Students at the 2020 WWAF experienced two video tours and four virtual exhibits of the Presidio and its neighborhood.
Video tours:
Dr. Randy Bergstrom introduced the historic sites of Santa Barbara’s Presidio Neighborhood and the diverse stories of the families that inhabited the buildings in the neighborhood overtime– including the hundreds of generations of Chumash, the Spanish soldados and their families in the late 1700s, the Mexican era families of the mid-1800s, and the Chinese and Japanese immigrant communities of the late 1800s and early 1900s.
SBTHP’s Director of Programs Danny Tsai introduced the students to the Nihonmachi Revisited exhibit at the Presidio which tells the story of the Japanese American community that inhabited the Presidio Neighborhood in the early 1900s. In 1942, these families were forcibly relocated by the U.S. government to Gila River Internment Camp in Arizona where most of them remained until WWII ended in 1945. Most families did not return to the Presidio Neighborhood. (You can find a virtual version of this exhibit below.)
Virtual exhibits:
Throughout the week, students had the opportunity to explore these virtual tours that highlight the physical and storied history of the Presidio Neighborhood: