2014 Grant Project Summaries

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

Arkansas

Recipient: Central Arkansas Library System (Little Rock, AR)

Project Title: Rohwer Art Textile Conservation and Preservation Project
Grant Award: $26,827
Site(s): Rohwer Relocation Center, Desha County, AR
Description: The Central Arkansas Library System will restore and conserve thirty textile pieces created by Japanese American students at Rohwer under the instruction of their high school art teacher, Mable “Jamie” Jamison Vogel. These textiles are part of a larger collection of artwork that was donated to the Butler Center in 2010 and preserved under a 2011 Japanese American Confinement Sites grant.

Recipient: University of Arkansas at Little Rock (Little Rock, AR)

Project Title: The Rohwer Relocation Center Cemetery Conservation, Phase II
Grant Award: $220,706
Site(s): Rohwer Relocation Center, Desha County, AR
Description: The University of Arkansas at Little Rock will continue their preservation efforts at the historic Rohwer Relocation Center cemetery. Twenty-four displaced concrete headstones and markers will be reset, repaired, and cleaned of biological staining. The original concrete pathways between headstones will be restored, as will the original drainage patterns and channels in the cemetery.

California

Recipient: ABAS Law Foundation (Sacramento, CA)

Project Title: Research Documents for Tule Lake Segregation Center
Grant Award: $47,400
Site(s): Tule Lake Segregation Center, Modoc County, CA
Description: The Asian/Pacific Bar Association of Sacramento (ABAS) Law Foundation will conduct archival research focused on the thousands of Japanese Americans who protested the injustice of their incarceration, were segregated at Tule Lake, renounced their U.S. citizenship and then spent decades fighting the Department of Justice to regain it. Research materials will be used to develop a book about the Tule Lake Segregation Center; the research materials will then be donated to Densho, who will make them available to the public on its website.

Recipient: CyArk (Oakland, CA)

Project Title: Rediscovering Honouliuli: Exploring Japanese American Confinement through Student Narratives and Digital Documentation
Grant Award: $39,020
Site(s): Honouliuli Internment Site, Honolulu, HI
Description: CyArk will work with students from the Mid-Pacific Institute's CyArk Technology Center to digitally document the remaining resources at the Honouliuli Internment Camp. Students will also conduct historical research on the site under the supervision of their teachers and working in partnership with the non-profit, Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii.

Recipient: Japanese American National Museum (Los Angeles, CA)

Project Title: A Collections-Based Guide for Digitally Exploring America's Concentration Camps
Grant Award: $130,432
Site(s): Multiple Sites
Description: The Japanese American National Museum (JANM) will create online materials that will thematically explore the Japanese American World War II experience, and incorporate objects from the museum’s permanent collection as well as newly preserved first-hand recollections. Also as part of the project, deteriorating content currently housed on outdated media will be preserved, and ephemera such as scrapbooks and diaries related to the 10 War Relocation Authority centers will be digitized.

Recipient: Los Angeles Harbor Department (San Pedro, CA)

Project Title: Lost Communities of Terminal Island, Publication
Grant Award: $100,000
Site(s): Terminal Island, Los Angeles County, CA
Description: The Los Angeles Harbor Department (Port of Los Angeles) will produce a book, "Lost Communities of Terminal Island," focused on the Terminal Island Japanese American community; the first community to face arrest and removal following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Archival materials gathered for the book will be scanned and made available on the Port's website and on the Online Archive of 3 California (OAC). Materials will also be made available to the public at the Port of Los Angeles Historical Archives, where they will also be used in rotating exhibitions.

Recipient: National Japanese American Historical Society (San Francisco, CA)

Project Title: Western Region Confinement Sites Education Project
Grant Award: $63,755
Site(s): Multiple Sites
Description: The National Japanese American Historical Society (NJAHS) will design and implement "Regional Perspectives on Western U.S. Confinement Sites," a professional development training for historians, site interpreters, and classroom educators. The training program will focus on the central question of, "What role did place have in determining the fate of Japanese Americans after the bombing of Pearl Harbor?" Key activities will include the identification of a cohesive regional story, the design of curriculum materials for classroom use, and resources for a field-based educational program. Teaching materials will be accessible via a web portal.

