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Intersections of Black and Japanese American History: From Bronzeville to Black Lives Matter

During World War II, Black and Japanese American fates crossed in ways that neither group could have anticipated. While Japanese Americans were being forced to abandon the lives they’d built…

2016 Day of Remembrance Events

When the first Day of Remembrance was held in Seattle in November 1978, the event was staged as part of the Redress Movement seeking an official apology and monetary compensation for…

Densho Teach-In

[Update, March 14, 2016: Due to the overwhelming popularity of our first Digital Teach-In, we’ve scheduled a second one to be held May 1-6, 2016. Sign up here and please…

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.

Book Review: New Takes on the Japanese American Experience in WWII-Era Hawaii

Given the drama of mass forced removal and incarceration, it is no surprise that scholars have paid much more attention to the story of Japanese Americans on the continental U.S….

Racism by Definition: Challenging the Use of Racial Epithets in Online Dictionaries

“Jap.” It’s  a violent racial slur that has long since fallen out of use. Or so we thought.

Shosuke Sasaki’s 20-Year Battle to Eradicate “Jap” from Print Media

In the 1950s, Shosuke Sasaki launched a campaign to have the word “Jap” re-classed as a racial slur and eliminated from print media. He would continue that work for the better part of the…

Japanese American Scouting Traditions: A Brief History and Photo Essay

The intersections between Japanese American history and scouting traditions run deep; two national news stories have called attention to that history in recent weeks.

Ikeda Family Photo Album

In this guest post, Densho intern Odette Allen traces the story of one family through photos collected in family albums. 

Gidra: Now Available Online

By Brian Niiya, Densho Content Director  During its 1969 to 1974 run, Gidra chronicled the dramatic changes in the Asian American community, and was itself a catalyst for many of these…

Call to Action: Four Ways You can Help Increase Awareness of Japanese American WWII Incarceration

Who would have thought that as 2015 came to a close, we’d be debating World War II incarceration again? First it was Mayor David Bowers’ ill-advised invocation of Japanese American…

Washington State Grant Opportunity

Last week, the state of Washington announced the opening of a competitive grant cycle under the restored and renamed Kip Tokuda Memorial Washington Civil Liberties Public Education Program. This is…

Open Letter to Donald Trump: To “Make America Great Again,” We Must Learn from the Mistakes of our Past

Mr. Trump: Your call to put a moratorium on all Muslim immigration to the United States made it all too clear that a dark part of the American past is haunting us…

Sumi Asaba, Seattle 1942

In this guest post, Densho intern Alaria Sacco reflects on the photograph of a young girl with her kitten taken in April 1942, shortly before the child and her family were incarcerated for…

Scheduled Maintenance on Densho Sites

**Update, 12/15/15, 4:10 PST: The Densho Repository and Encyclopedia are up and running. The site is now fully operational.  **Update, 12/15/15, 12:51 PST: The Densho Archive is now up and…

Mae Kanazawa Hara and the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair

In this guest post, Sara Beckman demonstrates how pairing oral history with archival materials can lead to rich discoveries about the past. This is the first of three reflections from interns working…

“Uprooting Community”: New Book Examines the WWII Mass Incarceration of Japanese Mexicans

In her new book, Uprooting Community, Selfa A. Chew examines the lived experience of Japanese Mexicans in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands during World War II. Chew illuminates U.S.-backed efforts of the Mexican government to…

Anti-Refugee Rhetoric and Justifications for WWII-Era Mass Incarceration: Is History Repeating Itself?

In the aftermath of last week’s tragic events in Paris, we have been saddened to watch as leaders across the world have turned to vitriolic xenophobia in their discussions of the Syrian…

A Response to Mayor David A. Bowers

Today, David A. Bowers, mayor of Roanoke, Virginia, issued a statement that favorably invoked World War II incarceration as justification for his city’s opposition to accepting Syrian refugees.

Gila River Concentration Camp: Intersecting Japanese American and Indigenous Histories

Until his death earlier this year, Mas Inoshita made it his duty to regularly travel to a remote part of the Arizona desert to tend to a stark monument, a…

Winter Appeal 2015

This past summer we hosted Kyle Tanemura as an intern at Densho. Kyle is a bright and affable young man–a computer science major at Cal Poly. He made important contributions…

Allegiance: A Message from Densho Executive Director Tom Ikeda

Japanese American history gained a new national audience this past weekend: Allegiance, a dramatic reenactment of World War II incarceration set at the Heart Mountain concentration camp, opened on Broadway.

Minidoka Concentration Camp: Looking Back 70 Years Later

The Minidoka concentration camp was located in a remote portion of South Central Idaho’s Snake River Plain and housed approximately 13,000 Japanese Americans during World War II. It closed seventy years…

Book Review: Allegiance

Allegiance: A Novel by Kermit Roosevelt (Simon & Schuster, 2015)  Book review by Brian Niiya, Densho Content Director Kermit Roosevelt’s Allegiance is an engaging historical mystery novel set during World…