2013 Grant Project Summaries

Please note: projects are listed by the states of the grant recipients.

Alaska

Recipient: City and Borough of Juneau, Alaska

Project Title: Empty Chair Project
Grant Award: $80,000
Site(s): Minidoka Relocation Center, Jerome County, ID and Camp Lordsburg Internment Camp, Hidalgo County, NM
Description: The City and Borough of Juneau, Alaska will create a memorial to honor Japanese and Japanese Americans forcibly removed from Juneau and sent to Camp Lordsburg (New Mexico), which was administered by the U.S. Army, and later to the Minidoka Relocation Center. Interviews with survivors and community members will be conducted, and educational materials will be produced relating to the evacuee experience.

Arizona

Recipient: City of Chandler

Project Title: Nozomi Park History Kiosk
Grant Award: $9,380
Site(s): Gila River Relocation Center, Pinal County, AZ
Description: The City of Chandler will create and install a kiosk at Nozomi Park, a multi-use recreational park with baseball fields. Originally known as West Chandler, the park was renamed Nozomi – Japanese for “hope” – in 2011 to honor the Japanese Americans who were detained in Arizona. The kiosk will provide an overview of the internment in Arizona, with a focus on daily life and the importance of baseball at the Gila River Internment Camp.

Arkansas

Recipient: University of Arkansas at Fayetteville

Project Title: Rohwer Reconstructed: Interpreting Place through Experience
Grant Award: $300,378
Site(s): Rohwer Relocation Center, Desha County, AR
Description: The University of Arkansas will create an online 3D visualization of Rohwer Relocation Center during World War II. Documents, oral histories, photographs and material objects currently housed in multiple collections throughout Arkansas will be digitized and integrated into the interactive virtual environment, allowing online visitors to experience a sense of Rohwer during its occupation.

California

Recipient: Contra Costa Chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League

Project Title: They Wore Their Best: Photographic Exhibit of the Works of Dorothea Lange and Paul Kitagaki
Grant Award: $67,537
Site(s): Tanforan Assembly Center, San Mateo County, CA and 10 WRA Sites
Description: The Contra Costa Chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League will create exhibits focused on the forced relocation of Japanese Americans in California’s Bay Area. The exhibits will feature photographs by Dorothea Lange and Paul Kitagaki. A permanent exhibit will be installed at the San Bruno Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) station, and a traveling exhibit will be shown at other venues.

Recipient: Go For Broke National Education Center

Project Title: Divergent Paths to a Convergent America: A 360 Degree Perspective of the Japanese American Response to WWII Incarceration
Grant Award: $369,765
Site(s): Multiple Sites
Description: The Go For Broke National Education Center will plan for a permanent exhibit and accompanying website at the Japanese American National Museum that will explore the divergent choices made by incarcerated Japanese Americans. These choices included service in the military, resistance, and renunciation of U.S. citizenship. Following the planning project, the final design and installation of the exhibit will be completed through a separate funding source.

Recipient: Japanese American Citizens League

Project Title: JACL Teacher Training: Incarceration and Confinement Sites
Grant Award: $62,845
Site(s): Multiple Sites
Description: The Japanese American Citizens League will hold five teacher-training workshops to increase understanding of the Japanese American World War II confinement site experience among a broad range of educators. The workshops will be developed for local social studies and history teachers working at the middle school and high school levels.

Recipient: National Japanese American Historical Society

Project Title: Camp Collection: A Digital Library
Grant Award: $33,467
Site(s): Multiple Sites
Description: The National Japanese American Historical Society will document and digitize 200 objects recently added to its collection. The historical society will then make its collection publicly accessible by posting it to the University of San Francisco Gleeson Library Digital Collections website.

Recipient: National Japanese American Historical Society

Project Title: Tule Lake Teacher Education Project
Grant Award: $73,675
Site(s): Tule Lake Segregation Center, Modoc County, CA
Description: The National Japanese American Historical Society will work closely with partner organizations to develop a curriculum focusing on the Tule Lake Segregation Center for grades 4-12. Through the project, a core group of teachers will develop curriculum guides that will be accessible online.

