All Posts

View Other Categories

Newly Added to the Densho Archive

Just added to the Densho Digital Archive, ten visual history interviews and three photograph collections (listed below). The interviews were conducted during our travels over the summer to Salt Lake…

Democracy Rollercoaster

Over the weekend I presented the Densho Project at the Society of American Archivists Conference in San Francisco. This was the first time I attended this annual gathering and listened…

Unique WWII Nisei Journey

I did an interview in Berkeley with Norm Hirose who had a unique journey during World War II. From Berkeley, Norm’s family was removed and incarcerated at Topaz. When his…

Interviews in Berkeley

When we have the opportunity, it’s always nice to shoot an interview in a person’s home. This provides a comfortable setting as well as a visual contrast from our usual…

Excellent editorial

The New York Times printed an excellent editorial profiling a Nisei doctor in honor of the 20th anniversary of redress. We recommend “From a Quiet American, a Story of War…

Watsonville Interviews – Tom

While in Watsonville I had the opportunity to do four interviews with Jiro Sugidono, Tom Mine, Kiyoko Morey Kaneko, and Mas Hashimoto. Each of these interviews will be a valuable…

Leaving Watsonville

Last night we had a nice dinner with Mas and Marcia Hashimoto of the Watsonville/Santa Cruz JACL. They took us to a restaurant on the Santa Cruz Wharf, and we…

First day of interviews

We conducted our first Watsonville interviews today, which went very well. We were lucky to be able to shoot our interviews in Kizuka Hall, home to the Watsonville-Santa Cruz JACL…

Watsonville Pre-interview Presentation

On the day we arrived at Watsonville I gave a short presentation about what we do at Densho and to also describe what was going to happen over the next…

Watsonville: Arrival and Potluck Dinner

Tom, Megan and I arrived in Watsonville today after a short flight into San Jose. We hit a long stretch of traffic on the drive into Watsonville, so it took…

Salt Lake City – JACL national convention

Last weekend I was in Salt Lake City attending the JACL national convention. This was a great opportunity for Densho to share some video interview segments from the interviews we…

Off to Watsonville & Berkeley

Tom, Dana and I will be traveling to California next week to conduct interviews with Japanese Americans from Watsonville and Berkeley. It will be my last interviewing trip before I…

Satirical video

For those of you who appreciate this type of satire, we’re posting a video from “The Onion” that a friend brought to our attention. U.S. Finally Gets Around To Closing…

Home from Denver

While Tom, Megan, and Dana were busy interviewing people at the Denver conference, I was manning an information table and photography display. It felt like hundreds of people visited the…

Tom’s Denver Interviews

I am back in Seattle after a whirlwind 5 days in Denver participating at the JANM national conference. There are so many good memories of meeting people, listening to and…

More Interviews

We have collected some really great interviews so far. The narrators (most of whom are conference attendees) come from such different backgrounds and consequently their stories are very diverse. Yesterday…

Interview with James Hirabayashi

I just finished my interview with James Hirabayashi, Professor Emeritus at San Francisco State University (SFSU). Professor Hirabayashi was Dean of the nation’s first school of Ethnic Studies, which started…

Arrival in Denver

We arrived in Denver today for another series of interviews, this time at the Japanese American National Museum’s “Whose America? Who’s American? Diversity, Civil Liberties, and Social Justice” conference. We’re…

NHK visits Densho office

The last couple of days have been spent thinking about and answering questions about my Japanese American identity. A film crew from NHK, the Japanese public television station, is visiting…

Minidoka Symposium and Pilgrimage

I returned this week to Seattle from the annual Minidoka Symposium and Minidoka Pilgrimage. This was the sixth year for the pilgrimage and the 3rd year for the symposium. Although…

Grace Oshita

I just finished my third and final Salt Lake City interview with Grace Oshita. Grace has been telling her life story in schools all around the city for the past…

Guided car tour of Salt Lake City

Last night, Rick Okabe who is our contact person with the Topaz Museum treated us to a fabulous dinner. Joining us at dinner was Steve Koga, another member of the…

First day of interviews

We just finished our first day of interviews here in Salt Lake City. I interviewed Alice Hirai and Ted Nagata, while Tom interviewed Nelson Akagi. Alice was the first interview…