WASHINGTON — National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis announced 10 grants totaling more than $1.4 million to help preserve and interpret the World War II confinement sites where Japanese Americans were imprisoned during World War II. Some 120,000 persons of Japanese descent were detained, two-thirds of whom were American citizens, following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

According to the statement, which was issued April 2, projects selected include a plan to rehabilitate two historic buildings at the former Department of Justice Fort Lincoln concentration camp in North Dakota; the creation of a free, online, training course to assist teachers in integrating the subject of World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans into their classrooms; and a traveling exhibit to tell the history of the Tule Lake Segregation Center in California.

The Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program is now in its fifth year. The grants announced total $1,402,305 and bring to more than $11 million the amount awarded since Congress established the grant program in 2006. A total of $38 million in grant funds was authorized for the program.

Grants from the program may go to the 10 War Relocation Authority camps that were established in 1942 or to more than 40 other sites, including assembly, forced relocation and isolation centers. The proposals are chosen through a process that requires applicants to match the grant award with $1 in non-federal funds or “in-kind” contributions for every $2 they receive in federal money.

Densho’s first grant award of $300,000 will fund work to create a massive online repository of video oral histories and historic photographs, documents, and newspapers from Densho’s existing holdings and from partnering organizations, the organization said in a statement. When completed in 2015, the project will improve the search features of the Densho Archive (archive.densho.org) and increase the size of the archive to over 100,000 items. Densho’s second grant award of $194,403 will fund work to create an online course for classroom teachers to learn how to find and explore the primary sources in the online Densho Archive.

The $192,467 Tule Lake Committee project, “Restoring the Tule Lake Segregation Center NHL Jail, Phase II,” will enable the pre-construction and environmental planning necessary to prepare this historic structure to be “shovel-ready” for the final Phase III construction phase. The concentration camp jail was constructed with prisoner labor during late 1944.

A list of the winning projects follows. Projects marked with an asterisk (*) indicate that the grantee is from one state and includes a project site in another. For more details about the projects, visit: www.nps.gov/hps/hpg/JACS.

For further information, contact Kara Miyagishima, program manager for the Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program, at (303) 969-2885 or via e-mail at kara_miyagishima@nps.gov.

Arkansas
Grantee: University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Ark.
Project Title: “Rohwer Reconstructed: Interpreting Place through Experience”
Project Site: Rohwer Relocation Center, Desha County, Ark.
Award: $300,378

California
Grantee: Tule Lake Committee, Sacramento, Calif.
Project Title: “Restoring the Tule Lake Segregation Center NHL Jail, Phase II”
Project Site: Tule Lake Segregation Center, Modoc County, Calif.
Award: $192,467

Grantee: *The California Museum, Sacramento, Calif.
Project Title: “Time of Remembrance”
Project Site: Multiple
Award: $103,602

Grantee: National Japanese American Historical Society, San Francisco
Project Title: “Tule Lake Teacher Education Project”
Project Site: Tule Lake Segregation Center, Modoc County, Calif.
Award: $73,675

Colorado
Grantee: Colorado Preservation, Inc., Denver
Project Title: “Amache Site Interpretation”
Project Site: Granada Relocation Center (Amache), Prowers County
Amount: $29,060

Montana
Grantee: The Historical Museum at Fort Missoula, Missoula, Mont.
Project Title: “Fort Missoula Alien Detention Camp Interpretive Projects”
Project Site: Department of Justice Fort Missoula Internment Camp, Missoula County, Mont.
Amount: $39,730

North Dakota
Grantee: United Tribes Technical College, Bismark, N.D.
Project Title: “Fort Lincoln Preservation and Rehabilitation”
Project Site: Fort Lincoln Internment Camp, Burleigh County, N.D.
Amount: $45,100

Oregon
Grantee: *ORE-CAL Resource Conservation & Development Area Council, Klamath Falls, Ore.
Project Title: “The Art of Survival: Tule Lake 1942-1946”
Project Site: (Multiple) Tule Lake Segregation Center, Modoc County, Calif.
Amount: $123,890

Grantee: *Densho, Seattle
Project Title: “Teach the Teachers — Online”
Project Site: Multiple
Amount: $194,403

Grantee: *Densho, Seattle
Project Title: “Online Repository — Japanese American Collections”
Project Site: Multiple
Amount: $300,000