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Minoru Yasui: Celebrating a Legacy of Civil Rights Activism
Minoru “Min” Yasui was one of four Japanese Americans who fought the legality of exclusion and/or detention during World War II all the way to the Supreme Court. While he…
Japanese Americans Incarcerated During WWII Could Still Vote, Kind Of
This article was co-published at PRI.org. During World War II,120,000 Americans of Japanese descent were stripped of their rights and property under the guise of national security. They were packed…
Notable Niseis and Allies Who Would’ve Celebrated Their 100th Birthdays in 2016
By Brian Niiya, Densho Content Director I had intended to contribute to this blog a lot more, and one of the types of pieces I hoped to do were essays on…
Remembering Uncle Bob and Charlie
This weekend, Seattle lost two pioneering figures in the city’s civil rights history, Robert Santos and Charles Z. Smith. Densho Executive Director Tom Ikeda pays tribute to them both. What…
10 Documentaries about Japanese American Incarceration you can Watch Online for Free Right Now
There are now literally a couple of hundred documentary films about some aspect of the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Unfortunately, many of them…
What “Back to School” Looked Like in World War II Concentration Camps
“Nineteen forty-two, how full of events it has been. So many turning points, crisises [sic], days of anxiety and disappointment, yet some happy moments, too. It was like a goodbye to…
Tom Ikeda: “Why Densho Matters to Me”
Twenty years ago when Densho started, I began interviewing Japanese Americans about what it was like being incarcerated during World War II. To help me become a better interviewer I…
Family Detention, Then and Now
As the 2016 election cycle ramps up – with a Republican nominee who has described Mexican immigrants as rapists and drug dealers, and a Democrat who supports deporting child migrants…
Views of Post-WWII Hiroshima: A Japanese American Woman Documents Life in Occupied Japan
Shiuko Sakai was twenty three years old when she decided to join a friend to work for the Department of the Army in Occupied Japan. At the time of this…
Over More than a Hundred Years of Farm Labor History, Japanese and Mexican Americans Have Been Both Allies and Adversaries
Berry season is in full swing, with farmer’s markets and produce departments across the country overflowing with these quintessential summer fruits. But the story isn’t always so sweet for the migrant…
Stranded: Nisei in Japan Before, During, and After World War II
The story of the “strandees”—the period term for Nisei trapped in Japan when passage back to the U.S. was effectively cut off from late 1941 until a year two after…
Dispatch from the Minidoka Pilgrimage: Honoring the Legacy of Hunt High School Principal Jerome T. Light
In this special report from the annual pilgrimage to the site of the Minidoka concentration camp, Dr. Eugene H. Freund writes about a presentation on Hunt High School principal Jerome T. Light….
Photo Essay: Bon Festivals
This weekend, cities along the west coast will hold their annual Bon festivals. Bon Odori communal folk dances are a central part of the bon festival, a Buddhist summer ceremony in which the spirits of…
A “doubly strange and bewildering day:” Views of July 4th From Behind Barbed Wire
Ah, the Fourth of July, that special day when we celebrate the wealthy colonialists and slaveowners who birthed our nation by drinking several tons of “America” and making stuff go…
Common Myths of WWII Incarceration: “More Than Half Were Children”
The surge of children’s books, school curricula, films, websites, plays, and exhibitions about the wartime forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans has, for the most part, been a good thing….
Do You Have a Relative Who Was Interviewed by Densho?
Twenty years ago, we set out with the goal of recording and preserving stories of World War II incarceration so that future generations could learn from them. That mission is…
On Yuri Kochiyama’s 95th Birthday, 5 Enduring Quotes to Celebrate With
Happy birthday, Yuri! Yuri Kochiyama, who passed away in 2014, would have celebrated her 95th birthday today. (I’d like to imagine the K-Bears are throwing her a party somewhere, but…
Teaching with Primary Sources: Summer 2016 Demonstration Project
We are pleased to announce that we will be launching a new and improved version of our online course later this summer! Watch this space for an announcement in the coming…
Rooted in Japanese American Concentration Camps, “Model Minority” became Code for Anti-Black
By now most of us have heard the news: former NYPD officer Peter Liang will serve no jail time for killing Akai Gurley. Liang was found guilty of second-degree manslaughter…
Photo Essay: A Tribute to Japanese American Migrant Workers
May Day is known the world over as a day of worker protest and rebellion. After the bloody Haymarket Riots of 1886, the May 1 holiday became so notorious for its…
How One Woman Shaped the Collective Memory of Japanese American Removal
In the late spring of 1942, The Andrews Sisters’ jaunty Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree was on its steady rise to the top of the charts; the “taut and poignant” romance This Above…
Book Review: “Relocating Authority” with the Written Word
Densho Content Director Brian Niiya reviews Relocating Authority: Japanese Americans Writing to Redress Mass Incarceration by Mira Shimabukuro (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2015). Join the author and Densho Director Tom Ikeda…
Sign up for the May 2016 Densho Digital Teach-In
Far too many Americans are completing primary, secondary, and even college education without learning about a critical moment in our shared history: the World War II mass incarceration of 120,000…
Baseball in American Concentration Camps: History, Photos, and Reading Recommendations
Baseball season is here again! This favorite of American sports was also a popular pastime in Japanese American concentration camps. Here we delve into that history through an excerpt from…