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Protecting Immigrant Students (Part I): What Japanese American Incarceration Teaches Us About Educator Responsibility
In this two-part series, Densho’s Education and Public Programs Manager, Courtney Wai, reflects on how her experiences as a classroom teacher working with immigrant students shaped her understanding of immigration…
Protecting Immigrant Students (Part II): Resources and Strategies for Creating Safer Classrooms
This piece concludes our two-part series on how educators can support immigrant students. In the first installment, Courtney Wai, Densho’s Education & Public Programs Manager, shares how her experience teaching and…
Japanese American Community Excitement and Opinions about Rachel Maddow’s “Burn Order”
In this collaborative post, Japanese American community members and organizers reflect on the impact, value, and effects of the MS NOW podcast Rachel Maddow Presents: Burn Order. The podcast, released…
A Minidoka Descendant Speaks Out to Say Our History Won’t Be Erased
On August 23, people across the country came together for a day of action to Protect Every Park, standing united against attempts to erase marginalized histories like Japanese American WWII…
A Poston Survivor Speaks Out To Say “Stop Repeating History!”
Last month, we joined a special gathering of the Seattle Japanese American community hosted by Tsuru for Solidarity. Around 150 people came together to reflect on the connections between the…
Justifying the Unjustifiable: Why Japanese Americans Must Stand with Palestine
Guest opinion essay by Maggie Tokuda-Hall. Densho publishes guest opinion essays that draw meaningful connections between the incarceration story and the present, and that promote equity and justice today. Learn…
This Election Day, Asian Americans must refuse assimilation and loudly dream of a world that serves us all
Guest post by Miya Sommers On December 8, 1941, the day after Pearl Harbor, Tatsuro Matsuda commissioned and installed the famous “I AM AN AMERICAN” sign on his family business…
The Karma of Becoming American
In this guest post, scholar and Soto Zen Buddhist priest Duncan Ryūken Williams reflects on celebrating his first 4th of July as an American citizen in the midst of a…
Why Japanese Americans Should Join the Fight for Abolition
Guest post by Sara Onitsuka The last few weeks of protest, sparked by the murder of George Floyd and rising out of 400+ years of slavery, genocide, and other white…
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…
My Kimono is Not Your Couture
Items called “kimono” are having a moment in the fashion world. But as guest blogger Emi Ito points out, this trend revolves around appropriation and erasure of histories that are…
