Washington, D.C. -- Rep. Congressman Neil Abercrombie today announced that community efforts to preserve numerous historical sites where Japanese-Americans were detained and confined during World War II in Hawaii and across the Mainland are receiving $960,000 in federal matching grants.

“This funding is part of a new program by the National Park Service that will help to preserve the many historical sites across the country that tell the story of tragedy, suffering, sacrifice, and loss experienced by thousands of Japanese Americans who were incarcerated in internment facilities during World War II,” said Abercrombie, a member of the House Natural Resources Committee which oversee the National Park Service.

“This effort will also preserve the history of the sons of internees who defended our country and sacrificed their lives while serving in the famed 100th Battalion, 442nd Regimental Combat Team, and Military Intelligence Service.”

The grants from the National Park Service will go to 19 recipients in 12 states to a new program called the “Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program” which
provides funds to non-profits, educational institutions, and other organizations to preserve this chapter in U.S. history.

“These funds are especially critical at this time because research to support the program must be completed as soon as possible due to the advanced ages of many surviving internees and community members who have firsthand experience about these sites such as Honouliuli Camp on Oahu. Sadly, we have already lost many of those individuals.”

Four of the grant recipients in Hawaii are receiving a total of $142,890 in matching funds:

• Hawaii Heritage Center - $58,600. This project will prepare an analysis on an administration building and a fire house—the last two remaining internment camp structures at Honouliuli Camp on Oahu. The analysis will help to guide future restoration efforts.
• Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii - $43,187. This project involves the creation of a traveling exhibit that will highlight the internment experience at eight confinement sites in Hawaii to increase public awareness—especially within Hawaii—of this little known story. (The Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii has documented the sites at Honouliuli Gulch, Sand Island, and the U.S. Immigration Station on Oahu; the Kilauea Military Camp on Hawaii Island; Haiku Camp and Wailuku County Jail on Maui; and the Kalaheo Stockade and Waialua County Jail on Kauai. More than 1,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated in these locations.)
• University of Hawaii at West Oahu - $26,148. This project will combine oral history and archival research on the internment experience at Honouliuli with an archeological field school to investigate and record the physical traces of the internment camp to provide broader understanding of the site.
• University of Hawaii Center for Oral History - $14,955. This oral history project will focus on the wartime experiences and observations of young Japanese-Americans who were removed from their places of study, training, or employment on the West Coast of the Mainland and incarcerated in various assembly centers and relocation camps.

The National Park Service said the grant proposals reflected a wide range of project types, including oral history, interpretation and education, documentation, planning, preservation and capital projects. The grants were evaluated and awarded in a competitive process, matching $2 in federal money for every $1 in non-federal funds and “in-kind” contributions by the grant recipients.

The grants will go to projects in Hawaii, California, Arizona, Idaho, Illinois, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. and help the National Park Service to provide Congress with recommendations on ways to preserve the sites.

Congress established the “Japanese Confinement Sites Grants Program for the preservation and interpretation of these sites. The law authorizes up to $38 million for the life of the grant program to protect, restore and acquire historic confinement sites. Its aim is for present and future generations to learn and gain inspiration from these sites, and that the sites demonstrate the nation’s commitment to equal justice under the law. In fiscal year 2009, Congress appropriated $1 million for this grant program.

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