A new superintendent and new plaque at Honouliuli National Historic Site are the latest steps in efforts to preserve the site where Japanese Americans were held in internment during World War II and to eventually open the landmark to the public.
A blessing and plaque dedication ceremony were held last week when those involved with the preservation project gathered to commemorate the occasion and the site’s historical significance.
While Honouliuli is not yet open to the public, the event commemorated the community effort to bring about the restoration currently underway.
“Today we thank the many community organizations like the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii, the National Park Service … and Bayer Hawaii for continuing to preserve the Honouliuli National Historic Site for future generations,” said Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi at the Wednesday event. “It is our responsibility to remember and reflect upon the past so that we may learn from it, ensuring that such injustices never, ever happen again.”
Honouliuli was the largest and longest-used internment camp of World War II. It operated from 1943 to 1946 and held about 300 Japanese Americans as well as several thousand prisoners of war, said Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii Executive Director Nate Gyotoku.
“It was very rough living conditions,” Gyotoku said. “When they came out, a lot of them felt more ashamed than anything because they were very much singled out. So that’s why the story kind of got buried for many, many years.”
In the mid-2000s a JCCH volunteer, Jane Kurohara, was able to locate the Honouliuli site by piecing together information gathered through interviews with the people and farmers in the area, Gyotoku said. And by comparing old photos to the modern-day topography, she was able to identify the rock wall, thereby confirming the exact location of the camp, he said.
In 2007, Monsanto (which would later be acquired by Bayer) purchased the land where the camp was located, and began working with JCCH and other partners to preserve it. The company would later donate the 116 acres to the United States in its efforts to continue preserving the rich history of the location, said Bayer President Sebastian Guth.
In 2015, President Barack Obama designated the site as a national monument, until it was re-designated as the Honouliuli National Historic Site in 2019.
Since the site restoration began, a plaque and an informational sign were erected, outlining its history. A water feature was also installed to symbolize the flow of history and the continuity of memory, according to a Bayer news release.
Restoration of the rock wall, which became an identifying feature of the Honouliuli Internment site in recent years, began in late September.
“It’s a historic structure that predates the camp,” said Honouliuli National Historic Site’s newly appointed superintendent, Sally Martinez. “We don’t know exactly when it was built, but it’s visible in historic photographs of the camp.”
Martinez, who previously managed the Volunteers- in-Parks program at Yosemite National Park for seven years, was announced Thursday as the next new permanent superintendent of Honouliuli National Historic Site. She will officially take on the role in November.
The wall’s restoration is being done by a Maryland crew from the National Park Service’s Historic Preservation Training Center. It is undergoing a process of numbering each stone, then being taken apart and then safely placed back together in a sturdier fashion, Martinez explained.
“It was showing some riskier signs of pressure building up behind it,” Martinez said. “So we’re taking it apart but keeping track of each stone so that they can clean them and put them back in exactly the same spot where they came from.”
While other plans for the site’s restoration are still being discussed, Martinez said that the goal is to eventually invite visitors to the location and share its story with the larger community.
“There’s still more steps in that process to put into place and make sure that we do it right and make the site safe and accessible to the public,” she said.
Also in attendance at the ceremony, Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke spoke of what Honouliuli represents.
“It’s a reminder that anything that we do, we cannot make decisions rooted in fear,” Luke said. “It’s intermittent commemorations like this that remind us, because it has to be a constant reminder, that as human beings we have to constantly achieve more than what has been done.”
———
Linsey Dower covers ethnic and cultural affairs and is a corps member of Report for America, a national service organization that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues and communities.
