A $40,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) will expand access to documents related to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

The grant will allow six CSU libraries (Fresno, Dominguez Hills, Sacramento, Fullerton, Northridge and San Jose) to plan a digital project that brings together letters, newsletters, tapes and photographs documenting the forced incarceration of 120,000 U.S. citizens of Japanese descent during the war.

Once complete, the project will make these historical materials easily accessible to the public online.

Fresno State’s Special Collections Research Center at the Henry Madden Library was awarded the funds in conjunction with CSU Dominguez Hills. The funding will support digitizing 180 items as part of the pilot phase. The campuses are seeking additional funding to digitize the complete collection, comprised of thousands of documents.

“Outside of the Japanese-American National Museum in Los Angeles, the CSU has the best collections on Japanese-Americans as part of its history of commitment to, and involvement with, their respective local communities,” said Tammy Lau with the Special Collections Research Center.

“The history of Japanese-Americans during World War II and the conglomeration of archival materials that tell their stories have enormous potential for scholarly interpretation and constitutes a humanities issue of national importance,” said Greg Williams, CSU archivist and project director. “Making these stories accessible worldwide is critically important. This NEH grant is a huge vote of confidence and gives our CSU consortium a tremendous amount of credibility.”

This NEH grant is the first to be awarded to a CSU library consortium.

For more information, contact Tammy Lau at 559.278.2595 or tammyl@csufresno.edu.

Related links: