2019 Grant Project Summaries

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

Arkansas

Recipient: University of Arkansas (Fayetteville, AR)

Project Title: Rising Above in Arkansas: Japanese American Incarceration at Rohwer and Jerome
Grant Award: $269,202
Site(s): Jerome Relocation Center, Chicot and Drew Counties, AR Rohwer Relocation Center, Desha County, AR
Description: The University of Arkansas will expand the scope and reach of the Rising Above website, which currently features the Rohwer Reconstructed project. The project will add over 800 items related to the Jerome incarceration site to the archive and create searchable metadata for both the Rohwer and Jerome camp newspapers. Rising Above will become an even more valuable educational resource as a single online archive for Rohwer and Jerome featuring unique search filters, new interactive maps, timeline features, and 3D reconstruction of a barracks block. Additionally, a K-12 curriculum based on the Rising Above website will be created as a resource for educating students about Japanese American incarceration in Arkansas.

California

Recipient: Stanford University (Stanford, CA)

Project Title: Connected Through Confinement: An Archaeology of the Gila River Incarceration Camp
Grant Award: $43,685
Site(s): Gila River Relocation Center, Pinal County, AZ
Description: Stanford University will complete a detailed archaeological survey of the Gila River incarceration site. The survey will map the Butte and Canal camps, document archaeological resources, and produce detailed reports including analysis of a sample of the material culture. The survey will include a drone survey to develop accurate aerial imaging maps, which will be produced along National Park Service Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program with the creation of high resolution digital elevation models to aid in identifying archaeological features.

Recipient: California State University, Chico Research Foundation (Chico, CA)

Project Title: Finding Closure: Insight into “Alaska” at Tule Lake Segregation Center
Grant Award: $70,125
Site(s): Tule Lake Segregation Center, Modoc County, CA
Description: California State University, Chico (CSU) will carry out a non-invasive Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) survey of an understudied area in Tule Lake Segregation Center known as “Alaska.” The “Alaska” area was built to accommodate incoming incarcerees who were displaced after the Loyalty Questionnaire was conducted in 1943. Using GPR, CSU will survey the ground below in search of buried garden ponds, trash deposits, basements, and other related features. Test units will be excavated to confirm the results of the GPR survey. Artifacts will be curated at CSU where they will be available for study. CSU’s findings will be presented at archeological conferences and to the local community and landowners.

Recipient: California State University, Dominguez Hills (Carson, CA)

Project Title: California State University Japanese American Digitization Project
Grant Award: $282,102
Site(s): Multiple Sites
Description: California State University, Dominguez Hills will consolidate confinement site related archival materials that are in need of digitization and descriptive cataloguing, and enhance their online access. The University will digitize 7,000 new items including personal camp photographs, World War II correspondence of Fred Korematsu, and a newly discovered diary of an incarceree held at Manzanar and Tule Lake. Several institutions are involved with this project. Each will supervise the digitization of the archival records held in their collections and make them accessible through a centralized digital management system.

Recipient: Fred T. Korematsu Institute (San Francisco, CA)

Project Title: Double Displacement: Exploring the Intersecting Histories of American Indian Communities and Japanese American Confinement Sites in Arizona
Grant Award: $65,330
Site(s): Gila River Relocation Center, Pinal County, AZ; Colorado River Relocation Center (Poston), La Paz County, AZ
Description: Fred T. Korematsu Institute will hold a teacher professional development workshop and develop curricula focused on Gila River and Poston incarceration sites in Arizona. This project seeks to educate a national audience about the 3 little-known history of American Indian communities in relation to the World War II Japanese American incarceration.

Recipient: Japanese American Citizens League (San Francisco, CA)

Project Title: Stories Less Told: Oral Histories and Historic Materials from Outside the Exclusion Zone
Grant Award: $209,670
Site(s): Multiple Sites
Description: The Japanese American Citizens League will collect, digitize, and make accessible oral histories, photographs, and documents related to Japanese Americans who were forced to move from World War II military exclusion zones established along the West Coast. Additionally, 25 new oral history interviews will be conducted and posted online to help tell the story of Japanese Americans who migrated to the East Coast, Midwest, and Mountain states. Roughly 10,000 photographs, letters, diaries, and publications related to Japanese American migration will be identified, digitally preserved, and web hosted.

