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Visionary Sculptress Ruth Asawa
Ruth Asawa is best known for her wizardry in weaving copper wire into enchanting, diaphanous forms. Her work, once at the vanguard of modernist sculpture, is still widely celebrated. This month, Asawa’s gossamer creations…
Mitsuye Endo: The Woman Behind the Landmark Supreme Court Case
Mitsuye Endo was a plaintiff in the landmark lawsuit that ultimately led to the closing of the concentration camps and the return of Japanese Americans to the West Coast in…
Remembering Don Nakanishi
By Brian Niiya, Densho Content Director We’ve lost one of the pioneering figures in Asian American studies with the passing of Don Nakanishi yesterday at age 66.
Memories of Toshiko Takaezu
Toshiko Takaezu (1922-2011) was one of America’s foremost ceramic artists and a highly regarded teacher of ceramics. She was credited with being one of the key figures in the mid-century…
5 Bad Ass Japanese American Women Activists You Probably Didn’t Learn About in History Class
Since history tends to sideline the central role so many women played in the major social movements of the 20th century, here’s a little herstory lesson about five women warriors…
Japanese American Women’s Lives in the Camps and Beyond
Citizen 13660, Farewell to Manzanar, and Nisei Daughter, are perhaps the most widely known accounts of wartime incarceration by women, but there are many less widely known works that also…
Letter from “Camp Harmony”: Kikuye Masuda Struggles to Adjust to Life at Puyallup
Hundreds of handwritten letters in the Densho archives provide an intimate view of the turmoil experienced by individuals during World War II incarceration. These letters add a human dimension to the incarceration…
Intersections of Black and Japanese American History: From Bronzeville to Black Lives Matter
During World War II, Black and Japanese American fates crossed in ways that neither group could have anticipated. While Japanese Americans were being forced to abandon the lives they’d built…
2016 Day of Remembrance Events
When the first Day of Remembrance was held in Seattle in November 1978, the event was staged as part of the Redress Movement seeking an official apology and monetary compensation for…
Densho Teach-In
[Update, March 14, 2016: Due to the overwhelming popularity of our first Digital Teach-In, we’ve scheduled a second one to be held May 1-6, 2016. Sign up here and please…
The Enduring Legacy of Fred Korematsu
Challenger of World War II exclusion and confinement, Fred Toyosaburo Korematsu (1919-2005) dedicated his life to the civil rights crusade that would eventually earn him a Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Book Review: New Takes on the Japanese American Experience in WWII-Era Hawaii
Given the drama of mass forced removal and incarceration, it is no surprise that scholars have paid much more attention to the story of Japanese Americans on the continental U.S….
Racism by Definition: Challenging the Use of Racial Epithets in Online Dictionaries
“Jap.” It’s a violent racial slur that has long since fallen out of use. Or so we thought.
Shosuke Sasaki’s 20-Year Battle to Eradicate “Jap” from Print Media
In the 1950s, Shosuke Sasaki launched a campaign to have the word “Jap” re-classed as a racial slur and eliminated from print media. He would continue that work for the better part of the…
Japanese American Scouting Traditions: A Brief History and Photo Essay
The intersections between Japanese American history and scouting traditions run deep; two national news stories have called attention to that history in recent weeks.
Ikeda Family Photo Album
In this guest post, Densho intern Odette Allen traces the story of one family through photos collected in family albums.
Gidra: Now Available Online
By Brian Niiya, Densho Content Director During its 1969 to 1974 run, Gidra chronicled the dramatic changes in the Asian American community, and was itself a catalyst for many of these…
Call to Action: Four Ways You can Help Increase Awareness of Japanese American WWII Incarceration
Who would have thought that as 2015 came to a close, we’d be debating World War II incarceration again? First it was Mayor David Bowers’ ill-advised invocation of Japanese American…
Washington State Grant Opportunity
Last week, the state of Washington announced the opening of a competitive grant cycle under the restored and renamed Kip Tokuda Memorial Washington Civil Liberties Public Education Program. This is…
Open Letter to Donald Trump: To “Make America Great Again,” We Must Learn from the Mistakes of our Past
Mr. Trump: Your call to put a moratorium on all Muslim immigration to the United States made it all too clear that a dark part of the American past is haunting us…
Sumi Asaba, Seattle 1942
In this guest post, Densho intern Alaria Sacco reflects on the photograph of a young girl with her kitten taken in April 1942, shortly before the child and her family were incarcerated for…
Scheduled Maintenance on Densho Sites
**Update, 12/15/15, 4:10 PST: The Densho Repository and Encyclopedia are up and running. The site is now fully operational. **Update, 12/15/15, 12:51 PST: The Densho Archive is now up and…
Mae Kanazawa Hara and the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair
In this guest post, Sara Beckman demonstrates how pairing oral history with archival materials can lead to rich discoveries about the past. This is the first of three reflections from interns working…
“Uprooting Community”: New Book Examines the WWII Mass Incarceration of Japanese Mexicans
In her new book, Uprooting Community, Selfa A. Chew examines the lived experience of Japanese Mexicans in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands during World War II. Chew illuminates U.S.-backed efforts of the Mexican government to…