Internment camp exhibit portrays hardships, fears

Entering a room at Hawaii’s Plantation Village in Waipahu takes visitors back to a time of war and fear. A model Japanese bomber plane hangs from the ceiling, and next to it is a replica guard watchtower and interrogation tent. There are processing tags at the tent and signs emblazoned with “interrogation” and “stop” in bold lettering.

The room is part of the plantation village’s new Honouliuli Japanese Internment Camp exhibit that seeks to help visitors develop an intimate understanding of internment camps and those who were rounded up and locked in them. It is free and opens to the public on Monday.

“It kind of takes the visitors through the different stages of what happens and what brought us to that point,” said Lorraine Minatoishi, the architect who put together the exhibit. “It’s just for them to be able to feel a little bit of the discrimination and segregation in society. The kids today don’t really have any connection to war. There’s nothing that connects them with that kind of experience.”

The exhibit also features poster boards detailing the history of internment in Hawaii and of the 160-acre Honouliuli Internment Camp — where about 400 people, most of whom were American citizens of Japanese ancestry, were sent during World War II — as well as an interactive tour with docents.

Minatoishi said the focus of the exhibit is to help children understand the hardships and fears felt by Japanese in America during the war. Children will be able to climb to the guard tower and use binoculars to imagine what it was like to watch those living in internment camps.

She said there will be a shelf with photos of the internment camp buildings for the kids to look out at with the binoculars. There will also be smoke and bombing noises playing in the background near the Japanese plane.

The exhibit, which will remain open for about a year, is funded through a federal grant of about $112,000 for an architect to work on the exhibit and other Honouliuli efforts, as well as $67,000 from other grants and donations.

“I don’t think we can just ignore that part of Hawaii’s history and for our children to understand that it was right here in our backyard that it took place,” said Deanna Espinas, the plantation village’s longtime board president.

The exhibit is part of a larger effort by the plantation village, the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i and others to eventually build a national monument at the Honouliuli site. In 2015 President Barack Obama signed a proclamation establishing the Honouliuli National Monument.

Minatoishi said the plantation village’s exhibit is another way to highlight the ongoing efforts at the Honouliuli grounds.

In 1943 about 400 civilians and 4,000 prisoners of war were sent to Honouliuli, Hawaii’s largest and longest­-used internment camp. There were 175 buildings, 14 guard towers and more than 400 tents at the camp.

Internees were suspected of disloyalty after the Japanese military attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 in 1942, prompting about 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry in the United States to be rounded up and sent to isolated detention centers for the remainder of the war.

More than 40 years after the war ended, President Ronald Reagan signed an act in 1988 concluding that the internment was a violation of basic civil liberties and constitutional rights that was largely motivated by racial prejudice.

Minatoishi said she recalls her mother sharing stories about the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor bombing. She said her mother, who was 5 years old in Hawaii at the time, told her the family burned its Japanese dolls and family photos from Japan but was not sent to an internment camp.

Espinas said the plantation village also plans to host recurring panel discussions while the exhibit is open and to invite those who were interned at Honouliuli and their families to share their experiences.

“I’m hoping the community will come forward and share,” Espinas said. “It’s too important of a topic to not continue to have discussions on.”