Please note: projects are listed by the states of the grant recipients.
Arizona
Recipient: Arizona State University (Tempe, AZ)
Project Title: Japanese American Internment in Arizona Oral History Website
Grant Award: $18,635
Site(s): Colorado River Relocation Center (Poston), La Paz County, AZ; Gila River Relocation Center, Pinal County, AZ
Description: The University’s Asian Pacific American Studies Program will process and post to its website 85 oral history interviews with former internees at Poston and Gila River relocation centers, as well as others in the surrounding community.
*Under California, see the Poston Community Alliance project, “Poston’s Mothers and Babies: A Film on Domestic Life in Camp.”
Arkansas
Recipient: Arkansas State University (Jonesboro, AR)
Project Title: Rohwer Relocation Center Interpretive Project, Phase II
Grant Award: $93,155
Site(s): Rohwer Relocation Center, Desha County, AR
Description: Educational kiosks, interpretive panels and directional signage will be designed, fabricated and installed at Rohwer. An audio tour also will be recorded.
Recipient: Central Arkansas Library System (Little Rock, AR)
Project Title: Rosalie Gould Rohwer Collection Preservation
Grant Award: $67,821
Site(s): Rohwer Relocation Center, Desha County, AR
Description: Artwork created by internees at Rohwer Relocation Center will be preserved, matted and framed and featured on a website and during an exhibition.
Recipient: University of Arkansas at Little Rock
Project Title: Rohwer Relocation Camp Cemetery Preservation
Grant Award: $250,000
Site(s): Rohwer Relocation Center, Desha County, AR
Description: Headstones, monuments and flower holders in the Rohwer Relocation Camp Cemetery, which is a National Historic Landmark, will be stabilized and restored.
California
Recipient: CyArk (Oakland, CA)
Project Title: Digital Documentation and Virtual Tour of Japanese American Confinement Sites
Grant Award: $240,611
Site(s): Central Utah Relocation Center (Topaz), Millard County, UT; Manzanar Relocation Center, Inyo County, CA; Tule Lake Segregation Center, Modoc County, CA
Description: CyArk will digitally preserve Tule Lake, Topaz, and Manzanar camps through interactive 3D reconstructions and make them available on a web portal and mobile applications. Grant Recipient: Japanese American Museum of San Jose (JAMsj) (San Jose, CA) Project Title: World War II Internment: Lessons from the Past for the Future Amount of Grant Award: $132,900 Confinement Site(s): 10 WRA Camps: Multiple Counties, States; and Crystal City Internment Camp, Zavala County, TX Description: The museum will redesign exhibits, using state-of-the art technology and interactive materials, to enhance, especially for students, the understanding of Japanese American incarceration at 11 internment sites.
Recipient: KEET-TV (Eureka, CA)
Project Title: J.A. Jive! Jazz Music in the Japanese American Internment Camps
Grant Award: $96,465 Confinement
Site(s): Multiple Sites: Multiple Counties, States
Description: KEET-TV, a PBS station, will produce, promote, broadcast, and distribute an hour-long documentary about the numerous jazz bands, and the internees who sang or played in them, created at assembly centers and camps.
Recipient: Little Tokyo Service Center Community Development Corp. (Los Angeles, CA)
Project Title: Stone Ishimaru’s War Relocation Authority Camp Images Archive Amount of
Grant Award: $179,156
Site(s): 10 WRA Camps: Multiple Counties, States
Description: Approximately 5,000 photographic negatives taken by Mr. Ishimaru at 10 internment camps will be preserved and converted to digital format.
Recipient: Manzanar Committee, Inc. (Los Angeles, CA)
Project Title: We Said, ‘No, No’
Grant Award: $113,000
Site(s): Tule Lake Segregation Center: Modoc County, CA
Description: A documentary film titled “We Said, “No-No,” will be produced, focusing on the loyalty questionnaire distributed to Japanese American internees, civil disobedience and the Tule Lake Segregation Center.
Recipient: National Japanese American Historical Society (San Francisco, CA)
Project Title: Historic Inquiry and Place-Based Learning in Japanese American Confinement Sites
Grant Award: $85,200
Site(s): Bainbridge Island/Eagledale Ferry Dock, Kitsap County, WA; Manzanar Relocation Center, Inyo County, CA; Sacramento Assembly Center, Sacramento County, CA; Tanforan Assembly Center, San Bruno, San Mateo County, CA; Tule Lake Segregation Center: Modoc County, CA
Description: The Society will develop a curriculum package and, using confinement site visits, train 67 secondary school teachers how to present place-based classroom programs about Japanese American internment.
Recipient: Poston Community Alliance (Lafayette, CA)
Project Title: Poston’s Mothers and Babies: A Film on Domestic Life in Camp
Grant Award: $61,880
Site(s): Colorado River Relocation Center (Poston), La Paz County, AZ
Description: The nonprofit Poston Community Alliance will produce a documentary film on the lives of mothers interned at Poston, Arizona, and children born there.
Recipient: University of California, Berkeley
Project Title: The Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement: A Digital Archive
Grant Award: $220,493
Site(s): 10 WRA Camps: Multiple Counties, States
Description: The Bancroft Library will create a comprehensive digital archive of holdings in its Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Study Records, 1930-1974.
