As the 85th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor approaches, new efforts are being made to highlight a part of World Ward II history that played out after the bombing.
The National Park Service is now offering guided tours of the land that was once the site of the largest internment camp in Hawaiʻi to hold Japanese Americans on Oʻahu.
Since opening its doors to the public in July, the Honouliuli National Historic Site has seen a remarkable turnout for its tours. Waitlists for November and December tours have already reached hundreds of names.
HPR was able to take part in a media tour of the site in early November, where site Superintendent Christine Ogura explained Honouliuli's role is remembering Hawaiʻi's wartime history.
Interview Highlights
On Honouliuli's unique history as an internment camp
CHRISTINE OGURA: At the time, Hawaiʻi's population had almost 40% Japanese ancestry. So this camp was never meant to be a family camp … so this was selective incarceration. It was leaders of the community, school teachers, newspaper writers, religious leaders, government leaders. …
The other distinction, also, is martial law. What gave the military, or the government, the authority to arrest U.S. citizens, suspend their due rights under the Constitution, was under military martial law. Right after Pearl Harbor was attacked, the whole territory was given over to the military. So all citizens in the territory had to be fingerprinted. They had curfew. Their mail was restricted and censored, and so that authority was very different from Executive Order 9066, which was authority that was given for the West Coast Japanese Americans to be forced out of their homes and taken to the site.
On opening Honouliuli National Historic Site to the public
These are your public lands. This is your national park, and what I'm excited about, hopefully next year, that we'll be able to share with the community. And we've already been doing this — talk story sessions ... to get their ideas of what they want to see this park like in 20 years. How do they want to visit it? What do they want the Park Service to do in terms of managing into the next 20 years? So even though I carry the title superintendent, I really, firmly believe that my job is to really shepherd and conserve this park on behalf of the American public.
On personal connections to Hawaiʻi's history
OGURA: This actually was a personal decision for my career path because I am Nisei, second generation Japanese, born and raised here, and my parents are Issei. And I remember very distinctly reading the article when they rediscovered the site and thinking, had I been born a generation earlier, it could have been me and my mom. And so it just made that history so much more personal to me. It really hit home, and I think for me, that's why this work, personally, is so meaningful. ... I've had the privilege to meet a lot of the descendants, and they've been so gracious to share their family history with me, and I just want to make sure that the work that we do honors their families.
More information about Honouliuli National Historic Site, including information on scheduling tours, can be found here.
This story aired on The Conversation on Nov. 12, 2026. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Jinwook Lee adapted this story for the web.