Recipient: Nikkei for Civil Rights & Redress (Los Angeles, CA)

Project Title: Courage of Japanese Americans as They Speak Out for Justice (CWRIC Los Angeles)
Grant Award: $12,650
Site(s): Multiple Sites
Description: Nikkei for Civil Rights & Redress (NCRR) will enhance their Stand Up for Justice DVD set, which contains testimonies of 157 people who spoke at the 1981 Los Angeles hearing of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC). Content will be organized into chapters and made menu-driven, allowing viewers to quickly find each testimony. An updated Viewer's Companion will be created, and a highlights DVD will be produced. The NCRR will distribute 300 copies of the DVDs to academics, teachers, students, and others in California.

Recipient: Poston Community Alliance (Lafayette, CA)

Project Title: Historic Structures Assessment and Stabilization for the Poston Elementary School Site
Grant Award: $163,750
Site(s): Colorado River (Poston) Relocation Center, La Paz County, AZ
Description: The Poston Community Alliance will assess the condition of the rapidly deteriorating elementary school buildings at the former Poston site and create a plan to stabilize and preserve these historic resources. The project will also result in the temporary stabilization of the buildings, while a phased restoration plan is developed for future work.

Recipient: The Regents of the University of California, c/o UC Berkeley Sponsored Projects Office (Berkeley, CA)

Project Title: Voices in Confinement: A Digital Archive of Japanese American Internees
Grant Award: $287,265
Site(s): Multiple Sites
Description: The Bancroft Library will create a comprehensive digital archive of their collections related to the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. The digitized material will be scanned and linked to existing finding aids, and made accessible through a website created with funds from a 2011 Japanese American Confinement Sites grant.

Recipient: San Joaquin County Office of Education (Stockton, CA)

Project Title: California Legacy Voice Network (CLVN)
Grant Award: $180,836
Site(s): Manzanar Relocation Center, Inyo County, CA; Tule Lake Segregation Center, Modoc County, CA; and all California WCCA Assembly Centers
Description: The San Joaquin County Office of Education, working in collaboration with the Fred T. Korematsu Institute for Civil Rights and Education, will create an educational training program for 600 teachers across California that focuses on the local and national stories about the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. The training will highlight the stories of Fred Korematsu, the “assembly centers” in California, and the personal stories of those affected by the incarceration experience. Lesson plans will be developed for elementary, middle, and high school students.

Recipient: Visual Communications (Los Angeles, CA)

Project Title: Building History 3.0: Learning about Japanese American Incarceration Camps through Minecraft
Grant Award: $97,150
Site(s): Multiple Sites
Description: Visual Communications will create Building History 3.0, a website and curriculum project that uses the popular video construction game Minecraft to engage 5 elementary and middle-school aged youth with the history and meaning of Japanese American incarceration during World War II. Students will research and analyze themes such as civil liberties, citizenship and democracy, in addition to exploring the built environment of the incarceration sites through Minecraft.

Recipient: Visual Communications (Los Angeles, CA)

Project Title: The Heart Mountain Barracks Project
Grant Award: $89,510
Site(s): Heart Mountain Relocation Center, Park County, WY
Description: Visual Communications will update Sharon Yamato's book, Moving Walls: Preserving the Barracks of America's Concentration Camps, and produce a video documentary focused on present-day efforts to identify and preserve barracks formerly located at Heart Mountain.

Colorado

Recipient: Colorado Preservation, Inc. (Denver, CO)

Project Title: Amache Laundry Building Relocation and Restoration, Mess Hall Planning, and Guard/Water Tower Security
Grant Award: $150,254
Site(s): Granada Relocation Center (Amache), Prowers County, CO
Description: Colorado Preservation, Inc., will relocate a historic laundry building discovered on a nearby farm, back to Amache, placing it upon an original concrete foundation. Following the closure of Amache in 1945, the government dismantled or sold most of the buildings, many of them to local schools, farms and ranches. The laundry building will be placed near the site’s newly reconstructed guard and waters towers and soon-to-be reconstructed barracks building. Also as part of the project, Colorado Preservation, Inc., will develop plans for a future reconstruction of a mess hall, and will install lighting and security fencing for the guard and water towers.

