Trailer for the documentary The Untold Story: Internment of Japanese Americans in Hawaii.
Within 48 hours of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawai‘i authorities arrested several hundred local Japanese in O‘ahu, Maui, Hawai‘i and Kaua‘i. They were Buddhist priests, Japanese language school officials, newspaper editors, business and community leaders. Within a few months over 1,800 men and women of Japanese ancestry were arrested, detained and incarcerated in Hawai‘i and later sent to the Department of Justice and War Relocation Authority (WRA) camps on the continental U.S. There was no evidence of espionage or sabotage and no charges were ever filed against them.
While the story of the mass internment of Japanese Americans in California, Oregon and Washington has been well documented, very little is known about the Hawai‘i internees and the confinement sites located in Hawai‘i. This is the first full-length documentary to chronicle this untold story in Hawai‘i’s history.