Densho Blog

The Muslim Ban Is Racial Profiling—And We’ve Seen It Before

On October 10, the Supreme Court will hear two cases contesting President Trump’s Executive Order 13780, which threatens to ban travel to the U.S. from six Muslim-majority countries and halt refugee admissions altogether. As the children of Gordon Hirabayashi, Fred Korematsu and Min Yasui point out in an amicus brief filed earlier this week, the government’s defense follows a familiar pattern—pitting immigrants against “real” Americans, raising the specter of a national security crisis, and claiming the courts (and the rest of us peasants) have no right to “second-guess” such important presidential decisions.

So How Many Assembly Centers Were There Anyway?

Relative to what we know about the concentration camps run by the War Relocation Authority (WRA), we know little about their predecessors, the so-called “assembly centers” run by the Wartime Civil Control Administration (WCCA) that served as temporary holding centers in the spring and summer of 1942 while the WRA camps were being constructed. There is no academic monograph specifically on them, and though we know a fair amount about some of them, there is practically nothing on some of the smaller ones.

Photo Essay: Fairground Detention Facilities

Fairgrounds in Fresno, Merced, Pomona, Puyallup, Salinas, Stockton, Tulare, and Turlock have a dark common history. Seventy five years ago, they served as sites for the temporary detention of Japanese American men, women, and children. The fairground detention sites mostly housed Japanese Americans from rural areas and were part of a larger network of assembly centers run by the Wartime Civil Control Administration (WCCA). They were quickly transformed into prisons intended to hold detainees while more permanent concentration camps were being readied in desolate spots across the country. But even in their impermanence, fairground detention facilities hold painful and enduring memories for many Japanese Americans.

As We Fight for DACA, We Must Remember These Four Things

This week, President Trump turned the futures of 800,000 young immigrants, many of whom know no life outside the U.S., into gambling chips in a toxic political climate. Aside from being unquestionably cruel, a lawsuit filed by 15 state attorney generals on Wednesday alleges that the administration’s actions were motivated by racial bias and that they violate the due process rights of DACA recipients. We’ve got a long battle ahead, folks, and there are a few crucial things to remember as we wage that battle. 

Strikers, Scabs, and Sugar Mongers: How Immigrant Labor Struggle Shaped the Hawai‘i We Know Today

Hawai‘i is touted as a multicultural paradise, but the history of the sugar industry in this occupied Native land tells us otherwise. The industry played a central role in the making of modern Hawai‘i, but it was built on the backs of hundreds of thousands of laborers who toiled in the sugarcane fields owned by the haole (white) elite. While capitalist exploitation plays a central role in contemporary Hawaii’s foundation story, so too do tales of worker resistance.

Picturing Incarceration: The WWII Sketches and Paintings of Kango Takamura

Photographs and moving images of World War II incarceration have helped keep memories of that era alive for decades. But since cameras were largely forbidden inside the camps, few images from the point of view of prisoners exist. Though not permitted to take photos, Kango Takamura documented his wartime experience at Santa Fe and, later, Manzanar through expert sketches and watercolors. Like the better-known works of Mine Okubo, Takamura depicted camp life with a keen and sometimes darkly humorous eye. 

What Both Sides Get Wrong On ‘Muslim Internment Camps’

In the wake of the horrific terror attacks in Manchester and London, calls for “rounding up” Muslims in WWII-style “internment camps” are once again rearing their ugly head. Thankfully, these calls have largely been met with resistance and outright condemnation. But supporters and opponents have one thing in common: they’re both conflating internment camps with concentration camps, and that’s a problem.

Book Review: Honor Before Glory

The world is seemingly filled with media about the exploits of the Nisei soldiers during World War II. While it is certainly true that there are still many out there who don’t know the story—nor the story of the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans—it is reasonable to ask whether another book on the 442nd Regimental Combat Team is worth reading for those of us who do know the story. Count me as definitely skeptical going in.

25 Times Gidra Was Goddamn Glorious

From 1969 to 1974, Gidra, the unofficial voice of “the Movement,” chronicled changing tides and unfolding dramas within the Asian American community. Taking its name from a giant three-headed dragon out of Japanese monster movies of the 1960s, Gidra helped define the terms of the Asian American Movement and covered, among many other topics, the fight for ethnic studies on college campuses, activism against gentrification and urban renewal, the Vietnam War, and other anti-imperialist movements in Okinawa, the Philippines and Korea. Each issue also featured a healthy dose of art, poetry, and self-deprecating humor—as well as some serious fashion statements.

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