Arizona
Recipient: Poston Community Alliance
Project Title: Roof Replacements for Adobe Classrooms at the Poston Elementary School Site
Grant Award: $300,00
Site(s): Poston Incarceration Site, La Paz County, AZ
Description: The Poston Community Alliance continues the restoration of the historic Poston Elementary School site to reduce damage and protect the remaining structures. Building on previous stabilization work, the effort will further repair and restore two adobe classrooms and strengthen the site’s long-term preservation. The project supports the broader vision of opening the property to visitors and sharing the stories of Japanese Americans incarcerated at Poston, as well as the experiences of Native Americans connected to the site. Recent improvements, including the restored library, have already reduced vandalism, showing the value of active preservation.
Recipient: University of Arizona
Project Title: Education and Memory Interpretive Project at the Gordon Hirabayashi Recreation Site
Grant Award: $61,798
Site(s): Tucson Federal Prision Camp (Catalina Federal Honor Camp), Pima County, AZ
Description: The University of Arizona will expand public understanding of the Gordon Hirabayashi Recreation Site by creating programs, workshops, university course materials, and a final digital and print publication. These activities will help visitors and students learn about the site’s history as a place where Japanese Americans and others were imprisoned for standing by their beliefs during World War II. Through community events, hands-on learning, and accessible educational resources, the project will interpret the site’s stories of citizenship, rights, and personal conviction. The work will connect local communities, students, and national audiences to this history and its modern-day relevance.
California
Recipient: Community Initiative Inc.
Project Title: Manzanar Children's Village Restoration Feasibility Study
Grant Award: $124,953
Site(s): Manzanar Incarceration Site, Inyo County, CA
Description: Community Initiative Inc. will assess whether part of the historic Children’s Village Orphanage at Manzanar can be physically rebuilt. A study will gather perspectives from survivors and descendants, create building designs, and compile the technical materials needed for future restoration work. The study will also use historical records and protect existing archaeological features. Work includes community consultation, architectural and engineering design, and preparation of a complete project portfolio. The results will inform the development of actionable alternatives for the future of the site.
Recipient: Community Initiative Inc.
Project Title: Manzanar Orchard Restoration
Grant Award: $51,261
Site(s): Manzanar Incarceration Site, Inyo County, CA
Description: Community Initiative Inc. will support the management historic orchards at Manzanar. Project work includes planting 269 trees, repairing orchard fences, installing drip irrigation, rebuilding windbreaks, and restoring several historic orchard areas and gardens. The project will renew plantings that reflect Indigenous use of the land, early ranching, and the orchards tended by incarcerated Japanese Americans during confinement. The restored trees will provide shade, reduce erosion, support groundwater health, and enhance visitor learning and community gatherings.
Recipient: Story Boldly
Project Title: Gripsholm Exchanges: An Interactive Visitor Experience and Traveling Exhibit
Grant Award: $475,000
Site(s): Multiple Sites
Description: Story Boldy will preserve and share the history of wartime detention sites connected to diplomatic prisoner exchanges involving people of Japanese ancestry. Through extensive archival research, survivor interviews, and a feature-length documentary, the project will document the experiences of Japanese Americans and Japanese Latin Americans who were confined and sent overseas during World War II. A traveling exhibit and a large-scale installation will present these stories through film, artifacts, reconstructed spaces, and interactive media. The project will reach national audiences by partnering with museums and historic sites, creating a powerful educational experience about civil liberties and human resilience.
Recipient: National Japanese American Historical Society
Project Title: From Behind Barbed wire to the Front Lines: Nisei Soldier's Families Digitization Project
Grant Award: $88,836
Site(s): Multiple Sites
Description: The National Japanese American Historical Society will preserve, digitize, and interpret personal materials that document the experiences of Japanese American soldiers and their families during World War II. This two-year effort will catalog, photograph, and digitize about 600 newly donated items, while training graduate students in archival methods and digital processing. All materials will be added to an open-access public portal. The project also supports updated exhibits at a historic training site, using artifacts, diaries, letters, and photographs that reveal the impact of confinement on military service. These efforts will expand public access, strengthen scholarship, and deepen understanding of the Nisei soldier experience.
