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A photomontage created by Dean K. Terasaki from two images. One is a detail of the Poston Concentration Camp Monument. The other is a request for inkstone, ink and brushes in a Japanese-language letter sent to T.K. Pharmacy.

Community Curator Spotlight: Dean Terasaki on Memory and Mystery

Erin Shigaki, Seattle-based artist and Densho’s inaugural Community Curator, caught up with photographer Dean Terasaki to learn how he’s turned his lens toward an 80 year old family mystery.

The interior of preserved barracks at present day Heart Mountain

“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…

The Suitcase Project: What would YOU bring?

If Japanese American/Canadian incarceration happened today, what would you bring with you? That’s the question at the heart of Kayla Isomura’s new Suitcase Project. This year she has been photographing…

Photo Essay: Hikaru Iwasaki’s Sunny Views of Resettlement Americana

While the photographs of Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lange have helped shape visual understandings of World War II incarceration, there are many lesser known photographers who documented the Japanese American…

Photo Essay: Bon Festivals

This weekend, cities along the west coast will hold their annual Bon festivals. Bon Odori communal folk dances are a central part of the bon festival, a Buddhist summer ceremony in which the spirits of…

How One Woman Shaped the Collective Memory of Japanese American Removal

In the late spring of 1942, The Andrews Sisters’ jaunty Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree was on its steady rise to the top of the charts; the “taut and poignant” romance This Above…

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…

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…

Controlling the Historical Record: Photographs of the Japanese American Incarceration

Clandestine photographs from war in Iraq prove a long-known fact: images of soldiers in battle, prisoners of war, and civilians caught in the conflict have the power to provoke outrage,…

Archie Miyatake: Father Avoids Photography Restriction in Camp

Toyo Miyatake, well-known Issei photographer, received permission to take photographs at the Manzanar concentration camp, California. However, because of War Relocation Authority rules, Toyo was allowed to set up the…

Summer Days

On a warm August afternoon, in the time-honored tradition of the summer rerun, we thought we’d share some of our favorite “From the Archive” articles that are available on our…