Tuna Canyon Detention Station Coalition Receives New Funding

On June 8, 2017, the Tuna Canyon Detention Station Coalition was awarded $54,000 by the National Park Service, which administers grants from the Japanese Confinement Sites Grants Program. These funds will be used to continue their work documenting the history of the Detention Station and the people who were held there during WW II.

Planning began for the project and a traveling exhibit in June 2015, when the San Fernando Valley Japanese Community Center, Pacoima, California, and the Community Center’s Tuna Canyon Detention Station Coalition received $102,190, also from a Japanese Confinement grant. This funded development of a museum-quality traveling exhibit to tell the story of the former Tuna Canyon Detention Station in Tujunga, California. Only the Oaks Remain: The Tuna Canyon Detention Station Traveling Exhibit, includes the names of the more than 2,000 people of Japanese, Italian, German, and Japanese-Peruvian descent detained at Tuna Canyon, along with brief biographies of several detainees. Large story boards detail the Enemy Alien Control Program and the secret program in Latin America, called the Special War Problems Division.

Currently at Manzanar National Historic Monument (April 29-July 5), the exhibit began its travels on October 7, 2016, at the Japanese American Historical Society of San Diego and then was shown in the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, CA. Plans are being made to visit many more cities in the future. More information about the exhibit and scheduled showings can be found at the TCDS Coalition website.

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