Recipient: University of California, Berkeley
Project Title: The Japanese American Internment/World War II American Homefront Oral History Project
Grant Award: $50,000
Site(s): Multiple Sites: Multiple Counties, States
Description: The Regional Oral History Office of the Bancroft Library will conduct 40 hours of video oral history interviews with about 20 former Japanese American internees. Award: $50,000
Colorado
Recipient: Colorado Preservation, Inc. (Denver, CO)
Project Title: Amache Water Tank Restoration, Water Tower Restoration, and Guard Tower Reconstruction
Grant Award: $291,025
Site(s): Granada Relocation Center (Amache), Prowers County, CO
Description: An architect, engineer, contractor and archeologist will be hired to reconstruct a water tower and guard tower. Interpretive panels will be fabricated and installed.
Hawaii
Recipient: Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii (Honolulu, HI)
Project Title: Honouliuli Confinement Site Educational Tours Program
Grant Award: $38,565
Site(s): Honouliuli Internment Camp, Ewa, Honolulu County, HI
Description: Guides will be hired and trained to conduct tours to the access-restricted Honouliuli confinement site; the project also will result in a tour brochure and report evaluating this pilot program.
Idaho
Recipient: Friends of Minidoka (Twin Falls, ID)
Project Title: Civil Liberties Symposium: Patriotism, Honor and Sacrifice
Grant Award: $20,000
Site(s): Minidoka Relocation Center, Jerome County, ID
Description: A symposium titled “Patriotism, Honor and Sacrifice” will focus on civil liberty issues, the Japanese American experience, and Minidoka Relocation Center.
Recipient: University of Idaho (Moscow, ID)
Project Title: Kooskia Internment Camp Archaeological Project
Grant Award: $6,176
Site(s): Kooskia Internment Camp, Idaho County, ID
Description: Students and faculty will catalog and interpret artifacts recovered from Kooskia. Artifacts will be displayed at an open house and an “archeology day” near the site.
Illinois
Recipient: Chicago Japanese American Historical Society (Glenview, IL)
Project Title: Conservation of the Chicago Japanese American Historical Society Archival Materials
Grant Award: $5,000
Site(s): Multiple Sites: Multiple Counties, States
Description: Two interns will be hired to preserve the society’s collection of magazines, newspapers and other artifacts dealing with Japanese Americans in Chicago during the 1930s, at the internment camps and during resettlement in the Chicago area after the war.
Minnesota
Recipient: Asian Media Access, Inc. (Minneapolis, MN)
Project Title: The Registry: A Documentary Film about the Military Intelligence Service Language School in Minnesota
Grant Award: $75,000
Site(s): Crystal City Internment Camp, Zavala County, TX; Gila River Relocation Center, Pinal County, AZ; Manzanar Relocation Center, Inyo county, CA; and 8 other internment sites
Description: A public television documentary will be produced featuring Japanese Americans, some from internment camps, who served in the Pacific during World War II as interrogators, interpreters, and linguists with the Military Intelligence Service.
New Mexico
Recipient: Japanese American Citizens League, New Mexico Chapter (Los Lunas, NM)
Project Title: New Mexico Japanese American Internment Sites History, Interpretation and Education Project
Grant Award: $54,077
Site(s): Camp Lordsburg, Hidalgo County, NM; Fort Stanton, Lincoln County, NM; Old Raton Ranch (Raton Ranch Civilian Detention Station), Santa Fe County, NM; Santa Fe Internment Camp, Santa Fe County, NM
Description: A traveling exhibit will be designed, as well as a website, historical markers, and public outreach brochure on New Mexico internment sites at Santa Fe, Lordsburg, Fort Stanton, and the Old Raton Ranch (Raton Ranch Civilian Detention Station).
Washington
Recipient: Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project (Seattle, WA)
Project Title: Digital Archive System for Community Organizations
Grant Award: $262,980
Site(s): Multiple Sites: Multiple Counties, States
Description: Tools and training will be provided for four partnering organizations to add 40,000 objects to a digital repository related to confinement sites. A kit will be developed to help other organizations become future partners.
Recipient: Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project (Seattle, WA)
Project Title: Teach the Teachers
Grant Award: $281,733
Site(s): 10 WRA Camps: Multiple Counties, States
Description: A curriculum package will be created and workshops held to train 600 teachers in classroom strategies to enhance student learning about the incarceration of Japanese Americans.
Recipient: Washington State University (Pullman, WA)
Project Title: Digitizing and Preserving the George and Frank Hirahara Photograph Collection
Grant Award: $49,217
Site(s): Heart Mountain Relocation Center, Park County, WY
Description: A finding aid for the Hirahara collection of film, prints, artifacts and 950 negatives taken between 1942 and 1945 at Heart Mountain Relocation Center, Wyoming. In addition, negatives will be preserved, an online digital collection created and contextualized, and a curriculum based on the collection crafted for five undergraduate courses.
Wyoming
Recipient: Wyoming State Parks and Cultural Resources, State Historic Preservation Office (Cheyenne, WY)
Project Title: Restoration of the Heart Mountain Boiler House Chimney
Grant Award: $215,911
Site(s): Heart Mountain Relocation Center, Park County, WY
Description: A 75-foot-high chimney, part of the boiler house at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center hospital complex, will be permanently restored, and an interpretive panel and brochure created. *Under Washington, see the Washington State University project, “Digitizing and Preserving the George and Frank Hirahara Photograph Collection,” which involves Heart Mountain Relocation Center.
Last updated: March 25, 2022