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Iron Fences and Pepper Pods: Four Poets at Tule Lake and their Stories
Shootings by guards, martial law, divided loyalties among families, intra-camp conflicts and antagonistic administrators, and mass renunciations of U.S. citizenship all contributed to making Tule Lake—initially one of ten War…
Horse Stall Housing, Spoiled Ham, and Other Stories of Life in Tanforan
The second largest of the so-called “assembly centers” with a peak population of 7,816, Tanforan was built on the site of the Tanforan Racetrack in San Bruno, California, near the…
Four Nisei Jazz Stars You’ve Probably Never Heard Of
As the music genre that defined the United States for the first half of the 20th century, jazz had a deep impact on Japanese Americans. For many Nisei, music served…
Photo Essay: 2022 Heart Mountain Pilgrimage
Several Densho staff members were honored to be among the attendees of the 2022 Heart Mountain Pilgrimage this past weekend. This was Heart Mountain’s first major on-site pilgrimage since the…
The Japanese American History Books Your Little One Needs in Their Library
Given the many books on the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II aimed at teenage audiences, it is a bit surprising that there are relatively…
Archives Spotlight: The Miwa Family’s Transnational WWII Journey
The James Seigo Miwa Family Collection is a new and fascinating addition to the Densho Digital Repository. It includes family photos and documents relating to Miwa’s detainment as an “enemy…
Hey Muskego-Norway School Board, Your White Fragility is Showing
Julie Otsuka’s novel, When the Emperor Was Divine, has received numerous distinctions: an Alex Award from the American Library Association; a Literature Award from the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association, and…
A Peek at Densho’s First Graphic Novel by Molly Murakami
We’re excited to share a new graphic novel by 2021 Densho artist-in-residence Molly Murakami! Tide Goes Out takes an intimate look at the lesser-known history of Terminal Island, a Japanese…
“Show Me The Way To Go to Home”: Photo Essay by Sandy Sugawara
Three years ago, Sansei journalist and photographer Sandy Sugawara set out to visit each of the War Relocation Authority camps where Japanese Americans, including her parents and grandparents, were incarcerated…
A Japanese Picture Bride in Montana: The Story of Aya Hori Masuoka
In this guest post, Kathryn Tolbert, creator of the oral history archive The War Bride Project, shines some light on the experiences of Japanese immigrant women in Montana through the…
Meet Densho’s 2022 Artists-in-Residence
We’re delighted to introduce Densho’s 2022 Artist-in-Residence cohort! This year’s call for artists garnered more submissions than ever before and it was incredible to see all the creative ways y’all…
Book Review: Beyond the Betrayal
Yoshito “Yosh” Kuromiya is best known as one of the sixty-three men from Heart Mountain convicted in 1944 for refusing to report for induction in the largest mass trial in…
We Need Critical Race Theory in our Schools Now More Than Ever
Here at Densho we talk a lot about the importance of preserving the history of WWII Japanese American incarceration. But we are well aware that this one moment in history…
A New Chapter for Densho Fund Development Manager Danielle Higa
We’re sharing the bittersweet news that Densho Fund Development Manager Danielle Higa is taking on a new role as a Senior Associate at the Nonprofit Professionals Advisory Group. While we’re…
Remembering Norm Mineta
We mourn the passing of Secretary Norm Mineta. Densho Director Tom Ikeda remembers him for his impressive political career, as an important member of the Japanese American community, and as…
Eugenie Clark Swam with Sharks and Blazed a Path for Women in Science
Famed marine biologist Eugenie Clark, or “Genie” as she was known to friends and family, was born in New York City on May 4, 1922. Her father, Charles Clark, died…
The Unsolvable Mystery of “That Damned Fence”
The barbed wire fence is an enduring symbol of the WWII incarceration of Japanese Americans. As Hana and Noah Maruyama point out in Episode Three of the Campu podcast, the…
How Japanese Americans Fought to Make Sure We Never Forget Manzanar’s History
This National Park Week, we want to uplift the story of how Manzanar became the first of the US concentration camps where Japanese Americans were incarcerated during WWII to become…
Photo Essay: Japanese Peruvian Lives Before World War II
During World War II, the United States colluded with several Central and South American nations to imprison some 2,200 Japanese Latin Americans on US soil. The majority—nearly 1,800—were abducted from…
Japanese American Literature Traces Changing Relationships between Nikkei and African Americans Over Time
Co-authored by Brian Niiya and Greg Robinson In our many combined years of doing research on Japanese American history and literature, we each noted a striking fact with regard to…
Densho 2022 Artist Residency Program: Call for Proposals
Densho’s 2022 artist program theme, Answering the Archive, pulls focus on the individual and collective responses that archival materials elicit, and on the actions they call upon us to take….
Lane Tomosumi Shigihara: “Vocal Young Woman”
In this final piece from our 2022 Women’s History Month writing challenge, gosei poet Lane Tomosumi Shigihara shares a haiku inspired by his grandmother’s courage in standing up for her…
Patricia Wakida: “Four Suns, These Issei Women”
The latest addition to our Women’s History Month writing challenge comes from yonsei artist, writer and community historian Patricia Wakida, who shares a photo from her great-grandmother’s 88th birthday and…
Tell Congress to Pass the Japanese American Confinement Education Act
Over the past fifteen years, the Japanese American Confinement Sites (JACS) federal grant program has funded 268 projects increasing public knowledge about Japanese American WWII incarceration. But that funding is…