Virginia Department of Historic Resources
(dhr.virginia.gov)
For Immediate Release
January 2026

Contact:
Ivy Tan
Department of Historic Resources
Marketing & Communications Manager
ivy.tan@dhr.virginia.gov
804-482-6445

Virginia Awarded $75k by NPS to Recognize Historic Sites Associated with Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders

—The Department of Historic Resources (DHR) will use the funds to survey historic properties linked to Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Virginia in the 20th century and to nominate a property or district for listing on the National Register of Historic Places—

RICHMOND – For the second consecutive year in a row, the Commonwealth of Virginia has been awarded $75,000 in grant funds through the National Park Service’s (NPS) Underrepresented Communities Grant Program. The funds will be used to support the documentation of historic sites associated with Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Virginia. Project deliverables will include survey records for up to 75 properties associated with Asian American and Pacific Islanders in Virginia as well as a National Register of Historic Places nomination for Eden Center, a shopping center in the City of Falls Church significant to the Vietnamese American population in Northern Virginia.

DHR will administer the funds and oversee the project, which will help meet an agency objective to increase the number of Virginia properties significant to minority, underrepresented, tribal, and diverse communities listed in the National Register of Historic Places, as outlined in Virginia's Comprehensive Historic Preservation Plan, 2022-2027.

This project is not DHR’s first initiative to boost the number of Virginia properties connected to underrepresented communities in the National Register of Historic Places. Previously, DHR used the funds from the NPS 2023 Underrepresented Communities Grant Program to produce a statewide historic context report, known as a Multiple Property Document (MPD), for African American schools in Virginia that operated from the end of the Civil War to the era of school desegregation. That project entailed extending research efforts beyond the Rosenwald Fund era to address African American schools built from approximately 1870 to 1965 that used a variety of funding sources.

It is anticipated that the results of the current effort made possible by the NPS 2024 Underrepresented Communities Grant Program will help broaden the public’s understanding of the histories of Asian American and Pacific Islander communities in 20th-century Virginia.

Opportunities to learn more about the project and share feedback will be published on DHR’s website and social media channels in the near future. For specific questions about the project, please email Amanda Terrell at Amanda.Terrell@dhr.virginia.gov.

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