquin Valley in the 

early 1900s through their incarceration 

in the tar-papered barracks at the 

Merced Assembly Center and Amache, 

to the military service of many and 

the return home of the incarcerated, 

where for decades after World War II 

they focused on reclaiming their lives. 

As the storyboard states: “NEVER 

AGAIN...May America never forget the 

injustice.” Also funded by the grant was a 

documentary titled The Merced Assembly 

Center: The Injustice Immortalized, 

produced by the Merced Office of 

Education Television (METV). The film 

includes historic footage, interviews with 

those who were incarcerated, and video 

of the Memorial sculpture being forged.

The memorial includes five storyboards and five benches engraved with the 

names of the ten camps. Photo courtesy: The Merced Assembly Center 

Memorial JACL Collection

Bronze statue at Merced Assembly Center Memorial. 

Photo courtesy: The Merced Assembly Center Memorial JACL Collection

JACL Livingston-Merced Chapter Builds Commemorative Memorial at Site of 

Merced Assembly Center
Public Law 109-441 - Preservation of Japanese American World War II Confinement Sites

15

More than 2,000 people of Japanese ancestry were 

detained in Hawai‘i during World War II, yet few 

people today realize that internment camps even 

existed in Hawai‘i. A new traveling exhibit by the 

Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i addresses the 

need to increase public understanding of that history. 

The “Right From Wrong: Learning the Lessons of 

Hawai‘i WWII Internment Camps” exhibit shares 

lessons learned from the detainment and its lasting 

impact on the Japanese American community in 

Hawai‘i. Funded with a FY2009 grant of $43,187, 

the exhibit also raises broader issues of civil rights 

and our responsibility as individuals in a democratic 

society, as well as efforts to preserve the Honouliuli 

internment camp. 

Designed by MBFT Media of Honolulu the “Right 

From Wrong” exhibit builds upon an earlier Japanese 

Cultural Center of Hawai‘i traveling exhibit, “Dark 

Clouds Over Paradise: The Hawai‘i Internees’ Story.” The 

new traveling exhibit is made up of eight panels divided 

into four themes that answer the basic questions about the 

internment in Hawai‘i: What Camps? (Confinement sites in Hawai‘i were: 

Honouliuli, Sand Island, Kilauea Military Camp, 

Kalaheo Stockade, Haiku Camp, Lanaʻi Jail, 

Montgomery Hotel/Kauaʻi Jail, and Molokaʻi.) 

What’s Left? (Concrete slabs, wooden buildings, 

aqueducts, underground sewer system, stone walls, 

and artifacts remain at Honouliuli.) 

Why Bother? (The roundup and internment 

contradict everything that the United States stands 

for.) 

What’s Next? (A vision for the future includes a 

historical park at Honouliuli.)

The wayside exhibit made its debut at the Okinawan 

Festival in Oahu on Labor Day weekend 2011, and 

continues to travel to events, pilgrimages, and 

libraries. 

As the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i continues 

to research the Hawai‘i confinement sites, they will 

update their exhibits and expand their interpretation. 

University of Hawai‘i at Manoa Ethnic Studies students review 

the exhibit in the JCCH Courtyard before going on a tour to 

the Honouliuli Internment Camp site. Photo courtesy: Japanese 

Cultural Center of Hawai‘i, Photo by Betsy Young 

The exhibit made its first public library appearance at the Kapolei Library, 

Hawai‘i from February - April 2012. Over 60 people attended a public 

presentation led by JCCH Resource Center volunteers. Photo courtesy: 

Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i, Photo by John Okutani 

What Camps? Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i Answers Question With 

Traveling Exhibit on Internment Camps in Hawai‘i
National Park Service

With so many personal stories to share, 

docents at the Japanese American National 

Museum offer visitors a direct link to the 

past. Volunteer Ben Tonooka, for instance, 

remembers living in a barrack at Heart 

Mountain, and Kent Hori can tell you about 

his uncle who received a Bronze Star as a 

soldier with the 442nd infantry. To preserve 

these stories, the Los Angeles museum used 

a FY2010 Japanese American Confinement 

Sites grant of $42,573 for their “Nisei Oral 

History Project” to record video clips of 25 

of its Nisei volunteers and docents. Each 

was recorded in front of a museum display, 

not only sharing stories, but explaining why 

a particular artifact is especially meaningful 

to them personally. Bob Uragami points to a 

drum once used by the drum and bugle corps 

of Japanese American Boy Scout Troop 64. 