Recipient: The California Museum

Project Title: Time of Remembrance
Grant Award: $103,602
Site(s): Multiple Sites, Multiple Counties, States (All 10 WRA camps and other sites)
Description: The California Museum will complete several projects to enhance its ongoing exhibit, “Uprooted! Japanese Americans During World War II.” The museum will edit previously recorded oral histories, develop software for museum kiosks that play the oral histories, install an interactive map showing the location of all assembly centers and confinement sites, and produce DVD copies of the edited oral histories.

Recipient: The Regents of the University of California (UC-Berkeley, History Department)

Project Title: Japanese American Confinement in the Records of the Federal Reserve Bank
Grant Award: $18,488
Site(s): Multiple Sites
Description: The Regents of the University of California will create a prototype process that will capture hand-written information currently on microfilm images at the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco, and convert it to a format that can be stored in a searchable database. During the war, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco served as a fiscal agent for the U.S. government, assisting Japanese Americans who wanted help in protecting their property while they were held in confinement sites. The Regents will also provide a written guide to the material, placing the records in their historical context.

Recipient: Tule Lake Committee

Project Title: Restoring the Tule Lake Segregation Center NHL Jail, Phase II
Grant Award: $192,467
Site(s): Tule Lake Segregation Center, Modoc County, CA
Description: The Tule Lake Committee will complete planning and compliance activities necessary to stabilize and restore the Tule Lake Segregation Center jail. Project activities include an environmental assessment, historic preservation compliance, development of design documents and cost estimates, and preparation of a construction bid.

Recipient: UCLA Asian American Studies Center

Project Title: Aiko and Jack Herzig Archival Collection Project
Grant Award: $154,960
Site(s): Multiple Sites
Description: The UCLA Asian American Studies Center will catalog, preserve and make accessible the Jack and Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga papers, which will be held at the Charles E. Young Library Special Collections Department at UCLA for permanent storage. Community workshops and outreach programs will be held to disseminate information about the collection and how it may be accessed.

Colorado

Recipient: Colorado Preservation, Inc.

Project Title: Amache Site Interpretation
Grant Award: $29,060
Site(s): Granada Relocation Center (Amache), Prowers County, CO
Description: Colorado Preservation, Inc. will complete a visitor interpretation package for the Granada Relocation Center (Amache). The package will include new wayfinding signs and podcasting tools for a driving tour, updated informational brochures, and iPods that will be made available to visitors at the Amache Museum to accompany the on-site driving tour.

Hawaii

Recipient: Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii

Project Title: Exploring Honouliuli: A Multimedia and Virtual Tour
Grant Award: $111,557
Site(s): Honouliuli Internment Camp, Honolulu County, HI
Description: The Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii will develop an iPod-based multimedia tour application to be used by Honouliuli on-site visitors, and a web-based virtual tour of Honouliuli that will be accessible online. These tours will incorporate oral histories of former internees, historical photos of the site, and commentary by historical experts. The U.S. Army administered the Honouliuli internment camp, which was one of at least five sites in Hawaii.

Montana

Recipient: The Historical Museum at Fort Missoula

Project Title: Fort Missoula Alien Detention Camp Interpretive Projects
Grant Award: $39,730
Site(s): Department of Justice Fort Missoula Internment Camp, Missoula County, MT
Description: The Historical Museum at Fort Missoula will upgrade existing exhibits and create interpretive signs and a broadcast-quality video to tell the history of the former Department of Justice Fort Missoula internment camp. During the war, 1,200 Italians, 23 Germans, 1,000 Japanese resident aliens, and 123 Japanese Latin and South Americans were detained at Fort Missoula.

North Dakota

Recipient: United Tribes Technical College

Project Title: Fort Lincoln Preservation and Rehabilitation
Grant Award: $45,100
Site(s): Fort Lincoln Internment Camp, Burleigh County, ND
Description: United Tribes Technical College will complete a condition and feasibility assessment of two historic buildings at the former Department of Justice Fort Lincoln internment camp for use as an educational interpretive center. The assessment will determine what is needed to bring the buildings up to current code regulations and estimate the cost of rehabilitation.

