News Release

National Park Service Awards More than $2.8 Million in Grants to Preserve and Interpret World War II Japanese American Confinement Sites

Among the new grant projects, the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation will continue to restore the only remaining root cellar at the Heart Mountain incarceration site in Wyoming.

Photo courtesy of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation

News Release Date: August 12, 2019

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WASHINGTON – The National Park Service today announced more than $2.8 million in Japanese American Confinement Sites grants to fund 19 preservation, restoration, and education projects. These projects will help tell the story of the more than 120,000 Japanese Americans, two-thirds of whom were U.S. citizens, imprisoned by the U.S. government following the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

"Sites like Minidoka National Historic Site and Tule Lake National Monument tell a complex chapter of United States history, one that we are honored to preserve for future generations," said U.S. Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt. "For more than a decade, these grants have supported a wide variety of projects, from oral histories to education programs, and from historic building renovations to digitization of records."

 

Japanese American Confinement Sites grants may be awarded to projects associated with the 10 War Relocation Authority centers established in 1942 and more than 40 additional confinement sites. The program’s mission is to teach future generations about the injustice of the World War II confinement of Japanese Americans and to inspire commitment to equal justice under the law. Successful proposals are chosen through a competitive process that requires applicants to match the grant award with $1 in non-federal funds or "in-kind" contributions for every $2 they receive in federal money.

"As America’s storytellers, the National Park Service is committed to preserving the stories of our shared history," National Park Service Deputy Director P. Daniel Smith said. "These projects help ensure future generations of Americans learn from the struggles and perseverance of Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II."

Examples of funded projects include:

• New York Japanese American Oral History Project: The Japanese American Association of New York will collect oral histories of Japanese Americans detained at Ellis Island during World War II, and of those who resettled on the East Coast after the war. Snapshots of Confinement:  The University of Denver will produce a feature-length documentary telling stories of World War II incarceration at the Manzanar and Granada incarceration sites in California and Colorado, incorporating new interviews alongside rarely seen photo albums created by incarcerees. Discrimination, Resilience and Community Building: The Resettlement of Japanese Americans in Eastern Washington after WWII: Spokane-based KSPS Public Television will produce a series of short videos and curriculum for middle-school and high-school students to teach the history of Japanese Americans who were incarcerated at Heart Mountain in Wyoming and Minidoka in Idaho.  

Over the past 10 years of the grant program, successful projects have included a memorial and exhibit to tell the lesser known stories of Japanese Americans who were forced to leave their homes in Juneau, and nearby Alaskan communities during the war; the restoration of headstones and monuments at the Rohwer cemetery in Arkansas; and the construction of visitors centers in Utah and Wyoming to tell the history of the Topaz and Heart Mountain incarceration sites and the larger, national story of Japanese American World War II incarceration.

Congress established the Japanese American Confinement Sites grant program in 2006, authorizing a total of $38 million in funding for the life of the program. Today’s announcement brings the current award total to more than $29 million.

A list of the projects receiving funding is below. For more details about these projects, visit www.nps.gov/JACS/.

Grantee	Project Title	Project Site	Amount
Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University, California	“Connected Through Confinement: An Archaeology of the Gila River Incarceration Camp”	Gila River Relocation Center, Pinal County, Arizona	$43,685
California State University, Chico Research Foundation, California	“Finding Closure: Insight into “Alaska” at Tule Lake Segregation Center”	Tule Lake Segregation Center, Modoc County, California	$70,125
California State University Dominguez Hills, California	“California State University Japanese American Digitization Project”	Multiple Sites	$282,102
Central Michigan University, Michigan	“Minidoka Internment Camp Housing Project”	Minidoka Relocation Center, Jerome County, Idaho	$29,447
Fred T. Korematsu Institute, California	“Double Displacement: Exploring the Intersecting Histories of American Indian Communities and Japanese American Confinement Sites in Arizona”	Gila River Relocation Center, Pinal County, Arizona; Colorado River Relocation Center (Poston), La Paz County, Arizona	$65,330
Friends of KSPS/ KSPS Public Television, Washington	“Discrimination, Resilience and Community Building: The Resettlement of Japanese Americans in Eastern Washington after WWII”	Heart Mountain Relocation Center, Park County, Wyoming; Minidoka Relocation Center, Jerome County, Idaho	$66,844
Full Spectrum Features, Illinois	“Hidden Histories 2: Public Screenings and Impact Tour”	Multiple Sites	$67,128
Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation, Wyoming	“Heart Mountain Root Cellar, Phase III: Restoration”	Heart Mountain Relocation Center, Park County, Wyoming	$424,760
Japanese American Association of New York, New York	“New York Japanese American Oral History Project”	U.S. Immigration Station, Ellis Island (INS Facility), New York Harbor, New York	$80,308
Japanese American Citizens League, California	“Stories Less Told: Oral Histories and Historic Materials from Outside the Exclusion Zone”	Multiple Sites	$209,670
Poston Community Alliance, California	“Reconstruction of Poston's Historic Barrack for Use as an Interpretive Center & Museum”	Colorado River Relocation Center (Poston), La Paz County, Arizona	$243,447
The Regents of the University of California, Berkeley, California	“WRA Form 26: Preserving and Expanding Access to the Individual Records of the Japanese Americans Interned during World War II”	Multiple Sites	$342,877
Tule Lake Committee, California	“Tule Lake Docent Training Program”	Tule Lake Segregation Center, Modoc County, California	$57,344
Tuna Canyon Detention Station Coalition, California	“Tuna Canyon Detention Station Legacy Project II”	Tuna Canyon Detention Station, Los Angeles County, California	$54,000
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas	“Rising Above in Arkansas: Japanese American Incarceration at Rohwer and Jerome”	Jerome Relocation Center, Chicot and Drew Counties, Arkansas; Rohwer Relocation Center, Desha County, Arkansas	$269,202
University of California Los Angeles, California	“Yuri Kochiyama and the Crusaders”	Multiple Sites	$224,527
University of Denver, Colorado	“Snapshots of Confinement”	Manzanar Relocation Center, Inyo County, California; Granada Relocation Center (Amache), Prowers County, Colorado	$84,981
Visual Communications, California	“Third Act: The Historical Trauma of the WWII Incarceration”	Multiple Sites	$100,074
Wing Luke Memorial Foundation, Washington	“Japanese American Remembrance Trail in Seattle, Washington”	Temporary Detention Station (INS Building), King County, Washington	$159,010
Total			$2,874,861

www.nps.gov