This post is part of our Internship Spotlight series. For this installment, Karino Wada (’26) tells us about her internship experience at Asian & Pacific Islander Americans in Historic Preservation.
Can you provide a brief introduction of yourself, what you did, and what you were looking to accomplish with this specific internship opportunity? Additionally, what did you bring to the table that your host site was looking for?
My name is Karino Wada, in the Museology 2026 cohort. I was APIAHiP’s 2026 Historic Preservation Intern, and the goals of our project was to: 1. Document the history of Japanese American heritage sites in the White River Valley, and 2. To encourage and educate about preservation efforts to these sites. For this project, I used HistoryPin, an online web archive that overlays images provided by the Japanese American community over specifically located geographic sites on Google Maps, while providing open-source materials and summaries. The parameters of this project was to find 15 sites, but we ended up examining 15 more for this project. You can find the project on HistoryPin.
Additionally, I developed my own blogpost and project, a stamp book, to encourage site visitation in a fun and engaging way! This stamp book contains a collaborative poster with Chinese-Japanese American local artist, Kela Wong and space to receive stamps that were distributed to 4 locations of Japanese American heritage: the Kent Historical Museum, the Neely Mansion, the White River Valley Buddhist Temple, and the Puyallup JACL Remembrance Gallery. These materials can be found in a 4Culture blogpost.
What did it mean for you to have the opportunity to publicly share the work you accomplished during your internship?
Sharing with the White River Valley Buddhist Temple was an honor- presenting this work was a reflection of their work, history, and experiences culminating into a way and time to celebrate the community as well as a concrete method for the community to continually work on preserving their history. Without their continuous efforts to share and preserve their images, this project would not have come to life. As an intern, this opportunity was one of deep respect.
In what ways did your internship unexpectedly challenge you? How did you overcome that? 
This project challenged me by presenting to me with a problem; how can a community without a specialized institution work to preserve a history that is quickly physically disappearing? Many of the buildings and places of history were long replaced with parking lots, new buildings, or empty farm fields. Additionally, some of the historical sources were sometimes limited or nonexistent- referring directly to the Japanese American community was crucial to overcoming this lack of information at times.
What professional skills do you feel you developed through preparing and delivering this presentation?
In preparing and delivering this presentation, I relied very strongly on the fact that this work was never of my own accord- without the guidance of the Asian and Pacfic Islanders in Historic Preservation, 4Culture, and of course, the Japanese American communities in the White River Valley, this project and presentation would not have been possible. By presenting to this community, I only worked to thoroughly emphasize and celebrate their history while understanding the price of their experience and to educate about the work to be done into the future: how can the JA community continue their efforts to preserve and vocalize their painful, yet resilient history? Seeking to answer this question and honor their efforts, I prepared to deliver this presentation by understanding my audience.