NEH “20th Century Hawaiʻi: Moving Images from Territory to Statehood" Project Update

Since July of 2022, ʻUluʻulu has been working on one of our most ambitious grant funded projects to date. With a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) we have been able to undertake digitizing over 1000 films, videotapes, and audio recordings to make them available to the public on ʻUluʻulu’s website. The objective of this project has been to highlight the stories of Hawaiʻi’s citizens who witnessed and participated in the road to statehood. The selected collections were chosen based on their merit to elucidate the varying degrees of reactions and repercussions for the Native Hawaiian and Japanese American populations in Hawaiʻi on the journey to joining the union. The NEH team has achieved so much at this point in the project, and we wanted to share some milestones as we pass the halfway mark in our work.

Batch #1

Consisting of 577 individual assets and spanning 7 separate collections, the first batch of NEH project materials has been our main focus since June of 2023. Originally shipped to a digitizing vendor in mid-2023, this first batch of films, video, and audio recordings was returned as digitized files in October of 2023. Since then we have been hard at work watching and listening to each of the 577 items to create individual descriptions and choose clips for viewing on our website. As of today, we are still working on getting this batch up online and ready for public discovery, but the beginning work for these collections has been completed. Some of the notable highlights from this collection include: Sam King’s campaign for governor of Hawaiʻi advertisements and radio appearances, interviews with many veterans of the 442nd infantry regiment, behind the scenes footage and interviews for the documentary Daniel K. Inouye: An American Story, public broadcasting documentaries and short films from Hawaiian Council for Humanities, recordings and footage from the Chinatown evictions, protests, anti-war art films, and local conferences from Hawaiʻi People’s Fund, personal home movie footage of veteran and lawyer Katsugo Miho, and interviews for the documentary Patsy Mink: Ahead of the Majority. 

Batch #2

The second batch of materials for the NEH project includes 433 individual assets from three different collections. This portion of the project has only just begun, with all assets being sent to our digitizing partner in March 2024. The digitized files have officially returned as of  June 2024 and we have begun the process of quality control and description to lay the foundation for making this footage accessible online. Batch #2 primarily focuses on veteran stories from the 442nd and 100th infantry battalions and Hawai’i Congressional footage. Although we will not know what is specifically on these tapes and films until they arrive back from our vendor, we still look forward to being able to highlight the history they possess. 

The Highs with the Lows 

As productive and intriguing as this project journey has been, it has not been without its slow downs and setbacks. The most obvious drawback to working on this project has been contending with working in a post-COVID world. Getting sick has been a regular interrupter in workflows, and having to work around those moments can cause deadline issues. Working with a vendor for all our digitizing requirements can come with some setbacks of its own. Having to negotiate deadlines and work with offices located on the continent time differences are something we have had to be mindful of through this project in order to meet our goals. There are smaller problems that come along with this process as well. Most notably, the issue of some items being in too poor of a physical state or not having anything recorded on them has been the most prevalent. Coordinating meetings around schedules, holidays, and being out of office has been another of the smaller snags in workflows for us working on this project. Thankfully these smaller issues have not severely impacted the final project and number of items digitized in full, but they have reminded us that we must work around the reality that we are human and life still happens around this project.

Even with all of the unknowns and setbacks that have come along with trying to complete such a grand undertaking of digitizing about 1000 items, being able to see and share the fruits of our labor is an extraordinary feeling. This project has been such a rewarding journey for all of us here at ʻUluʻulu. As we begin the final stage of this project we wanted to not only celebrate the milestones, but be thankful to our donors and supporters. Mahalo for joining us on this journey. We cannot wait to introduce the full collection to you when we have finished.

The 20th Century Hawaiʻi: Moving Images from Territory to Statehood project has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom. www.neh.gov