Please note: projects are listed by the states of the grant recipients.
California
Recipient: Community Partners (Los Angeles, CA)
Project Title: Vigilant Love's Solidarity Arts Fellowship
Grant Award: $192,893
Site(s): Manzanar Incarceration Site, Inyo County, CA and Tuna Canyon Detention Station, Los Angeles County, CA
Description: Community Partners will partner with Vigilant Love to host the Solidarity Arts Fellowship, a six-month program for Japanese American and Muslim American college-aged youth. The program’s 2024 cohort will learn from shared histories of incarceration, surveillance, and resistance; grow skills through multi-disciplinary arts and healing trainings; build transformative relationships; and organize to dismantle Islamophobia and white supremacy. The selected group will visit Manzanar National Historic Site and Tuna Canyon Detention Station to reflect on the parallels between the nation’s treatment of Japanese Americans before and during World War II and the current targeting of immigrant, refugee, and Muslim populations. By building solidarity between Muslim American and Japanese American communities, the Fellowship seeks to build empathy and paths to healing.
Recipient: Japanese American National Museum (Los Angeles, CA)
Project Title: Nobuko Miyamoto: 120,000 Stories
Grant Award: $150,174
Site(s): Santa Anita Assembly Center, Los Angeles County, CA
Description: Japanese American National Museum (JANM) will co-produce a one-hour documentary film called Nobuko Miyamoto: 120,000 Stories. The story will tell how the Santa Anita Assembly Center, located 13-miles from downtown Los Angeles, affected the Japanese American community before, during, and after incarceration. It will highlight the Miyamoto family’s journey with a focus on Nobuko Miyamoto, who was two years old when her family was sent to the assembly center. Nobuko became an iconic artist and activist who has contributed much despite the trauma she endured at Santa Anita. The Museum’s new Confinement and Resettlement Gallery will feature the film and it will be available through JANM’s website.
Recipient: Japanese American National Museum (Los Angeles, CA)
Project Title: WRA Heart Mountain Barracks - Conserved, Reinstalled, Reimagined, and Protected
Grant Award: $414,663
Site(s): Heart Mountain Incarceration Site, Park County, WY, and other sites
Description: The Japanese American National Museum (JANM), located in Los Angeles, CA, houses a historic barrack that originated from Wyoming’s Heart Mountain Relocation Center. JANM will create a new, permanent multi-gallery exhibition which will have The Confinement and Resettlement Gallery as its centerpiece and feature the historic barrack at its entrance. JANM will use JACS funding to conserve, reinstall, reimagine, protect, and interpret a major portion of the Heart Mountain barracks. Analog and digital educational and interpretive components will be incorporated into the exhibit, which promises to be part of the largest and most comprehensive examination of the Japanese American World War II incarceration at confinement sites.
Recipient: National Japanese American Historical Society, Inc. (San Francisco, CA)
Project Title: Detour to Crystal City - A Memoir by Libia Yamamoto
Grant Award: $59,480
Site(s): Crystal City Internment Camp (DOJ) Zavala County, TX
Description: The National Japanese American Historical Society, Inc. (NJAHS) will publish, distribute, and publicize a book on Libia Maoki Yamamoto, who was taken from Peru and transported to Crystal City, Texas where she was incarcerated from age seven to eleven. Ms. Yamamoto’s story reveals a less well-known part of history where people of Japanese ancestry from Latin America were captured and held at confinement sites in the U.S. The memoir will be available through 2,500 printed copies and an electronic version will be uploaded to the NJAHS website. NJAHS will also research and develop possible online curriculum materials such as lessons plans for teachers’ professional development.
Recipient: National Japanese American Historical Society, Inc. (San Francisco, CA)
Project Title: Leaving Traces: Camp Life Digital Archives Project
Grant Award: $75,284
Site(s): Multiple Sites
Description: The National Japanese American Historical Society, Inc. (NJAHS) will collaborate with University of San Francisco (USF) to catalog and digitize never before seen photographs, documents, and ephemera that will be made publicly available through USF’s Japanese American Confinement Sites website. The newly discovered items include original and rare artifacts and documentation from the NJAHS collections related to the ten WRA incarceration sites (Amache, Gila River, Heart Mountain, Jerome, Manzanar, Minidoka, Poston, Rohwer, Topaz, and Tule Lake) and several Department of Justice camps (Santa Fe, NM; Missoula, MT; and Crystal City, TX).
Recipient: Tides Center, National Veterans Network (San Francisco, CA)
Project Title: Nisei Soldier Experience: Two Front War
Grant Award: $348,867
Site(s): Multiple Sites
Description: The Tides Center National Veterans Network (NVN), in partnership with the National Museum of the U.S. Army and the Army Historical Foundation, will enhance an existing exhibit to create a traveling exhibition called “Nisei Soldier Experience: Two Front War.” The exhibit will raise awareness of the patriotism and loyalty of Japanese Americans who enlisted for WWII military service while incarcerated in confinement sites, facing a “two front war” for American democracy both abroad and at home. The NVN will research; collect new objects, images, and stories; design; fabricate; and launch the exhibit that will be hosted at ten venues across the U.S. with an online version accessible via the National Museum of the U.S. Army.
Recipient: Visual Communications (Los Angeles, CA)
Project Title: "The Camera" narrative fiction short film
Grant Award: $200,000
Site(s): Manzanar Incarceration Site, Inyo County, CA
Description: Visual Communications will produce a short film (30 minutes) called “The Camera” that will be based at Manzanar War Relocation Center. The narrative film will explore impacts of intergenerational trauma stemming from Japanese American incarceration and the need for ongoing vigilance to prevent unjust acts against all people. It is anticipated that the film will be shown at film festivals, hosted on a streaming service, and available at the Japanese American National Museum gift store.
