Los Altos High School teacher Chelsea Doiguchi applied for a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship not only for professional reasons, but for personal ones.
Among 72 educators chosen to participate in this summer’s five-day workshop titled “Echoes of History: Mistreatment and Incarceration in the American West,” Doiguchi will travel to Wyoming’s Heart Mountain internment camp – the place her grandmother, Barbara Sugimoto, was sent during the Japanese internment of World War II.
“This is a really cool opportunity that I get to go to this workshop and, for me, I just have such a deep connection with it,” Doiguchi said. “Through attending the weeklong series of workshops, I hope to develop and gain new curriculum from presenters, network with other teachers, share my family’s history with other attendees and, most importantly, see the site of the Heart Mountain internment camp where my grandmother and her family lived over 80 years ago.”
A social studies teacher and department coordinator, Doiguchi learned about the NEH program during a social studies conference. The Mountain View High graduate said she had a meaningful conversation about Japanese internment and her family’s connection to it with one of the presenters, who then encouraged her to apply for a fellowship. The workshop will highlight what happened at the camp, as well as the treatment of Native and German Americans and the role of religion and the Korematsu case, a U.S. Supreme Court decision about the constitutionality of Japanese internment. The daughter of Fred Korematsu will speak to the participants.
“I’m most looking forward to visiting the site of Heart Mountain and the internment camp, and also hearing some of the guest speakers who have relatives interned at one of the camps,” Doiguchi said. “I’m also looking forward to meeting other teachers and sharing curriculum or just talking, because when you go to these conferences, you get to meet people from all walks of life and you get to hear how they incorporate things like this into their curriculum.”
Added dimension
Ray Locker, director of communications and strategy for the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation and director of the workshop, said Doiguchi stood out in the application process because of her family’s connection to Heart Mountain.
“Doiguchi would be intensely interested in the workshop presentations and also provide an added dimension for the other participants,” he said. “Previous participants who have family connections to the incarceration or Heart Mountain shared what they know from personal experience, and that made the workshops more valuable for everyone.”
Doiguchi said she has several family members who were interned, but only her grandmother’s family was interned at Heart Mountain. Her grandmother, now 96, was a freshman at the old Mountain View High School on Castro Street when she was forced to relocate to the camp. She graduated from the camp’s Heart Mountain High School.
Doiguchi said her family is excited about the opportunity she has to learn more about her grandmother’s history. The teacher said she grew up listening to her grandmother’s internment stories, often asking questions about the experience and looking at old photos.
The workshop runs June 18-23. Doiguchi will receive a $1,300 stipend to cover her travel and lodging costs.
