All Posts
View Other Categories
Anti-Refugee Rhetoric and Justifications for WWII-Era Mass Incarceration: Is History Repeating Itself?
In the aftermath of last week’s tragic events in Paris, we have been saddened to watch as leaders across the world have turned to vitriolic xenophobia in their discussions of the Syrian…
A Response to Mayor David A. Bowers
Today, David A. Bowers, mayor of Roanoke, Virginia, issued a statement that favorably invoked World War II incarceration as justification for his city’s opposition to accepting Syrian refugees.
Gila River Concentration Camp: Intersecting Japanese American and Indigenous Histories
Until his death earlier this year, Mas Inoshita made it his duty to regularly travel to a remote part of the Arizona desert to tend to a stark monument, a…
Winter Appeal 2015
This past summer we hosted Kyle Tanemura as an intern at Densho. Kyle is a bright and affable young man–a computer science major at Cal Poly. He made important contributions…
Allegiance: A Message from Densho Executive Director Tom Ikeda
Japanese American history gained a new national audience this past weekend: Allegiance, a dramatic reenactment of World War II incarceration set at the Heart Mountain concentration camp, opened on Broadway.
Minidoka Concentration Camp: Looking Back 70 Years Later
The Minidoka concentration camp was located in a remote portion of South Central Idaho’s Snake River Plain and housed approximately 13,000 Japanese Americans during World War II. It closed seventy years…
Book Review: Allegiance
Allegiance: A Novel by Kermit Roosevelt (Simon & Schuster, 2015) Book review by Brian Niiya, Densho Content Director Kermit Roosevelt’s Allegiance is an engaging historical mystery novel set during World…
Photography, Family History, and the Search for Missing Incarcerees: A Q&A with Paul Kitagaki, Jr.
Photographer Paul Kitagaki, Jr.first learned about his family’s World War II-era incarceration in a high school history class in 1970. Later, as a young photojournalist in San Francisco he discovered that one of…
Book Review: The Sun Gods
The Sun Gods by Jay Rubin (Chin Music Press, $15.00) Book review by Brian Niiya, Densho Content Director Set largely in Seattle, Japanese literary scholar and translator Jay Rubin’s The Sun Gods…
Student Uncovers Family History during Densho Internship
Over the summer, we welcomed Kyle Tanemura as an intern at Densho. Kyle, a junior at California Polytechnic State University majoring in computer sciences, made important contributions to Densho, particularly in…
Fall Harvest in Japanese American Concentration Camps
Even in urban Seattle, it’s hard to avoid the signs of fall harvest time: haystacks and pumpkins are cropping up in the parking lots of local grocery stores; scarecrows keep lookout over…
Intersections: Hispanic and Japanese American History
While the incarceration of people of Japanese descent throughout Latin America has been the focus of a number of studies, little has been written about interactions between Hispanic and Japanese American communities in…
Honouliuli Internment Camp: The Path to Becoming a National Park Service Unit
Earlier this month, the National Park Service (NPS) released the Honouliuli Gulch and Associated Sites Special Resource Study, which recommends that the former internment camp site on the Hawaiian island of O’ahu be designated a…
Densho Encyclopedia Reaches a Milestone
The Densho Encyclopedia published its 1,000th article this month—a milestone made possible, in part, by a grant from the Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Japanese American Confinement Sites…
Photo Essay: Colorado’s Amache Concentration Camp
On August 27, 1942 the Amache concentration camp opened its doors to thousands of Japanese Americans who had been uprooted from their lives in California and transported to the remote,…
Voices from Heart Mountain
This week, the annual Heart Mountain Pilgrimage will draw visitors to rural Wyoming, where they will pay tribute to the more than 14,000 Japanese Americans from California, Washington, and Oregon…
Segregated Swimming: Oral Histories of Japanese Americans and Public Pools
With the end of summer looming on the horizon, people everywhere are savoring the season’s final days of poolside leisure: seeking the refuge of cool water on a hot afternoon,…
Hiroshima and the Japanese American Hibakusha
In recognition of the 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, people across the globe are commemorating the lives lost and impacted by this tragedy. The anniversary also provides an opportunity…
New Partner Collection: Frank C. Hirahara Photographs from the Oregon Nikkei Endowment
Photo Caption: O.N.E. volunteer Betty Jean Harry working with Portland area Nisei at the Oregon Buddhist Temple as they help identify photos from the Frank C. Hirahara Collection. Photo Courtesy…
Celebrating Mary Tsukamoto on her 100th Birthday
On what would have been Mary Tsukamoto’s 100th birthday, we take a moment to honor a woman who showed incredible resilience and leadership despite suffering poverty, poor health, and the…
Introducing the New Densho Website!
We are delighted to unveil Densho’s latest digital asset: a wonderful new website that we are certain you’ll find to be simpler and easier to navigate than our last site….
Summer Appeal 2015
Become part of a grassroots, community effort to keep the stories of Japanese Americans and their experiences during World War II alive, today and in the future…
Eight Essential Japanese American History Books for Young Readers
Jan Kamiya, a young adult librarian in the Hawaii State Public Library System and regular contributor to the Densho Encyclopedia, recommends eight essential books about Japanese American WWII incarceration that…
Digitization Project Internships
Densho is seeking two to three interns to support our Digitizing Photos for Japanese American Oral Histories Project.