Recipient: Japanese Cultural & Community Center
Project Title: The Confinement and Early Community Stories of the Issei Archival Research & Digitization Project
Grant Award: $327,000
Site(s): Multiple Sites
Description: The Japanese Cultural & Conmmunity Center will preserve, translate, digitize, and interpret rare records that document the lives of early Japanese immigrants and Japanese American communities before, during, and after wartime incarceration. The project will review 3,000 files, assess 750 fragile items, stabilize 300 priority objects, process 10 new donor collections, and digitize 7,500 materials. It will create 1,500 bilingual descriptions, translate about 200 pages, make 1,000 files text-searchable, and convert 50 older handwritten documents into readable text. This project will result in incresed public access and understanding of these resoruces.
Colorado
Recipient: Center for Independent Documentary
Project Title: Everything Here is Not as It Used to Be, A Documentary Film
Grant Award: $332,415
Site(s): Amache Incarceration Site, Prowers County, CO, and Santa Anita Assembly Center, Los Angeles County, CA
Description: The Center for Independent Documentary will create a documentary film that tells the story of two Japanese American sisters, Alyce Asahi Ohama and Shizu Asahi Proctor, whose lives were shaped by wartime confinement. Using family letters, photographs, oral histories, and never-before-seen documents, the film will highlight women’s experiences both inside confinement sites and as voluntary evacuees. The project will complete archival research, editing, sound and music work, and develop an educational curriculum and discussion guide. Project outreach will include screenings at festivals, universities, community events, and confinement sites, along with national broadcast and long-term preservation in a public digital archive.
Hawaii
Recipient: Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii
Project Title: Documenting Honouliuli and Sand Island: Federal Records Retrieval, Community Documentation, and Digital Interpretation Project
Grant Award: $73,071
Site(s): Honouliuli Internment Camp, Honolulu County, HI
Description: The Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii will preserve and share the history of Japanese American confinement at Honouliuli and Sand Island by digitizing federal records and gathering community-held materials. A research team will scan thousands of government documents, while a community event will invite families to contribute photos and papers for long-term preservation. All collected materials will be added to the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i’s archival holdings, made available to researchers, and used to create several digital exhibits. The project will also expand a public database that documents individuals held at these sites, increasing access to this important history.
Idaho
Recipient: Friends of Minidoka
Project Title: Transforming Historic Spaces into Places of Learning: Interpretive Exhibits at Minidoka National Historic Site
Grant Award: $500,000
Site(s): Minidoka Incarceration Site, Jerome County, ID
Description: Friends of Minidoka will turn restored historic buildings at Minidoka into interactive learning spaces that allow visitors to experience the stories of the Japanese Americans once confined there. The work will create hands-on exhibits, audio and oral-history experiences, period-furnished rooms, and digital tools that share personal stories and explain the importance of equal justice. By combining physical interpretation with online resources, the project will engage diverse learning styles and expand access beyond the site. The resulting educational experience will deepen understanding, empathy, and reflection for visitors and communities nationwide.
Wyoming
Recipient: Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation
Project Title: Heart Mountain Hospital Building Stabilization Project
Grant Award: $454,790
Site(s): Heart Mountain Incarceration Site, Park County, WY
Description: The Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation will address urgent safety and structural problems at the historic hospital buildings at Heart Mountain. The work will begin with site assessments and the removal of hazards. It will then stabilize the remaining buildings through essential repairs that prevent roof failure, floor collapse, and further decay. These actions form the first steps toward a future full restoration and educational use of the hospital complex. The project will help protect one of the few remaining physical reminders of the thousands of Japanese Americans incarcerated at Heart Mountain.
Last updated: September 23, 2026