All Posts
View Other Categories
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…
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…
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…
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…
Resistance and Resilience in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District
The Chinatown-International District has been the center of Seattle’s Asian and Asian American community life for more than a century. But the region is defined as much by protest and resistance as…
Sold, Damaged, Stolen, Gone: Japanese American Property Loss During WWII
Imagine being told you had a week to pack up all your belongings. You can bring all the bedding, clothing, and toiletries you can carry, but you better find a…
Yonsei Woman Takes (Digital) Pen to Paper in her Support for Black Lives
Sara Onitsuka is a 20-year-old junior at The College of Wooster. She’s also a yonsei whose grandparents and great grandparents were incarcerated during World War II. She never spoke to…
Wall Street Journal: Art Review Meets Incarceration Apologism
In his latest foray into historical revisionism parading as art review, Edward Rothstein, writing for The Wall Street Journal, would like viewers of two exhibits on Japanese American WWII incarceration…
Little Known Stories of Japanese Americans Who Resisted Incarceration
Stories of resistance to World War II incarceration often include Gordon Hirabayashi, Minoru Yasui, Fred Korematsu, and Mitsuye Endo. These are the most famous Japanese Americans who resisted the racially…
“Never Again” Event Livestream
Join us as we examine World War II-era Japanese American incarceration history and how it relates to American Muslim rights today. Presenters include Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, Densho director Tom Ikeda,…
Allegiance: See the Film, But Watch for these Historical Inaccuracies
By now most of us know that Allegiance, a musical portraying the Japanese American incarceration and that starred George Takei, ran on Broadway for a few months in 2015–16. And…
Teacher Workshop: Examining Race and Discrimination
Looking to register for our May 18 Seattle Workshop? Follow this link: bit.ly/Densho-TW-RD201905 This spring, Densho is hitting the road with a new workshop for secondary teachers. Educators in Seattle,…
This is Not a Test
Statement from Densho Director Tom Ikeda For decades, “Never Again” has been a rallying cry for many Japanese Americans. Invoking these words reminds us of the trauma of our own…
We Need to Talk About the Katy Perry PSA
“Don’t let history repeat itself,” implores a widely-shared and well-received PSA published by pop star Katy Perry this week. The film short, funded by Perry and directed by Aya Tanimura…
Support for Muslim Association of Puget Sound
Earlier this month, community leaders, including Densho director Tom Ikeda, gathered at Redmond’s Muslim Association of Puget Sound (MAPS) mosque to dedicate a new sign, replacing one that had been…
What The LA Times Meant to Say…
On Sunday, The Los Angeles Times published two reader letters that employed racial stereotypes, misinformation, and logical fallacies to argue in favor of the World War II-era mass incarceration of…
What Pearl Harbor Meant for Japanese Americans
On December 7, 1941, the Japanese navy launched a surprise military attack against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor located on the island of O’ahu. The attack not…
“Democracy is for the Unafraid”
As a chronicler of American race relations, writer Chester B. Himes was deeply impacted by the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans. In his 1945 debut novel, “If He Hollers Let…
Japanese American WWII Incarceration: Not a Precedent for Proposed Muslim Registry
It’s been a week since Carl Higbie came under fire for citing Japanese American incarceration as a precedent for Donald Trump’s proposed Muslim registry. Densho staffers joined the chorus of voices…
The Lessons of WWII Japanese American Incarceration are Needed Now More than Ever
Throughout this year of 20th anniversary celebrations, we have been invigorated by the accolades and warmth we felt from our community. But we know we have a lot of work to…
In the wake of the presidential election, let’s be upstanders not bystanders
We are deeply concerned about the state of our nation. In the aftermath of the presidential election, there has been a spike in hate crimes against people of color, Muslim…
Nisei Veterans of World War II: Photo Essay and Resource List
“No loyal citizen of the United States should be denied the democratic right to exercise the responsibilities of his citizenship, regardless of his ancestry….Americanism is not, and never was, a…
Exiled: The Anti-Immigrant Roots of Mass Deportation in Mexican and Japanese American Repatriation
Following a blueprint laid out by the Depression-era Mexican Repatriation, Japanese Americans were subjected to deportation during WWII as a punitive measure for their supposed disloyalty. This practice has been…
Densho’s First Annual Scholars Roundtable
This weekend, a group of scholars working on World War II Japanese American incarceration history convened in Seattle for a roundtable event hosted by Densho and co-convened by Eric Muller,…