The Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation (AIISF) is researching Japanese immigrants from Hawai‘i and the continental U.S. who were briefly detained on Angel Island during World War II by the U.S. Department of Justice. This research is being funded by the Japanese American Confinement Sites fund of the National Park Service. In addition to the War […]
NPS solicits public comment on the future of the Tule Lake Unit
October 3, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The National Park Service held a planning meeting for the general public in San Francisco Japantown regarding the Tule Lake Unit of the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument. The Sept. 19 meeting, held at Nihonmachi Terrace, is one of more than a dozen that were held along the West Coast, along […]
Colorizing a dark chapter in American history
January 1, 2013 by Leave a Comment
COLORS OF CONFINEMENT: RARE KODACHROME PHOTOGRAPHS OF JAPANESE AMERICAN INCARCERATION IN WORLD WAR II Edited by Eric L. Muller (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill in association with Center for Documentary Studies, Duke University, 2012, 136 pp., $35, cloth) This volume is at once a wonderful and rare addition to […]
No-nos, renunciants speak out about stigma over wartime actions
November 29, 2012 by Leave a Comment
TORRANCE, Calif. — The “No-No Boys” and renunciants, Nikkei prisoners who protested the injustice of having to answer a “loyalty questionnaire” while incarcerated in American concentration camps during World War II, were the focus of a forum held on Oct. 27 at the Katy Geissert Civic Center Library Community Room in Torrance. Although 70 years […]
THE GREAT UNKNOWN AND THE UNKNOWN GREAT: The astonishing history of Japanese Americans in Louisiana (pt. 2)
November 10, 2011 by 2 Comments
Editor’s Note: This is the second in a two-part series. The Second World War hit Louisiana’s Japanese population hard. On Dec. 8, the Japanese consulate closed its doors and its Japanese alien employees were incarcerated. Japanese shrimp boats were grounded, and the Hinata art store in New Orleans closed its doors. The Hinata daughters, anticipating […]
UC Berkeley library awarded grants for Japanese American WWII projects
July 29, 2011 by Leave a Comment
In late June, the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley was awarded two grants from the National Park Service to fund the digitization of its collection of materials related to the experiences of Japanese Americans during World War II and the creation of a series of oral histories focused on the concentration camps. […]
Call for artwork and stories from WWII camps
June 16, 2011 by 2 Comments
About five years ago I met Mrs. Rosalie Gould, the former mayor of McGehee, Ark. and a strong advocate for teaching and visiting the Japanese American concentration camps in her community. Mrs. Gould told me she had a collection of children’s artworks in her spare room and welcomed me to see them. I was absolutely […]
Does terminology matter?
In recent years, the Nikkei community has engaged in a renewed discussion to reject the euphemistic and false terms the government used to minimize the unjust and inhumane nature of the Japanese American incarceration. From 2009 through 2011, the Japanese American National Museum, the Manzanar Committee, the Tule Lake Committee and UCLA’s George and Sakaye […]