NPS Opens Historic Internment Camp in Hawaiʻi to Visitors for First Time in 80 Years

The National Park Service (NPS) oversees a whole lot more than just national parks. It manages and protects many historic sites and landmarks that tell important parts of U.S. history, from the Civil War to the suffragists to the Civil Rights Movement.

The NPS will soon allow people to visit an internment camp in Hawaiʻi that imprisoned hundreds of Japanese Americans during World War II. For the first time since it closed in 1946, the Honouliuli National Historic Site will be open to the public.

The History

During the war, over 120,000 people of Japanese descent were forcibly detained in camps in the U.S., according to the National Archives. The government viewed these individuals, two-thirds of whom were U.S. citizens, as possible threats to national security following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

The experience of Japanese Americans in Hawaiʻi, which was a U.S. territory at the time, was different from the mainland. In Hawaiʻi, officials declared martial law just hours after the Pearl Harbor attack. Authorities established the first internment camp on Oʻahu in 1941 while the government constructed Honouliuli on the west side of the island. This predates President Roosevelt’s executive order in 1942, establishing camps across the continental U.S.

Honouliuli opened in 1943 and held roughly 4,000 prisoners of war, along with about 400 civilian detainees. “Americans who were incarcerated were selectively chosen because they were influential to the Japanese communities (Japanese language teachers, priests, politicians),” the NPS explained.

Reintegration

When the camp closed in 1946, officials allowed detained Americans to return home. That return was more complicated in Hawaiʻi than on the mainland, where the government often incarcerated entire families together.

“Reintegration was a long and emotionally painful journey … Upon arriving home, they were often met with suspicion for being taken, born out of the assumption that if you had been taken, you must be a traitor,” the NPS suggested.

After the war, farming companies leased the land. Its role in surveillance and oppression remained in the shadows until 2002, when local activists worked to locate the original site of Honouliuli. Local conservation and cultural nonprofits helped to restore and manage the site until 2015, when President Obama declared it a national monument. It was redesignated a national historic site in 2019.

Education and Events

2026 marks 80 years since the camp closed, and to share this important part of history, the site will be open to the public for the first time ever. From June to September, staff will lead guided tours through the site.

In partnership with Pacific Historic Parks, a nonprofit, there will be a series of educational events across Hawaiʻi’s islands. The public can attend screenings of Voices Behind Barbed Wire: Stories of Hawaiʻi, a documentary that tells the stories of the detainees.

The event also includes conversations with director Ryan Kawamoto, Carole Hayashino, former president and executive director of the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaiʻi, and park superintendent Christine Ogura.

Members of the Hawaiʻi Symphony Orchestra will be playing pieces inspired by a violin used at the camp, and a virtual and in-person speaker series will share different aspects of the camp’s history. In a final event on September 27, the local community and visitors are invited to gather together. The program will include the Hawaiʻi Youth Symphony and taiko master Kenny Endo. Renowned ukulele artist Jake Shimabukuro will perform an original composition inspired by Honouliuli. Visitors can reserve a tour here.