Discover the History ofWWII Incarceration
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120,000 Japanese Americans were unjustly incarcerated during World War II. Learn about this unprecedented denial of civil liberties and why it still matters today.
Explore Personal Stories
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Learn about Japanese American history and the legacy of WWII incarceration by exploring personal stories from those who lived through it.
Promote Equity Today
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History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes. Join us in putting the lessons of Japanese American WWII incarceration into action today.
Densho Catalyst: History, Essays, & Opinion
Dive into hidden histories and learn why these stories matter today with the latest essays and opinions from Densho and other community voices.
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Intern Spotlight: Kathryn Perry Walters on How Archives Can Be a Platform for Social Justice Work
Kathryn Perry Walters is a graduate student at the University of Washington pursuing a Master’s in Information and Library Science (MLIS), and recently completed an internship with Densho’s archives team....![The 2024 Japanese American Leadership Delegation with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.](https://densho.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/IMG_9296-1024x683.jpg)
Naomi Ostwald Kawamura: Building Community and Connection that Transcends Borders
In early March, I had the opportunity to be part of the 2024 Japanese American Leadership Delegation (JALD), a program jointly supported by the US-Japan Council and Japan’s Ministry of...![Two Densho staff members at a computer workstation looking at a printed photograph](https://densho.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/densho-legacy2.jpg)
The Densho Legacy Archive Offers a Glimpse into Hard Work and Passion That Built Densho
Densho Project Archivist Will Allen has been helping to create Densho’s Legacy Archive, an archive of Densho’s organizational records since its founding in 1996. Will shares some highlights from this...![](https://densho.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Manzanar-camp-sign-e1701816707115-535x600.png)
Manzanar CloseUp
Welcome to Densho’s newest digital platform, Manzanar CloseUp! An evolution of Densho’s popular Sites of Shame project, Manzanar CloseUp applies similar data extraction and visualization tools to offer a close-up view of Manzanar concentration camp. Users are able to see geographical and population features of the camp with an unprecedented level of detail, including information about camp population down to the individual family and barrack level.
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Upcoming Events
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The Poet and the Silk Girl: A Memoir of Love, Imprisonment, and Protest
IN-PERSON EVENT (recording available after)
Satsuki Ina was born in the Tule Lake Concentration Camp and has dedicated much of her life to helping the Japanese American community heal from WWII incarceration – and to fighting to ensure that no other group is subjected to such harm. Ina will present her moving new memoir, “The Poet and the Silk Girl” (Heyday Books, March 2024), in which she recovers the story of how her parents survived and resisted their incarceration in U.S. concentration camps. Drawing from diary entries, heart-wrenching haiku, censored letters, government documents, and clandestine messages, Ina shares the eyewitness dispatches of Shizuko and her newlywed husband Itaru. Their words, interwoven with the ravel of war and Ina’s own retrospective reflection, afford an intimate view into the experiences of those whose lives were upended, by reason of race alone, by Executive Order 9066. She will be joined in conversation by Tom Ikeda, founding executive director of Densho. Support for this event is provided by 4Culture and the City of Seattle Office of Arts & Culture.
Stay Informed: Join The Mailing List
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Campu: A Podcast
Campu weaves together the voices of survivors to spin narratives out of the seemingly mundane things that gave shape to the incarceration experience: rocks, fences, food, paper. Follow along as hosts Hana and Noah Maruyama move far beyond the standard Japanese American incarceration 101 and into more intimate and lesser-known corners of this history.
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Encyclopedia
Thousands of articles about the history of the Japanese American WWII exclusion and incarceration experience. Here are a few to get you started:
Documentary films/videos on incarceration
The following is an attempt at a comprehensive listing of documentary films/videos that include a significant treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II, broken up into several broad categories.
Scene (magazine)
Japanese American pictorial monthly magazine that ran from 1949 to 1955. Largely produced by and for Nisei, Scene magazine highlighted "successful" Japanese Americans as well as Japanese culture.
Owens Valley (detention facility)
The Owens Valley Reception Center—later the Manzanar Reception Center—was the first of the WCCA -administered short-term detention camps to open when the first "volunteers" from the Los Angeles area arrived on March 21, 1942.