A grassroots organization dedicated to preserving, educating, and sharing the story of World War II-era incarceration of Japanese Americans in order to deepen understandings of American history and inspire action for equity.
A comprehensive reference tool with nearly 1,000 free and accessible entries related to the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans.
Oral history interviews, photos, newspapers, and other primary sources that document the Japanese American experience from immigration through redress with a strong focus on the World War II mass incarceration.
Online education center featuring multidisciplinary curriculum, instructional guides, and primary source material that allow teachers and students to connect with the lived experiences of Japanese Americans.
Learn the basics about World War II Japanese American incarceration through a series of short videos and essays.
Lily Hioki recalls seeing works of art made by incarcerees when she visited Heart Mountain concentration camp.
Stay connected with Densho through regular posts, guest contributions, and photo essays that put our work and the story of WWII incarceration in conversation with current events.
The rescue of the “Lost Battalion” holds a near-mythical place in Japanese American history. Over the years, dozens (if not hundreds) of films, novels, memoirs, history texts, exhibitions, and even children’s books have told some variation of the story. The impressive record of the 100th Infantry Battalion/442nd Regimental Combat Team—and this famous battle in particular—is widely credited with improving public perception of Japanese Americans in the years following World War II. As President Truman told members of the 442nd at the White House in July 1946, “You fought the enemy abroad and prejudice at home and you won.”
Guest post by Miya Sommers
On December 8, 1941, the day after Pearl Harbor, Tatsuro Matsuda commissioned and installed the famous “I AM AN AMERICAN” sign on his family business in Oakland, California. But despite these attempts to reinforce their “Americanness,” the Matsudas were forced to close Wanto Co. just a few months later, when they were incarcerated along with 120,000 other Japanese Americans following Executive Order 9066. The now iconic Dorothea Lange photograph of that sign is a painful reminder of the systemic racism Japanese Americans experienced, even as many tried so hard to prove they were “American”—so I’m baffled to see some Asian Americans “reclaiming” Matsuda’s plea for survival as a #GetOutTheVote slogan today.
Historical accounts of Japanese American incarceration often pay far more attention to the beginning than the end. But the scenes of camp officials hustling bewildered inmates onto trains in late 1945 bear a striking resemblance to the forced removal from the West Coast just three years earlier. Michi Weglyn colorfully described this time as “an incredible mass evacuation in reverse.” Minidoka, Densho’s “home camp,” closed on October 23, 1945. The story of those final days is as ironic as it is tragic, and was typical of what took place in each of the remaining WRA concentration camps.[1]
T. K. Pharmacy was one of few Japanese American businesses that remained open during World War II. Operating out of Denver—outside the so-called “exclusion zone”—it offered a lifeline to Japanese Americans in Topaz, Heart Mountain, Gila River, and other camps by fulfilling requests for hard-to-come-by items like arts supplies and medicine. But the fact that this collection was preserved at all was a lucky accident.
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