Manzanar Committee

The following is a press release from the National Park Service.

Contact:
Kara Miyagishima
National Park Service
Intermountain Region
12795 W. Alameda Pkwy.
P.O. Box 25287
Denver, Colorado  80225
(303) 969-2885

July 24, 2009

DENVER — The National Park Service announces the awarding of nineteen new grants totaling $960,000 to help preserve and interpret many of the historic locations, mostly in the western United States, where more than 110,000 Japanese Americans were detained during World War II.

These first-ever Japanese American Confinement Sites Grants will help fund a wide variety of projects in a dozen states. They range from the construction of a new interpretive learning center at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming to the preservation of a stockade and jail at the Tule Lake Relocation Center in California. The Tule Lake stockade was used to imprison internees who spoke out to protest the injustice of their World War II incarceration.

The grants range from $5,000 for work at the Arboga Assembly Center in Marysville, California, to $282,253 for the new Heart Mountain center in Park County, Wyoming. Although these matching funds support preservation and interpretation efforts in twelve states, many of the projects are national in scope. This includes a project to collect and digitize the “stories less told” of Japanese Americans who were held against their will at the detention sites.

Congress established the Japanese American Confinement Sites grant program in 2006 (under Public Law 109-441, 16 USC 461) to preserve and interpret the places where Japanese Americans were sequestered after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. The law authorizes up to $38 million for the life of the grant program to identify, research, evaluate, interpret, protect, restore, repair, and acquire historic confinement sites. The program aims to teach and inspire present and future generations about the injustice of the wartime program and demonstrate the nation’s commitment since then to equal justice under the law.

Congress appropriated $1 million for grants in the current fiscal year. They were awarded in a competitive process, matching $2 in federal money for every $1 in non-federal funds and “in-kind” contributions raised by groups working to preserve the sites and their histories.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which authorized the forced removal of more than 110,000 men, women and children, most of them American citizens of Japanese ancestry.

Locations eligible for the grants include the ten War Relocation Authority camps that were set up in 1942 in seven states: Gila River and Poston, Arizona; Amache, Colorado; Heart Mountain, Wyoming; Jerome and Rohwer, Arkansas; Manzanar and Tule Lake, California; Minidoka, Idaho, and Topaz, Utah. Also eligible are more than forty other locations in sixteen states, including civilian and military-run assembly, relocation and isolation centers.

Here are brief descriptions of each of the winning grant projects, which are organized by state, name and city of applicant, project title and location/site, and the amount of the grant award:

Arizona

Poston Community Alliance
Parker, Arizona
Saving the Stories: Oral Histories and Digitization of Former Poston
Detainees and Staff
Colorado River Indian (Poston) Relocation Center
$25,994

California

Japanese American Citizens League, Livingston-Merced Chapter
Merced, California
Merced Assembly Center Commemorative Memorial
Merced Assembly Center, Merced County, CA
$25,000

Japanese American Citizens League, Marysville
Marysville, CA
Arboga Assembly Center Project
Arboga (Marysville) Assembly Center, Yuba County, CA
$5,000

Manzanar Committee
Los Angeles, CA
From Barbed Wire to Barbed Hooks
Manzanar Relocation Center, Inyo County, CA
$49,400

National Japanese American Historical Society, Inc.
San Francisco, CA
Mapping and Building Sites of Japanese Americans during World War II
Multiple sites, counties and states
$18,568

Tule Lake Committee
San Francisco, CA
Preserving the Tule Lake Stockade and Jail
Tule Lake Relocation Center, Modoc County, CA
$40,000

Hawai’i

Hawaii Heritage Center
Honolulu, Hawai’i
Administration Building and Fire House Existing Condition Analysis Report
Honouliuli Internment Camp, Honolulu County, HI
$58,600

Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii
Honolulu, HI
Hawai’i Confinement Sites Project Traveling Exhibit
Multiple sites and counties in Hawaii
$43,187

University of Hawai’i
Honolulu, HI
Multidisciplinary Research and Education at Honouliuli Internment Camp
Honouliuli Internment Camp, Honolulu County, HI
$26,148

University of Hawai’i Center for Oral History
Honolulu, HI
Captive on the U.S. Mainland: Oral Histories of Hawaii-Born Nisei
Multiple sites and counties in Hawaii
$14,955

Idaho

University of Idaho
Moscow, Idaho
Kooskia Internment Camp Archaeological Project
Kooskia Internment Camp, Idaho County, ID
$16,456

Illinois

Japanese American Service Committee
Chicago, Illinois
Winning the Peace: An Exhibit on the U.S. Military Intelligence Service
Multiple sites, counties and states
$74,620

Minnesota

Japanese American Citizens League, Twin Cities Chapter
Minneapolis. Minnesota
Minnesota Japanese American Oral History Project
Multiple sites, counties and states
$16,000

Montana

Historical Museum at Fort Missoula
Missoula, Montana
Restoration of Enemy Alien Hearing Courtroom in Post Headquarters at the Department of Justice Missoula Alien Detention Camp
Fort Missoula Internment Camp, Missoula County, MT
$50,000

North Dakota

United Tribes Technical College
Bismarck, North Dakota
United Tribes/Fort Lincoln Planning Conference
Fort Lincoln Internment Camp, Burleigh County, ND
$18,919

Texas

Texas Historical Commission
Austin, Texas
An Untold Story from World War II: Japanese Confinement at Crystal City, Texas
Crystal City Internment Camp, Zavala County, TX
$34,400

Utah

Topaz Museum
Delta, Utah
Topaz Museum Interpretive Design Project
Central Utah (Topaz) Relocation Center, Millard County, UT
$48,000

Washington

Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project
Seattle, Washington
Stories Less Told: Video Oral Histories of Japanese American Incarceration
10 WRA Relocation Centers in multiple counties and states
$112,500

Wyoming

Heart Mountain, Wyoming Foundation
Powell, Wyoming
Heart Mountain Interpretive Learning Center
Heart Mountain Relocation Center, Park County, WY
$282,253

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