Category: misperceptions
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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…
It’s Time to Retire WWII-Era Euphemisms for Japanese American Incarceration
It seems like more people are talking about Japanese American history than ever before. As it’s become increasingly relevant to our country’s current political moment, the Japanese American story has…
So How Many Assembly Centers Were There Anyway?
Relative to what we know about the concentration camps run by the War Relocation Authority (WRA), we know little about their predecessors, the so-called “assembly centers” run by the Wartime…
The Niʻihau Incident: Déjà vu All Over Again
A new film based on the Niʻihau Incident is stirring up anger over its misrepresentations of Hawaiian and Japanese American history. Densho Content Director Brian Niiya breaks down what the…
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….