FROM SITE OF INTERNMENT TO SITES OF CONSCIENCE: REPRESENTING HONOULIULI’S PRISONERS OF WAR AND CIVILIAN INTERNMENT CAMP

Abstract

Honouliuli was the largest and longest operating prisoners of war and civilian internment camp on the island of O‘ahu. During its active use from March 1943 to January 1946, Honouliuli housed over 4,000 Japanese, Korean, Okinawan, Filipino, and Italian Prisoners of War and over 300 Japanese, Okinawan, German, and Italian American and resident alien civilian internees. My research will focus on the institutional challenges of representing those confined at Honouliuli. By examining the research of the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i, the National Park Service, the University of Hawai‘i at West O‘ahu, and my own studies, I will show how efforts to document and interpret the internment experiences have resulted in particular approaches to commemorating and preserving the site. By using these previous works and my own studies, I would like to offer alternative narratives and perspectives that may change the view of Honouliuli from a “Site of Internment” (primarily associated with the internment of Japanese Americans and Japanese resident aliens) to multiple “Sites of Conscience” (the internment of several ethnic American citizens, detainment of foreign nationals and remembrance of other violations of human rights). By highlighting these collective efforts, I would like to alter our understanding and raise our consciousness of the diverse experiences of American citizens of several ethnic groups, resident aliens, and foreign nationals who were interned or detained at Honouliuli, and help link their stories of internment to a prior history of Hawaiian and settler activities at the site, and to related contemporary issues of detention, immigration, xenophobia, and settler colonialism and decolonization.