The drumhead sports two, crossed American 

flags, although, Uragami explains, it originally had one 

American flag crossed with a Japanese flag. Then the war 

came and his father decided it would be best to have the 

Japanese flag painted over with an American flag. “So,” 

Uragami says, “if you really look close, you can see a round 

outline of where the Japan flag used to be.”

The project staff is currently at work on using the most 

recent Smartphone and audio tour technology to integrate 

these video recordings with the museum’s “Common 

Ground: The Heart of Community” exhibit, which 

contains artifacts, photographs, letters and ephemera 

that trace 130 years of Japanese American history, and 

are available to view on the museum’s website: http://

www.janm.org/exhibits/commonground/

With a second, $75,713 grant in FY2010, the Japanese 

American National Museum curatorial staff, through 

meetings and a questionnaire, sought input from 

scholars and the general community as it planned for 

a new exhibit, “Toward Justice for All: Learning from 

the Japanese American World War II Experience.” 

Also as part of that project, museum staff cataloged 

and stored essential artifacts and conducted a review 

of its current exhibit technology. The exhibit will 

feature stories from a diverse range of individuals 

affected by internment—from internees and soldiers 

to renunciants. 

Bob Uragami points to a drum once used by the drum and bugle corps of Japanese 

American Boy Scout Troop 64. 

Photo courtesy: Japanese American National Museum

Nisei Docent Ben Tonooka shares his memories of living in a 

barrack at Heart Mountain, Wyoming. Photo courtesy: Japanese 

American National Museum

16

Two JANM Projects Result in the Recordation of Stories of Nisei Docents, and Plans for 

New Exhibit on Japanese American World War II Experience
Public Law 109-441 - Preservation of Japanese American World War II Confinement Sites

17

Within the barbed-wire-enclosed stockade of the 

Tule Lake Segregation Center stands the jail. The 

flat-roofed, concrete jail, which was built in 1944 by 

Tule Lake inmates, stands as an evocative symbol 

of the unjust forced removal and incarceration of 

Japanese Americans during World War II. “The jail 

is an iconic symbol of the wartime incarceration. It’s 

a very powerful structure that reveals a dark story,” 

says Barbara Takei of the Tule Lake Committee and 

co-author of Tule Lake Revisited: A Brief History and 

Guide to the Tule Lake Concentration Camp Site. 

In 1943 Tule Lake was converted to the only 

War Relocation Authority maximum-security 

segregation center. Its purpose was to imprison 

Japanese Americans removed from other camps 

because they refused to give unqualified “yes” 

answers or refused to answer two misguided, 

confusing loyalty questions. Their non-violent 

dissent earned these protesters the epithet of “disloyal” 

for most of their lifetimes. Tule Lake became a prison 

camp of 18,000 men, women and children; the center 

wracked with conflict and anger, and filled with people 

who felt that they had no future in a country that had 

stripped them of their homes and possessions and, 

most of all, their freedom and dignity. After passage of 

a denationalization law in 1944, nearly 5,500 Japanese 

Americans in Tule Lake renounced their U.S. citizenship. 

The stockade was Tule Lake’s largest detention center, 

but was shut down after the American Civil Liberties 

Union threatened legal action. The replacement jail had 

six 9x12-foot cells designed for 20 people, but held as 

many as 100 men. In use from 1944 through 1945, the jail 

held hundreds of men who had been stripped of their U.S 

citizenship. After being rendered stateless, the men were 

interned as “enemy aliens” in Department of Justice 

prisoner of war internment camps in Bismarck, North 

Dakota and Santa Fe, New Mexico while plans were 

made to deport them to Japan.

