$65,000 to preserve WWII Japanese-American internment sites in Hawaii

WASHINGTON, D.C.-Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said yesterday that the National Park Service is awarding $64,795 to help preserve and interpret the Honouliuli Internment Camp and other Hawaiian sites where Japanese Americans were detained during World War II.

Through outreach presentations developed by the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii, the project aims to engage high school students in the study of Japanese-American confinement. JCCH will update materials and make study units available to social studies teachers and schools through its Resource Center and website in addition to making presentations at 12 schools. Students will be encouraged to develop projects that link lessons learned about Japanese-American confinement in Hawaii to current issues such as discrimination and bullying in schools. The project will culminate in May 2014 with a public event featuring student projects.

This project is part of a larger program of 17 grants across 11 states totaling nearly $2.9 million. With this year’s grants, the Japanese-American Confinement Sites Grant Program, now in its fourth year, has awarded nearly $9.7 million in funds since Congress established the $38 million program in 2006.

“If we are to tell the full story of America, we must ensure that we include difficult chapters such as the grave injustice of internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II,” Salazar said. “The internment sites serve as poignant reminders for us – and for the generations to come – that we must always be vigilant in upholding civil liberties for all.”

The incarceration of thousands of Japanese-Americans, two-thirds of them American citizens, followed Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941.

“These places, where more than 120,000 Japanese-Americans were unjustly held, testify to the fragility of our constitutional rights in the face of fear and prejudice,” said National Park Service director Jonathan B. Jarvis. “The National Park Service is honored to help preserve these sites and tell their stories, and thus prevent our nation from forgetting or repeating a shameful episode in its past.”

Grants from the Japanese-American Confinement Sites program may go to the 10 War Relocation Authority camps established in 1942 or to more than 40 other sites, including assembly, relocation, and isolation centers. The program goal is to teach present and future generations about the injustice of the World War II confinement and inspire a commitment to equal justice under the law.

This year’s winners were chosen through a competitive process that requires applicants to match the grant award with $1 in non-federal funds or “in-kind” contributions for every $2 they receive in federal money. (DOI)