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

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The National Park Service (NPS) has awarded 23 grants totaling: $2.9 million to help preserve and interpret historic locations where Japanese Americans were detained during World War II.

In the program’s second year, the Japanese American Confinement Sites Grants will help fund projects in a dozen states, including the restoration of a historic railroad depot in Arkansas that will house an exhibit about that state’s two confinement sites, and an educational outreach program to engage youth in preserving confinement sites through art, conversation, and community service.

“The Japanese American internment experience is an important chapter in American History,” said NPS Director Jon Jarvis. “The National Park Service is honored to be part of this shared effort to preserve these sites, which are a tragic reminder of a shameful episode in our past, and a compelling lesson on the fragility of our constitutional rights.”

The NPS grants range from: $17,295 to re-establish the historic Honor Roll at the Minidoka National Historic Site in Jerome County, ID (which commemorates Japanese American servicemen from that camp) to: $832,879 to build the interior of the Heart Mountain Interpretive Learning Center in Park County, WY. Also receiving grants are a project to develop plans to rebuild a guard tower at the Granada Relocation Center (Amache) in southeastern Colorado, the relocation and rehabilitation of a historic barrack from the Colorado River Relocation Center (Poston) in Arizona, and several oral history projects. Although the matching funds support preservation and interpretation work in 12 states, some of the projects are national in scope. These include a plan to create a reference and resource website that will hold research materials and curricula on the history of the camps.

Congress established the Japanese American Confinement Sites grant program in 2006 to preserve and interpret the places where Japanese Americans were sequestered after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. The law authorizes up to: $38 million in grants for the life of the 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 World War II confinement and demonstrate the nation’s commitment since then to equal justice under the law.

Congress appropriated: $3 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. Congress appropriated: $1 million for fiscal year 2009, the first year of the grants.

Locations eligible for the grants include the 10 War Relocation Authority camps that were set up in 1942 in seven states: Gila River and Poston, AZ; Amache, CO; Heart Mountain, WY; Jerome and Rohwer, AR; Manzanar and Tule Lake, CA; Minidoka, ID, and Topaz, UT. Also eligible are more than 40 other locations in 16 states, including civilian and military-run assembly, relocation and isolation centers.

Following are brief descriptions of the funded projects. Those marked with an asterisk (*) indicate that the applicant is from one state and the project relates to a confinement site in another.

Arizona

*Under California, see Japanese American Citizens League, Pacific Southwest District project, Passing the Legacy Down: Youth Interpretations of Confinement Sites in the Western United States.

*Also under California, see Poston Community Alliance project, Poston Preservation Project—Barrack Relocation and Rehabilitation.

Arkansas

Arkansas State University – Jonesboro, AR
Rohwer Relocation Camp Interpretive Project Rohwer Relocation Center, Desha County, AR::$100,502

McGehee Industrial Foundation – McGehee, AR
Jerome-Rohwer Visitor & Interpretation Facility Rohwer Relocation Center, Desha County, AR Jerome Relocation Center, Chicot and Drew Counties, AR: $419,967

*Under Hawaii, see the University of Hawaii, Center for Oral History project, Unspoken Memories: Oral Histories of Hawaii Internees at Jerome, Arkansas.

California

Friends of Manzanar – Independence, CA
Oral History and Research for Enhanced Interpretation and Education at Manzanar Demonstration Block 14 Manzanar Relocation Center, Inyo County, CA: $58,833

Japanese American Citizens League, Pacific Southwest District – Los Angeles, CA
Passing the Legacy Down: Youth Interpretations of Confinement Sites in the Western United States Manzanar Relocation Center, Inyo County, CA Tule Lake Relocation Center (Tule Lake Segregation Center), Modoc County, CA Colorado River Relocation Center (Poston), La Paz County, AZ Minidoka Relocation Center, Jerome County, ID: $151,790

Japanese American National Museum – Los Angeles, CA
Nisei Oral History Project Multiple sites, counties and states: $42,573

Japanese American National Museum – Los Angeles, CA
Toward Justice for All: Exhibit Planning Multiple sites, counties and states: $75,713

Poston Community Alliance – Lafayette, CA
Poston Preservation Project—Barrack Relocation and Rehabilitation Colorado River Relocation Center (Poston), La Paz, County, AZ: $31,000

*Under Oregon, see Klamath County Friends of the Library project, Breaking the Silence: The Power of Remembering, Oral Histories of Tule Lake Internees

Colorado

Colorado Preservation, Inc. – Denver, CO
Building Stock Research and Inventory Related to the Granada Relocation Center (Amache) Granada Relocation Center (Amache), Prowers County, CO: $20,093

Colorado Preservation, Inc. – Denver, CO
Water Tower Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Plan at Granada Relocation Center (Amache) Granada Relocation Center (Amache), Prowers County, CO: $37,327

National Trust for Historic Preservation – Denver, CO
Granada Relocation Center (Amache) Guard Tower Reconstruction Plan Granada Relocation Center (Amache), Prowers County, CO: $34,980

District of Colombia

National Japanese American Memorial Foundation – Washington, DC
Recruitment and Training of Volunteer Docents for National Japanese American Memorial Foundation Multiple sites, counties and states: $38,909

Hawaii

Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii – Honolulu, HI
Hawai’i Confinement Sites Educational Documentary Honouliuli Internment Camp, Honolulu County, HI Sand Island Detention Camp, Honolulu County, HI Kilauea Military Camp, Hawai’i County, HI Kalaheo Stockade, Kauai County, HI Haiku Camp, Maui County, HI: $117,626

University of Hawaii, Center for Oral History – Honolulu, HI
Unspoken Memories: Oral Histories of Hawaii Internees at Jerome, Arkansas Jerome Relocation Center, Chicot and Drew Counties, AR: $29,080

University of Hawaii, West O’ahu – Honolulu, HI
Multidisciplinary Research and Education at Honouliuli Internment Camp, Phase 2 Honouliuli Internment Camp, Honolulu County, HI: $ 98,544

Idaho

Friends of Minidoka – Twin Falls, ID
Minidoka Honor Roll Minidoka Relocation Center, Jerome County, ID: $17,295

*Under California, see Japanese American Citizens League, Pacific Southwest District project, Passing the Legacy Down: Youth Interpretations of Confinement Sites in the Western United States.