Recipient: Poston Community Alliance (Lafayette, CA)

Project Title: Reconstruction of Poston’s Historic Barrack for Use as an Interpretive Center and Museum
Grant Award: $243,447
Site(s): Colorado River Relocation Center (Poston), La Paz County, AZ
Description: The Poston Community Alliance (PCA) will move a historic barrack to a more secure location at the Poston incarceration site and restore it. Only half of the original barrack exists so the PCA will reconstruct the missing 60’ x 20’ portion to match historic photos and the existing barrack. The restored segment will replicate the space as it was during World War II and be used to interpret incarcerees’ living conditions. The reconstructed segment will house exhibits on Japanese American incarceration and its impacts on American Indian tribes who occupied the site where Poston was located.

Recipient: The Regents of the University of California (Berkeley, CA)

Project Title: WRA Form 26: Preserving and Expanding Access to the Individual Records of Japanese Americans Interned during World War II
Grant Award: $342,877
Site(s): Multiple Sites
Description: The University of California, Berkeley’s Bancroft Library proposes to digitize an entire set of Form 26: Individual Records that contain personal descriptive data about Japanese Americans who were forcibly removed from Washington, Oregon, and California and incarcerated in one of the ten War Relocation Authority-administered camps. Although previous digitization projects have 4 been undertaken using these files, the original coding contains inconsistences, data loss, and wholesale omission of records rendering the data incomplete and inaccurate. This project will rectify these inaccuracies and create a long term archive for the files. Additionally, the project will work with a Community Advisory Group to identify privacy, legal and other concerns sensitive to Japanese American communities.

Recipient: Tule Lake Committee (San Francisco, CA)

Project Title: Tule Lake Docent Training Program
Grant Award: $57,344
Site(s): Tule Lake Segregation Center, Modoc County, CA
Description: The Tule Lake Committee (TLC) will recruit and train 25 volunteers as docents who will guide tours at the Tule Lake Segregation Center beginning in 2020 with the Tule Lake Pilgrimage. Personal stories of incarcerees are disappearing, making it critical to educate a new generation of docents about them. The training will include reviewing existing oral histories from those who lived at Tule Lake during and after World War II, the events that led to the incarceration, and current interactions with local American Indians and the National Park Service (NPS). The docents will be trained by highly qualified members of the TLC and the NPS.

Recipient: Tuna Canyon Detention Station Coalition (Pacoima, CA)

Project Title: Tuna Canyon Detention Station Legacy Project II
Grant Award: $54,000
Site(s): Tuna Canyon Detention Station, Los Angeles County, CA
Description: The Tuna Canyon Detention Station Coalition (TCDSC) will collect at least 25 new, detailed oral histories of Tuna Canyon detainees. This will be accomplished through videotaped interviews with the descendants of Tuna Canyon detainees, as there are no living survivors of this facility. The completed interviews will be shown in conjunction with the current traveling exhibit “Only the Oaks Remain” and preserved in an archive. Additionally, each interview will be fully transcribed and made available to family members, scholars, and researchers on TCDSC’s website.

Recipient: UCLA Asian American Studies Center (Los Angeles, CA)

Project Title: Yuri Kochiyama and the Crusaders
Grant Award: $224,527
Site(s): Jerome Relocation Center, Chicot and Drew Counties, AR; and others
Description: The UCLA Asian American Studies Center will create a digital archive of camp related materials from the Yuri Kochiyama Collection with additional materials about the Crusaders from a collection in the Japanese American National 5 Museum. The project will digitize and catalog Crusader materials and Yuri Kochiyama’s personal collections related to the incarceration, create postings of the archive for preservation and visibility, and develop a digital exhibition of Kochiyama’s life. An online curricula with links to the archival materials will accompany the exhibit.

Recipient: Visual Communications (Los Angeles, CA)

Project Title: Third Act: The Historical Trauma of WWII Incarceration
Grant Award: $100,074
Site(s): Multiple Sites
Description: Visual Communications will create a 30-minute documentary on the historical trauma and intergenerational legacy of the Japanese American incarceration. Third Act will draw on the experiences of Robert A. Nakamura through excerpts of his documentary films, home movie footage of life behind barbed wire, and the aftermath of the incarceration experience. The chief curator of the Japanese American National Museum, based in Los Angeles, will coordinate a Viewer’s Guide to accompany the documentary.

Colorado

Recipient: University of Denver (Denver, CO)

Project Title: Snapshots of Confinement
Grant Award: $84,981
Site(s): Manzanar National Historic Site, Inyo County, CA Granada Relocation Center (Amache), Prowers County, CO
Description: The University of Denver (DU) will produce a feature-length documentary telling stories of World War II incarceration at Manzanar and Granada incarceration sites utlilizing new interviews alongside rarely seen photo albums created by incarcerees. DU will conduct video interviews with incarcerees, providing a platform for Japanese Americans to tell their own visual narratives of incarceration through objects preserved in confinement site museum collections. The film will explore what it means to be an American during times of conflict, and will be shown at local events and conferences.

