Join us for the launch of the Digital Library of Japanese American Incarceration Films, a new online collection of 100+ films, spanning 80 years of footage, documenting the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. This virtual program will be moderated by Densho founder Tom Ikeda and feature a panel of speakers: film scholar and educator Frako Loden, filmmaker and former Internet Archives leader Wendy Hanamura, Densho Content Director and historian Brian Niiya, as well as Densho Communications Manager Jennifer Noji. These speakers will address the crucial role of film in preserving, commemorating, and teaching this critical history. You’ll also learn about the project’s origins, view a short montage of featured films, and get an exclusive preview of the new collection.
The event is co-hosted by Densho and Internet Archive, and this project was made possible through the generous support of the Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program. All are welcome to attend and explore this important new resource.
Register at bit.ly/JAFilmLibrary
Featured Speakers
Frako Loden is an adjunct lecturer in Ethnic Studies at California State University East Bay and Film TV & Electronic Arts at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill/San Ramon. She teaches classes in the Japanese American Incarceration, Asian immigrant women in cinema and TV, and global film history, particularly Japanese cinema. She is a contributing editor at Documentary magazine and reports on San Francisco Bay Area film events such as CAAMFest, SFFILM, SF Silent Film Festival and Mill Valley.
Wendy Hanamura joined the Internet Archive—the world’s largest digital library– in 2014 as the Director of Partnerships. There her special passion projects have centered on archiving the film, books, audio and photographs that document the Japanese American experience. Wendy began her career in journalism as a photo editor for Time magazine. She’s reported and produced television content around the world for CBS, World Monitor Television, NHK (Japanese Broadcasting Corporation), PBS, CBS and KCET/Link TV. Her favorite project remains Honor Bound: A Personal Journey, the documentary she produced about her father and his storied unit, the Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team.
Tom Ikeda became Densho’s founding executive director in 1996 and served in this capacity for 28 years. Prior to Densho, Tom was a General Manager with the Microsoft Multimedia Publishing Group. He has received numerous awards for his historical and community contributions, including the Humanities Washington Award, National JACL Japanese American of the Biennium Award, Microsoft Alumni Integral Fellows Award, Japanese American National Museum Founder’s Award, and Washington State Historical Society’s Robert Gray Medal.
Brian Niiya is a Sansei born and raised in Southern California to Nisei parents who were born and raised in Hawai’i. His maternal grandfather was one of the small number of Japanese Americans from Hawai’i who were interned, and his mother’s family went to Japan on an exchange ship during the war. Brian is a graduate of Harvey Mudd College and holds an M.A. in Asian American Studies from UCLA. His professional life has been dedicated to Japanese American public history and information management, having held various positions with the UCLA Asian American Studies Center, the Japanese American National Museum, and the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai’i that have involved managing collections, curating exhibitions, developing public programs, and producing videos, books, and websites. He has published many articles on Japanese American history in a variety of academic and mainstream publications and is the editor of the online Densho Encyclopedia, which draws on his prior Encyclopedia of Japanese American History, published in 1993 with a second edition in 2000.
Jennifer Noji serves as Densho’s Senior Development and Communications Manager, and she manages the Digital Collection of Japanese American Incarceration Films project. She is a Yonsei who was born in Norway, grew up in New Jersey, and currently lives in Los Angeles, California. As the granddaughter of Gila River and Minidoka concentration camp survivors, she has dedicated much of her academic, professional, and personal life to learning and teaching about the WWII incarceration and other historical injustices. Jennifer holds a B.A. from Rutgers University, as well as an M.A. and PhD from UCLA. Her research explores how literature reckons with US legacies of racial and colonial violence, and she has taught courses on forced incarceration, displacement, and human rights, among other topics. She has published articles on memory and political violence in various academic journals and volumes.