Colorado
Recipient: Colorado Preservation, Inc. (Denver, CO)
Project Title: Amache Recreation Hall - Implementation of Interior Interpretation
Grant Award: $76,350
Site(s): Amache Incarceration Site, Prowers County, CO
Description: Colorado Preservation, Inc. (CPI) will build on past projects to implement an interpretive plan for the interior rooms of the Block 11-F Recreation Hall at Amache (Granada Relocation Center). Through stakeholder engagement, CPI will create a permanent interpretive exhibit at the relocated, restored, and reconstructed Recreation Center barracks. CPI will develop accessible interpretive content such as panels, signage, and banners; fabricate furnishings including chairs, desks, and tables; and purchase interpretive objects and materials to be installed on site. Granada High School teachers and Amache Preservation Society will construct and install the rough hew furnishings. This community-oriented project will work closely with former Amache incarcerees to improve the interpretive experience at Amache.
Georgia
Recipient: American Baptist Historical Society (Atlanta, GA)
Project Title: Sharing Stories: Increasing Access to Records Documenting Japanese American Confinement and Northern Baptists Response
Grant Award: $119,153
Site(s): Multiple Sites
Description: The American Baptist Historical Society (ABHS) will identify and digitize several collections, including their own, that document the experience of Japanese Americans Baptists and the work of Northern Baptists who assisted those who were forcibly removed from their communities and incarcerated. ABHS’s online catalog will host the digital records collection to ensure their long-term preservation and accessibility to researchers and the general public. Should archival documents and photos require conservation, ABHS will seek to re-house them in accordance with archival standards. An online exhibit and traveling/on-site exhibit will also be created to expand outreach.
Washington
Recipient: Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial (Bainbridge Island, WA)
Project Title: Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial Visitor Center
Grant Award: $613,150
Site(s): Bainbridge Island, Kitsap County, WA
Description: The Bainbridge Island Japanese American Memorial Association (BIJAMA) has worked with stakeholders for over a decade to complete the Exclusion Memorial on Bainbridge Island. The Story Wall was dedicated in 2011 and the Departure Deck was dedicated in 2021 to provide an overview of the forced removal of Japanese Americans from Bainbridge Island and subsequent incarceration. This project will complete the third and final element for the memorial—a visitor center. The Visitor Center will house interpretive and archival materials in a space that allows for reflection in light of contemporary events. This phase includes finalizing design and engineering documents, obtaining permits, completing site work, and installing utilities for the Visitor Center.
Recipient: Densho (Seattle, WA)
Project Title: Densho Encyclopedia: Bringing a Critical Resource into the Next Decade
Grant Award: $316,905
Site(s): Multiple Sites
Description: Densho’s Encyclopedia has been an important publicly accessible online resource for accurate information pertaining to the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. To ensure the Encyclopedia continues to be a user-friendly resource that hosts relevant scholarly content, Densho will undertake a much-needed update. Updates will include revisiting articles, images, and references to determine if revisions are needed considering new scholarship and making necessary changes; establishing an editorial structure; linking Densho’s interactive map to relevant articles; redesigning backend architecture; modernizing the Encyclopedia’s look and improving usability; and establishing and launching an internship program.
Recipient: Densho (Seattle, WA)
Project Title: Resettlement and Return: Effects of the Incarceration
Grant Award: $291,468
Site(s): Multiple Sites
Description: Densho will collect 50,000 digital items and reach out to survivors and descendants seeking contextual information that will help interpret this material. New materials generated by this project will then be systematically added to Densho's online encyclopedia and incorporated into other Densho projects like the interactive map-based “Sites of Shame” website, “Names Registry,” public programs, and other resources that users can access. The public will be able to access the new collections without charge through the Densho Digital Repository.
Recipient: Puyallup Valley Chapter Japanese American Citizens League (Puyallup, WA)
Project Title: "Puyallup Assembly Center" Remembrance Gallery
Grant Award: $400,000
Site(s): Puyallup Assembly Center, Pierce County, WA
Description: The Puyallup Valley Chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League will help create the “Puyallup Assembly Center” Remembrance Gallery on the grounds of the Washington State Fair in Puyallup, Washington. The exhibit will be the first permanent exhibit at the Washington State Fair (formerly the Western Washington Fair) informing visitors of the 7,600 Japanese and Japanese American individuals who were incarcerated at the assembly center in 1942. The exhibit will feature video recordings, acknowledgment of the 7,600 incarcerees, newspaper articles, oral histories from survivors, and a re-creation of living quarters to convey the depth of injustices and consider how the events of 80 years ago remain relevant today.
Wyoming
Recipient: Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation (Powell, WY)
Project Title: Across Barbed Wire & Across the Aisle: The Unlikely Friendship of Normal Y. Mineta and Alan K. Simpson
Grant Award: $149,696
Site(s): Heart Mountain Incarceration Site, Park County, WY
Description: The Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation will create and install a permanent exhibit on the lives and careers of the late Secretary Norman Y. Mineta (Democrat) and Senator Alan K. Simpson (Republican). A decades-long friendship between Mineta and Simpson began in 1943 when they met as Boy Scouts behind the barbed wire of Wyoming’s Heart Mountain Relocation Center. The exhibit will convey how two former congressmen found ways to transcend cultural and political differences. The Mineta-Simpson Institute at Heart Mountain will host the exhibit where this friendship will be used to empower visitors to engage in their own civic dialogues.
Last updated: May 31, 2023