Oregon

Recipient: ORE-CAL Resources Conservation and Development Area Council

Project Title: The Art of Survival: Tule Lake 1942-1946
Grant Award: $123,890
Site(s): Tule Lake Segregation Center, Modoc County, CA
Description: ORE-CAL Resources Conservation and Development Council will create an artbased traveling exhibition focusing on the Tule Lake Segregation Center. The exhibit will include fine art photographs of Tule Lake artifacts, interpretive panels on the camp, and DVDs with oral histories from individuals formerly incarcerated at Tule Lake. A website will also be developed detailing the travels of the exhibit.

Recipient: Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission

Project Title: Farm Security Administration Documentation of Agricultural Labor Internment Camps in the Pacific Northwest
Grant Award: $92,386
Site(s): Multiple Sites: Nyssa, Malheur County, OR; Rupert, Minidoka County, ID; Shelley, Bingham County, ID; Twin Falls, Twin Falls County, ID
Description: The Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission will produce a traveling exhibit focused on photographs by Russell Lee of Department of Agriculture farm labor camps in Oregon and Idaho. Hundreds of laborers were recruited from the Portland Assembly Center and Minidoka Relocation Center to work in these camps. The exhibit will include prints of Lee’s work, a set of text panels providing context, and a collection of video oral histories.

Washington

Recipient: Densho

Project Title: Online Repository-Japanese American Collections
Grant Award: $300,000
Site(s): Multiple Sites, Multiple Counties, States (All 10 WRA camps and other sites)
Description: Densho will develop a free online archive that digitally preserves and makes accessible historic photographs, documents and videos that document the World War II Japanese American incarceration experience. Densho will also create a database containing the names and records of individuals listed in the Final Accountability Rosters from the ten War Relocation Authority centers.

Recipient: Densho

Project Title: Teach the Teachers-Online
Grant Award: $194,403
Site(s): Multiple Sites, Multiple Counties, States (All 10 WRA camps)
Description: Densho will create a free, online teacher-training course focused on integrating primary source materials about the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans in the classroom. The project will include website development, marketing of the online course, and the creation of teacher resource kits.

Recipient: Nikkei Heritage Association of Washington, DBA Japanese Cultural & Community Center of Washington

Project Title: Unsettled – Resettled: Seattle’s “Hunt Hotel”
Grant Award: $102,810
Site(s): Minidoka Relocation Center, Jerome County, ID
Description: The Nikkei Heritage Association of Washington will research the experiences of Japanese and Japanese Americans who, upon returning to Seattle from Minidoka, lived at the “Hunt Hotel.” The “hotel,” so named because Hunt Camp was a nickname for Minidoka, is the former Seattle Japanese Language School and now home to the Japanese Cultural & Community Center of Washington. The project will result in a memorial marker, book, online catalog and traveling exhibit.

Recipient: Wing Luke Memorial Foundation, DBA Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience

Project Title: Inspiring Future Generations: Journeying from Confinement Sites to Battlefields with Japanese American Soldiers
Grant Award: $111,600
Site(s): Minidoka Relocation Center, Jerome County, ID
Description: The Wing Luke Memorial Foundation will create a graphic novel with six chapters, each telling the story of a World War II Japanese American soldier. The foundation also will create a stand-alone publication from one of the chapters in the novel, with an accompanying curriculum guide. A website will provide access to the novel and the chapter and curriculum publication.

Wyoming

Recipient: Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation

Project Title: Heart Mountain Archives Project
Grant Award: $97,279
Site(s): Heart Mountain Relocation Center, Park County, WY
Description: The Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation will establish an archives center that will arrange, describe and make its collections accessible for research and outreach, including the recently-acquired Frank Emi papers. The foundation will hire a professional archivist, process the archives, and produce a guide that will provide an overview of the scope, content and research significance of the collections.

Recipient: Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation

Project Title: Heart Mountain Root Cellar Planning and Preservation Project
Grant Award: $33,621
Site(s): Heart Mountain Relocation Center, Park County, WY
Description: The Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation will plan for the acquisition, conservation, preservation, interim stabilization, and future use of a root cellar that was used by internees to store produce grown at the camp. The abandoned root cellar is one of the few remaining original structures at Heart Mountain and a reminder of the ingenuity of Japanese American farmers who produced 45 different crops at the camp.