Current Projects
Discover JACL Alaska’s current projects supporting civil rights, education, and cultural initiatives locally and in collaboration with JACL National.
Day of Remembrance
February 19th marks a solemn and significant date for the Japanese American community and is commemorated annually by the JACL Alaska Chapter, and JACL chapters nationwide, through Day of Remembrance events. On this day in 1942, Executive Order 9066 was signed, leading to the forced removal and incarceration of over 120,000 Japanese Americans from the West Coast—despite no evidence or charges of espionage or sabotage. Families were uprooted from their homes, jobs, and communities, and imprisoned simply because of their ancestry. The Day of Remembrance honors those affected, reflects on the injustice they endured, and serves as a vital reminder of the need to protect civil liberties and uphold justice for all—especially in times of fear and uncertainty.
Fort Richardson Internment Camp (FRIC) Project
The Alaska Chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League recently learned of what appears to have been a temporary WWII camp on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. We learned of Fort Richardson Internment Camp (FRIC) through Morgan Blanchard and his company, Northern Land Use Research Alaska, LLC (NLURA) when they were undertaking a Level II Cultural Resources Survey for Jacobs Engineering Group. Morgan shared an aerial photograph that had an outline of a former building, but much of the area has been developed since the FRIC was closed.
Through Morgan's efforts to obtain additional information documenting the FRIC, the project yielded a historic context for the site which included a list of the foreign nationals arrested in Alaska during WWII, a history of the camp, and a history of almost all of the individuals known to have been interned at Fort Richardson in 1941 ad 1942.
Although NLURA concluded that the FRIC is not eligible for listing on the National Registry of Historic Places (NRHP), due to lack of integrity of the site, the existence of the Camp is part of Alaska's recorded history. Our Chapter would like to undertake a project to establish a memorial on the site, and apply for the National Park Service grant program under the Japanese American Confinement Sites. We are also working to obtain records from the National Archies on the individuals who were temporarily placed at JBER to preserve and share this history.
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