*Under Washington, see Wing Luke Memorial Foundation/Wing Luke Asian Museum project, First Person Stories Revealed: Historic Materials from Minidoka Preserved through the Higo Ten Cent Store.

Massachusetts

University of Massachusetts, Boston – Boston, MA
From Confinement to College: Video Oral Histories of Japanese American Students in World War II Multiple sites, counties and states: $68,852

Oregon

Klamath County Friends of the Library – Klamath Falls, OR
Breaking the Silence: The Power of Remembering, Oral Histories of Tule Lake Internees Tule Lake Relocation Center (Tule Lake Segregation Center), Modoc County, CA: $55,000

Texas

Friends of the Texas Historical Commission, Inc. – Austin, TX
Japanese Confinement Sites in Texas: An Untold Cultural Legacy of World War II Kenedy Internment Camp, Karnes County, TX Seagoville Internment Camp, Dallas County, TX Fort Sam Houston Internment Camp, Bexar County, TX Fort Bliss Internment Camp, El Paso County, TX: $20,167

Washington

Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial -Bainbridge Island, WA
Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial Bainbridge Island/Eagledale Ferry Dock, Kitsap County, WA: $182,725

Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project – Seattle, WA
Japanese American Confinement: Reference and Resource Website Multiple sites, counties and states: $166,145

Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project – Seattle, WA
Stories Less Told Part II: Video Oral Histories of the Japanese American Incarceration Multiple sites, counties and states: $210,000

Wing Luke Memorial Foundation/Wing Luke Asian Museum – Seattle, WA
First Person Stories Revealed: Historic Materials from Minidoka Preserved through the Higo Ten Cent Store Minidoka Relocation Center, Jerome County, ID: $100,000

Wyoming

Heart Mountain, Wyoming Foundation - Powell, WY
Heart Mountain Interpretive Learning Center (Interior Build-Out) Heart Mountain Relocation Center, Park County, WY: $832,879

- NPS -

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Manzanar Committee Comment Policies

Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga, was seventeen years old when she was imprisoned at Manzanar and later, at Jerome and Rohwer, Arkansas.

After camp, she became a community and political activist, but is best-known for poring over tons of documents in the National Archives, discovering evidence that the United States Government perjured itself before the United States Supreme Court in the 1944 cases Korematsu v. United States, Hirabayashi v. United States, and Yasui v. United States which challenged the constitutionality of the imprisonment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

Aiko Herzig Yoshinaga
Photo: Discover Nikkei

Recently, she wrote a paper on the use of euphemistic language to describe these camps. Indeed, the US Government officially called them “relocation centers” during World War II. To this day, the debate rages on regarding what they should be called.

Now that the Manzanar National Historic Site has been established and is progressing in its work to educate the public about the experiences of those imprisoned there, efforts are also underway to protect, preserve and provide interpretive and educational resources for other Japanese American confinement sites such as the Minidoka National Historic Site, Tule Lake, Topaz, Amache, Heart Mountain, and more.

The National Park Service, which administers the Manzanar National Historic Site, Minidoka, Tule Lake and other sites, uses “relocation center” to refer to these camps. As such, a movement has begun to change that, and Herzig-Yoshinaga’s paper, “…is a personal story of how [her] consciousness about the uses and abuses of euphemistic terminology has evolved through the hard work and courage of many individuals from myriad backgrounds, both without and within the community of Nikkei (persons of Japanese ancestry). I am certainly not alone, nor among the first, to be concerned about the power of words to lie or clarify, and the need to identify and replace inaccurate and misleading euphemisms that were used by government officials at all levels and perpetuated by many Nikkei as well.”

To read (download) her insightful and well-researched paper, click on: Words Can Lie Or Clarify: Terminology Of The World War II Incarceration Of Japanese Americans by Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga (requires Adobe Reader software to view/print).

The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and are not necessaily those of the Manzanar Committee.

Related Stories:

• Manzanar Committee Member Joyce Okazaki: “Yes, It Was A Concentration Camp”
• More From Okazaki On Use of “Concentration Camp;” Refutes Rafu Shimpo Columnist George Yoshinaga
• Grateful Crane’s Soji Kashiwagi Weighs In On Use Of “Concentration Camp”
• Sue Kunitomi Embrey: Concentration Camps, Not Relocation Centers
• Mako Nakagawa Delivers Keynote Address At 42nd Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage
• Euphemistic Terms Used To Describe WWII Incarceration Of Japanese Americans Targeted At JANM Event
• Cast in Bronze: Terminology Symposium in San Francisco, October 22, 2011

Unless otherwise specified, all stories, images, video and audio content on this site are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License. You may copy, distribute and/or transmit any story, image, video or audio content published on this site under the terms of this license, but only if proper attribution is indicated. The full name of the author and a link back to the original article on this blog are required.

Manzanar Committee Comment Policies