With a $40,000 FY2009 Japanese American 

Confinement Sites grant, the Tule Lake Committee, 

with a matching grant from the State of California, 

completed a Historic Structure Report that 

documents needed repairs and costs to restore the 

“jail within a jail”. With the report in hand, the Tule 

Lake Committee will apply for funding to restore 

the jail. This was a tragic chapter in the Japanese 

American incarceration experience, says Takei, and 

one that will be preserved as part of the restored jail’s 

interpretation. 

Interior of the stockade jail, circa 1944. Photo courtesy: 

National Archives, Photo by Robert Ross

Stockade jail exterior, 1988.

Photo courtesy: Caltrans, Photo by Don Tateishi

Tule Lake Committee Prepares for Restoration of “Jail Within a Jail,” with Historic 

Structure Report
18

Three FY2010 projects for the Granada 

Relocation Center (Amache) have set the stage 

for returning the original water tower and a 

reconstructed guard tower to the internment 

camp site in southeastern Colorado. Denverbased Colorado Preservation, Inc. (CPI) 

completed two of the projects with Japanese 

American Confinement Sites grants of $57,420; 

the National Trust for Historic Preservation 

completed the third project with a grant of 

$34,980. 

To begin, CPI set out to find and inventory any of 

the 556 buildings that once comprised Amache. 

Although most were demolished by 1948 and 

others moved off site and eventually dismantled, 

CPI located and documented 21 buildings, 

six of which retained a high degree of historic 

integrity. The former hospital laundry building, 

for instance, was located fewer than three miles 

from Amache – on the grounds of Granada High 

School, where it was being used as a bus repair 

barn. Also found at the high school was a former 

staff quarters building, which was used over 

the years as a preschool and for teacher housing. Now 

vacant, these buildings are among the top candidates for 

relocation back to Amache. 

In its second grant project, CPI selected Scheuber + 

Darden Architects LLC to develop plans for stabilizing, 

rehabilitating, and reconstructing Amache’s wooden 

water tower, which was sold in 1947 to the Fletcher 

family, who, until recently, used the tank to water 

cattle on their property near Granada. Today, the 

25,000-gallon tank and parts of the tower have been 

collected and placed in storage awaiting restoration. 

Meanwhile, the Denver field office of the National 

Trust for Historic Preservation used its grant to 

formulate plans for the reconstruction of one of 

the eight guard towers that once surrounded the 

internment camp. The guard towers stood 16 feet tall, 

topped by an octagonal watch room with windows 

on all sides and a search light on the roof. With 

architectural plans in hand for the water tower and 

guard tower – two defining features of Amache 

– the many groups working to preserve the site – 

including the Town of Granada, Friends of Amache, 

the Amache Historical Society, and the Amache 

Preservation Society – can move forward toward 

actual construction and interpretation.

Don Emick with Timberline Landscaping releases chains from the skid 

to allow the lowering of the final section of the Amache water tank. 

Photo courtesy: Barbara Darden, Scheuber + Darden Architects, 

December 2012

Guard tower at the Amache incarceration camp, 1944.

Photo courtesy: Densho (denshopd-p159-00012), 

George Ochikubo Collection

Three Grants Help Preservationists and Local Community Preserve Amache’s Past

National Park Service
With a $112,500 FY2009 grant, Densho 

continued to add to its important repository of 

oral histories documenting Japanese American 

internment. In travels to eight California cities 

and two Hawaiian islands, Densho conducted 

40 interviews, which have been transcribed, 

processed and placed in the Densho Digital 

Archive, online at www.densho.org. 

