Voices Behind Barbed Wire: Stories of Hawai‘i

Admission to this film is free with registration, courtesy of support from Pacific Historic Parks. 

While the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II has been well documented on the continent, new information about the sites and untold stories continue to emerge from Japanese Americans in Hawai‘i who endured this dark chapter of history. Voices Behind Barbed Wire: Stories of Hawai‘i explores the personal stories of Japanese Americans on O‘ahu, Maui, Kaua‘i, and Hawai‘i Island.,  They talk about their initial arrests, their transfer and interrogation, and incarceration in faraway places like New Mexico, Arkansas, and Arizona. The film also takes an archeological journey through nineteen former WWII confinement sites in Hawai‘i and the relevance of history upon civil liberties today. 

Presented by the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaiʻi. Original film sponsored by the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program, Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i, Monsanto Hawai‘i, The Freeman Foundation, and the Kama‘āina Fund of the Hawai‘i Community Foundation.