During World War II, from 1942 to 1944, U.S. military personnel, in collaboration with local authorities, arrested and interned 2,270 people of Japanese ancestry in Hawai‘i.
Although they had not been tried and convicted in court of any crimes, they were nevertheless incarcerated on suspicion of being disloyal to the United States and a threat to national security solely for the reason that they were of Japanese ancestry.
In the main, they were Japanese community leaders, Hawai‘i-born Japanese educated in Japan, Japanese language school teachers, Buddhist priests, or they had visited Japan recently or had some sort of connection with the Japanese consulate in Hawai‘i.
Most were eventually sent to O‘ahu’s U. S. Immigration Station before being transferred to internment camps on the mainland United States for terms approaching four years.
On Kaua‘i, around 106 people of Japanese ancestry were confined at five locations: the Wailua County Jail, the Kaua‘i County Courthouse, Lihu‘e Plantation’s Isenberg Gym, the Kalaheo Stockade and the old Waimea Jail.
At the Wailua County Jail, commonly known as the “Montgomery Hotel,” after its longtime jail keeper, Kalei Montgomery (1872-1953), and now the site of the Kaua‘i Community Correctional Center, a barracks was built to house internees separate from regular inmates.
Internees were temporarily detained at the old Kaua‘i County Courthouse on Umi Street in Lihu‘e during their hearings.
At least one internee was detained in solitary confinement at the Lihu‘e Plantation Isenberg Gym, now the property of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints adjacent to Isenberg Park.
The Kalaheo Stockade, built to incarcerate soldiers convicted of crimes and misconduct, also housed Japanese internees.
It was located mauka of Kalaheo town, where the Medeiros Chicken Farm building still stands (but without its chickens).
For some time, the Medeiros farm location was in question.
But in 2012, Wayne Jacinto and Wayne Rapozo verified it based on a description of Virginia Rapozo, who recalled seeing the stockade there as a child.
The old Waimea Jail on Menehune Road, a three-cell structure built to incarcerate up to 10 prisoners that has long since been demolished, also housed internees.
