Over the Transom: How one question prompted a re-examination of Hawaii’s World War II legacy
by Guest Writer on May 26th, 2009Written by Jane Kurahara
The Honouliuli Camp, ca. 1944, as photographed by R.H. "Harry" Lodge, an employee of O'ahu Sugar at the time.
Over ten years ago, while fielding what we thought was a routine request for information made to the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii’s resource center, our eyes were opened to the need to preserve a thinly documented period of Hawaii’s World War II history. A local TV station requested the exact location of the Honouliuli internment camp site. To our dismay, not only could we not determine the location, but in our efforts to answer the question we also encountered numerous people who said they did not know that people had been forcibly detained during World War II in Hawai‘i or that there were internment camps here!
This inquiry masked a deeper universal historical need for the general public to be informed that challenges to civil rights occur whenever there are threats to national security. Thus, from one relatively simple request for information from a constituent grew a research process which has informed a variety of outcomes. Sifting through existing data and reference materials led to tangible results.
Archeological reconnaissance work over the past few years has exposed many foundations and other traces of structures at the Honouliuli site.
JCCH mounted an effort to collect, preserve and inventory surviving internee papers and arts and crafts. The fast-aging population of surviving internees is being interviewed to preserve their oral histories. An interpretive display and traveling exhibit, “Dark Clouds Over Paradise: The Hawai‘i Internees Story,” has been developed to share with the general public. A trilogy of internee accounts of their internment experiences is being prepared, using narrative, letters, and poetry. The first account has been published: a translation of Yasutaro Soga’s Life Behind Barbed Wire and the others are in development. In partnership with the Hawai‘i State Department of Education we are working to ensure that students study some facet of the history of internment during World War II in three required courses in grades 10 and 11. Because primary sources for teaching the story of World War II internment in Hawai‘i are difficult for teachers to find, folders of primary source material resources have been donated to every public high school.
Archeological reconnaissance work over the past few years has exposed many foundations and other traces of structures at the Honouliuli site.
Preserving and memorializing the internment camp sites in Hawai‘i took a giant leap forward with the archeological research by Jeff Burton, Mary Farrell, and Ron Beckwith, starting with a 2006 search for the internment camp sites on O‘ahu, Hawai‘i, Kaua‘i, and Maui. Later, grants from The Conservation Fund, National Trust for Historic Preservation, and the National Park Service allowed the team to return. The end result was a National Register nomination for the Honouliuli site. Days of Remembrance events in recent years have featured the Hawai‘i internment and included events such as an information summit, the first pilgrimage to Honouliuli, and an update. Each event has been attended by between 300 to 500 people. Public awareness is growing!
Key players have supported the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i in the movement to make the Honouliuli site a historical park. The site’s owner Monsanto-Hawai’i publicly supported the idea. The National Park Service Pacific Region sees the Honouliuli story as an integral part of Hawaii’s World War II story and has started to work actively in this direction. The Conservation Fund, which has successfully helped several other internment camp preservation efforts, is now actively helping to work with this site. A Special Resources Study Bill has been introduced in the House and Senate by Hawai‘i’s congressional delegations. On the state level, State Senator Will Espero has been an active supporter of this effort. These are truly exciting times!
What made us, a bunch of Resource Center volunteers, stay the course over ten years? It feels as if every time we hit the “wall”, and that happened often, a way would open and we would be able to continue the journey. We are so grateful to be part of this journey and for the question that opened the door.
Jane Kurahara is a volunteer at the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i Resource Center and the co-chair of that organization’s Hawa’ii Confinement Sites Committee.
The Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai’i (JCCH) grew out of the Honolulu Japanese Chamber of Commerce’s Japan-Hawaii Cultural Center project, “The Dream,” an effort to preserve the legacy and history of the pioneers who came to Hawaii from Japan, and whose sacrifices and contributions made it possible for the younger generations to become integral members of American society. Incorporated in 1987, with a staff of nine full-time and two part-time employees, JCCH is an Hawai’i non-profit corporation dedicated to sharing the history, heritage and culture of the evolving Japanese American experience in Hawai’i.
Learn More:
- Plans to Preserve, Share Honouliuli Gain Traction
- Legacies (a publication of the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai’i)
- Asian Pacific American Heritiage in Preservation
Support the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Donate now.
August 5th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
[...] internment camp sites remained in Hawaii. The Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i (JCCH) began researching these sites in an effort to determine where these camps were located and what, if any, evidence of them [...]