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Immigration Bans are Object Lessons in Weaponized White Fears
The Immigration Act of 1924 created a national origins quota for the first time in U.S. history, and a complete and total ban on Japanese immigration. Building on a half-century…
SANSEI: On Being Japanese American in a Time of Crisis
This guest post is adapted from a speech delivered by Stanley N. Shikuma at the 2019 Day of Remembrance Taiko Fundraiser organized by the Minidoka Pilgrimage Planning Committee and co-sponsored…
Yamamoto is an American Name Too
A middle school renaming process in Palo Alto, California has kicked up some of the same xenophobic dust that clouded public understandings about Japanese American complicity in the attack on…
The Last Alien Land Law
Most of the discriminatory laws passed during the early 20th century to discourage Japanese immigrants from settling permanently in the United States have been repealed—but did you know that there…
Tule Lake Pilgrimage, 1974
In this American Archives Month guest post, Densho Digital Archivist Caitlin Oiye Coon looks at a recently published collection of photos by Gerald Kajitani. The photos document the second pilgrimage…
The Muslim Ban Is Racial Profiling—And We’ve Seen It Before
On October 10, the Supreme Court will hear two cases contesting President Trump’s Executive Order 13780, which threatens to ban travel to the U.S. from six Muslim-majority countries and halt…
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…
What Both Sides Get Wrong On ‘Muslim Internment Camps’
In the wake of the horrific terror attacks in Manchester and London, calls for “rounding up” Muslims in WWII-style “internment camps” are once again rearing their ugly head. Thankfully, these…
Immigrants Do Not Need to Prove Themselves Worthy of Inclusion
2017 is shaping up to be a rough year for immigrants—which is saying a lot, considering that building a new life in a new country is, by definition, pretty damn…
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…
“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,…
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…
“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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.