Illinois

Recipient: Full Spectrum Features (Chicago, IL)

Project Title: Hidden Histories 2: Public Screenings and Impact Tour
Grant Award: $67,128
Site(s): Multiple Sites
Description: Full Spectrum Features (FSF) will produce Hidden Histories 2, a new collection of short narrative films, and develop a post-screening community engagement program to build empathy, understanding, and awareness around the history and legacy of Japanese American World War II incarceration. To provide audiences with valuable historical context, FSF will produce an original introductory video to be shown at the beginning of Hidden Histories 2. The film will be featured nationwide at museums, libraries, schools, and other cultural and educational organizations.

Michigan

Recipient: Central Michigan University (Mount Pleasant, MI)

Project Title: Minidoka Internment Camp Housing Project
Grant Award: $29,447
Site(s): Minidoka National Historic Site, Jerome County, ID
Description: Central Michigan University will use historic and archaeological methods to investigate the construction and use, during the period of incarceration and afterward, of barracks and related structures at the former Minidoka incarceration site. The project will focus on locating the structures using historic plans, archival data, and photographs to complete GIS of the entire Minidoka camp. GIS data will help determine how the barracks were constructed in comparison to the original construction plans to inform future work at the site.

New York

Recipient: Japanese American Association of New York (New York, NY)

Project Title: New York Japanese American Oral History Project
Grant Award: $80,308
Site(s): U.S. Immigration Station, Ellis Island, INS, New York Harbor, NY
Description: The Japanese American Association of New York (JAA) will collect oral histories of Japanese Americans confined at Ellis Island and in private homes in New York City during World War II. Their families and subject matter experts will also be interviewed. Documentation will capture the transitional “post-camp” life in Japanese American communities in New York City and the East Coast. Oral histories addressing “migration and resettlement” from WRA confinement sites to the NYC Metro Area will be videotaped and publically presented in a New York City exhibit. JAA will also digitize related archival materials (e.g., photos, 7 documents, and homemade short films) and develop an educational curriculum for public schools.

Washington

Recipient: Friends of KSPS/KSPS Public Television (Spokane, WA)

Project Title: Discrimination, Resilience and Community Building: The Resettlement of Japanese Americans in Eastern Washington after WWII
Grant Award: $66,844
Site(s): Minidoka National Historic Site, Jerome County, ID Heart Mountain Relocation Center, Park County, WY
Description: KSPS Public Television will produce a series of five-minute thematic videos about Japanese Americans who were incarcerated at Heart Mountain and Minidoka and later struggled against widespread discrimination, financial hardship, and lack of governmental support to build new lives in eastern Washington. KSPS will gather video featuring pilgrimages to Heart Mountain and Minidoka and 8-12 oral history interviews with surviving incarcerees and descendants. A standards based curriculum for middle and high school students will also be developed. The video and curriculum resources will be available to students and teachers at no cost through a variety of education platforms including the national educator website PBS LearningMedia.

Recipient: Wing Luke Memorial Foundation dba Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience (Seattle, WA)

Project Title: Japanese American Remembrance Trail in Seattle, Washington
Grant Award: $159,010
Site(s): Temporary Detention Station (INS Building), Seattle, King County, WA
Description: The Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience (The Wing) will develop interpretive materials for the Japanese American Remembrance Trail, which runs through Seattle’s historic Japanese American neighborhood and includes Seattle’s Temporary Detention Station (INS Building). Drawing upon their initial concept work (2017-2018), The Wing will enhance the interpretive experience at the INS Building, develop a digital app connecting over 40 historic sites along the Japanese American Remembrance Trail, produce and distribute a printed map of the trail, and offer guided school and community tours and K-12 teacher curriculum and training.

Wyoming

Recipient: Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation (Powell, WY)

Project Title: Heart Mountain Root Cellar, Phase III: Restoration
Grant Award: $424,760
Site(s): Heart Mountain Relocation Center, Park County, WY
Description: The Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation will continue their efforts to restore the only remaining 1943 Heart Mountain root cellar. Six bays of the cellar will be stabilized and restored in a manner similar to previous work completed on the structure. Structural issues will be addressed and temporary columns and footings will be installed inside the cellar where the roof beams are beginning to fail. The project will also support the creation of a “viewing gallery” in the north end of the cellar for visitors to peer inside.