Recipient: Colorado State University (Fort Collins, CO)

Project Title: "Confinement in the Land of Enchantment"-Historic Markers, Publication, and Website Implementation
Grant Award: $189,864
Site(s): Santa Fe Internment Camp, Santa Fe County, NM; Fort Stanton Internment Camp, Lincoln County, NM; Camp Lordsburg (US Army Internment Facility), Hidalgo County, NM; and Old Raton (Baca) Ranch Camp, Santa Fe County, NM
Description: Colorado State University will create historical markers and develop an outreach publication and website pages focused on the Japanese American confinement sites located in New Mexico. Markers will be installed at Ft. Stanton and at Camp Lordsburg. The publication will be distributed at schools and libraries across the state, and web pages will be hosted on the website of the New Mexico Office of the State Historian.

District of Columbia

Recipient: Smithsonian Institution (Washington, DC)

Project Title: Congresssional Gold Medal Digital Exhibition: The Untold Stories of the Nisei Soldiers
Grant Award: $238,090
Site(s): Multiple Sites
Description: The Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, working in partnership with the National Veterans Network, will create a digital exhibition that explores the significance of the Congressional Gold Medal awarded to Japanese American veterans of World War II who served in the military while their families lived behind barbed wire. A curriculum toolkit will also be developed and offered along with the digital program as a resource to teachers and educators nationwide.

New York

Recipient: Camera News, Inc., dba Third World Newsreel (New York, NY)

Project Title: Resistance at Tule Lake
Grant Award: $109,961
Site(s): Tule Lake Segregation Center, Modoc County, CA
Description: Camera News, Inc., will produce a documentary film that tells the story of Japanese Americans who were branded as "no-nos" or "disloyals" and incarcerated at the Tule Lake Segregation Center. Three versions of the film will be developed: a 60-80 minute theatrical feature, an hour-long public television broadcast, and a short version geared for the classroom, which will be accompanied by supplemental educational materials.

Utah

Recipient: Topaz Museum (Delta, UT)

Project Title: Manufacturing and Installation of Exhibits for the Topaz Museum and Education Center
Grant Award: $497,186
Site(s): Topaz Relocation Center, Millard County, UT
Description: The Topaz Museum will design, manufacture and install educational and interpretive exhibits within the newly constructed Topaz Museum and Education Center. Curatorial storage will also be fabricated to house the museum’s collection of artifacts, artwork, books, video interviews, photographs and primary documents.

Washington

Recipient: Densho (Seattle, WA)

Project Title: Online Repository for Editing Confinement Sites Video Testimonies
Grant Award: $209,982
Site(s): Multiple Sites
Description: Densho will make available for download over 800 video interviews that focus on the impact of the World War II incarceration on Japanese Americans, in order to facilitate the use of the video clips in the classroom. A website also will be developed to help users access the video clips, and will include policies, guidelines and tutorials regarding their use.

Recipient: Earshot Jazz Society of Seattle (Seattle, WA)

Project Title: Panama Hotel Jazz Education and Performance Extension
Grant Award: $33,419
Site(s): Bainbridge Island, Kitsap County, WA; Seattle Temporary Detention Facility, King County, WA; Puyallup Assembly Center, King County, WA
Description: The Earshot Jazz Society of Seattle will present "Panama Hotel Jazz: Music Made from Memories," a 90-minute program of music and narration that tells the history of Seattle's Panama Hotel and its significance to the Japanese American community, especially during World War II. The musical program will be performed thirty-four times over a two-year period at four locations: the Bainbridge Island Eagledale Ferry Dock, the Seattle Temporary Detention Station, the Puyallup Fairgrounds, and the Panama Hotel, a 103-year-old building 8 designed by Japanese American architect, Sabro Ozasa, in the heart of Seattle’s Nihonmachi (Japantown).

Wyoming

Recipient: Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation (Powell, WY) Project

Project Title: Heart Mountain Accessibility Project
Grant Award: $16,943
Site(s): Heart Mountain Relocation Center, Park County, WY
Description: The Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation (HMWF) will increase accessibility to the Heart Mountain Interpretive Center exhibits in order to provide an increasingly diverse visitation with a greater understanding of the Heart Mountain experience. Through this project, the museum’s introductory film and iPod-based audio tours of the exhibits will include Spanish, German and Japanese language versions, and the outdoor Walking Trail will be upgraded with braille interpretation stations.