COURTESY OF JAPANESE CULTURAL CENTER
The experience of Japanese-American internees during World War II is the focus of an exhibit at the Pacific Tsunami Museum in Hilo. The exhibit will include historical photos, such as the picture of the tents behind wire fences at Sand Island.
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Internment camps in focus
A traveling exhibit sheds new light on a sad chapter of WWII
A Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii traveling exhibition shedding light on the internment of Hawaii residents during World War II will open at the Pacific Tsunami Museum in Hilo, at 10 a.m. Saturday.
The exhibition, "Dark Clouds Over Paradise: The Hawai'i Internees Story," debuted in 2004 at the JCCH Community Gallery on Oahu. "Dark Clouds" details the period after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, when about 1,400 Hawaii residents of Japanese ancestry -- which included distinguished Japanese issei (first-generation) Buddhist, Shinto and Christian priests, Japanese-language school officials and commercial fishermen -- were plucked from the community and forced into makeshift camps throughout the territory.
Based on documents from the JCCH Resource Center and interviews of former internees, the exhibit depicts life in these internment camps and shows how the internees passed their time behind barbed wire. Many played sports, wrote songs, started literary clubs and made handicrafts.
The exhibition grand opening will feature guest speaker Dennis Ogawa, chairman of the American Studies Department at the University of Hawaii-Manoa and author of best-selling books "Jan Ken Po: The World of Hawaii's Japanese Americans" and "Kodomo No Tame Ni -- For The Sake of the Children."
Then, on Nov. 11, George Tanabe will speak about the impact of Buddhist priests in the internment community. Tanabe, a recently retired professor of religion at UH, is author of "Myoe the Dreamkeeper" and "Practically Religious: Worldly Benefits and the Common Religion of Japan" (with Ian Reader) and editor of "Religions of Japan in Practice."
The exhibition will remain on view 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays to Saturdays through Dec. 27. Admission is free.
The exhibition is also slated to travel to Kauai, Maui and Kona.
Traveling of this exhibition was made possible through a grant from the Hawaii Council for the Humanities. For more information, call the JCCH at 808-945-7633 or e-mail info@jcch.com.
JCCH is a nonprofit organization that strives to share the history, heritage and culture of the evolving Japanese-American experience in Hawaii.
COURTESY OF JAPANESE CULTURAL CENTER
The exhibit will also include handicrafts...
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COURTESY OF JAPANESE CULTURAL CENTER
...and other items that illustrate life behind the fences, such as these toothbrush rings.
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