In the 96 hours of oral histories conducted 

for this grant, titled “Stories Less Told: Video 

Oral Histories of the Japanese American 

Incarceration,” Densho set out to focus on War 

Relocation Camps less well-represented in its 

collections, such as those in Hawaii and Rohwer 

in rural southeastern Arkansas. 

The effort resulted in moving testimonials such 

as that by Rose Matsui Ochi, whose parents 

named her Takayo, meaning “a child of high 

ideals.” At Rohwer, however, all the children 

were lined up and given new, American names. 

For little Takayo, the name was Rose, a change she has 

often pondered in her adult life. “I felt initially that you’re 

made to feel that you’re not a real American, and what you 

are is not good enough. But over time, I’ve kind of come 

to understand that it was very empowering, because I 

don’t have to belong. To the extent that I have been very 

successful as an advocate in the community and in my 

work, I tend to be fearless. And it didn’t matter whether 

you blessed my positions,” she stated, and added with 

a laugh: “Hey, I consider myself lucky. What if I got 

‘Petunia’?”

Such compelling stories are the kind Densho 

sought with its FY2009 grant, said Executive 

Director Tom Ikeda. “We really tried to fill 

some holes with this project,” he said, including 

documenting “hard to get” stories from the Tule 

Lake Segregation Center. 

With the latest entries, the Densho archive 

has grown to more than 700 video interviews 

and more than 11,000 photographs and other 

documents. 

Densho interviews Cedrick Shimo about his experiences serving in the MIS in 

Camp Savage, Minnesota. Photo courtesy: Densho 

19

Densho Captures the Lesser Known Stories of the Japanese American Incarceration 

Marian Sata shares her memories of Stockton and Rowher with Densho.

Photo courtesy: Densho 

Public Law 109-441 - Preservation of Japanese American World War II Confinement Sites
National Park Service

20

CONTACT INFORMATION

Please contact one of the NPS regional representatives 

if you have any questions about the Japanese American 

Confinement Sites Grant Program.

INTERMOUNTAIN REGION

AZ, CO, MT, NM, OK, TX, UT, WY

Contact: Kara Miyagishima, Program Manager

Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program 

Phone: 303-969-2885

Email: kara_miyagishima@nps.gov

Contact: Alex Hernandez, Historian

Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program

Phone: 303-969-2846

Email: alexandra_hernandez@nps.gov

MIDWEST REGION

AR, IA, IL, IN, KS, MI, MN, MO, NE,

ND, OH, SD, WI

Contact: Rachel Franklin-Weekley, Historian

Midwest Regional Office, Division of Cultural Resources

Phone: 402-661-1928

Email: rachel_franklin-weekley@nps.gov

PACIFIC WEST REGION

CA, ID, NV, OR, WA, and other states not listed

Contact: Tom Leatherman, Superintendent

Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front 

 National Historical Park

Phone: 925-838-0249 ext. 6301

Email: tom_leatherman@nps.gov

Hawai‘i

Contact: Paul DePrey, Superintendent

World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument

Phone: 808-266-0826

Email: paul_deprey@nps.gov

All correspondence and comments may be sent 

to the address listed below: 

National Park Service

Intermountain Region

Japanese American Confinement Sites

Grant Program

ATTN: Kara Miyagishima

12795 W. Alameda Parkway

Lakewood, CO 80228

Thank you for your interest in the Japanese

American Confinement Sites Grant

Program.

For more information, please visit http://

www.nps.gov/history/hps/hpg/JACS/index.

html. Join us on Facebook: www.facebook.

com/jacsgrant

The National Park Service cares for 

special places saved by the

American people so that all may 

experience our heritage.

Layout/design by the Office of Communications & 

Legislation - Intermountain Region 

Fall / Winter 2012

National Park Service
Public Law 109-441 - Preservation of Japanese American World War II Confinement Sites

 As part of a FY2011 JACS grant, CyArk is creating a new iPad App to show digitally reconstructed 

barracks at the Manzanar National Historic Site in California. Photo courtesy: CyArk