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Collage of photos: author's grandfather, Shigeki, in his army uniform; his house; an internment camp.

My Family Lost Our Farm During Japanese Incarceration. I Went Searching for What Remains.

When Executive Order 9066 forcibly removed my family from their community 80 years ago, we lost more than I realized.
Chinese miners in California

The Anti-Asian Roots of Today’s Anti-Immigrant Politics

Long before Trump, politicians on the country’s West Coast mobilized a white working-class base through violent hate of Chinese and Japanese immigrants.
Photo of Japanese American shops with employees and bicycles in front.

When Police Clamped Down on Southern California’s Japanese-American Bicycling Craze

Because cycling was an important mode of transportation for agricultural workers and a popular competitive sport, police saw it as a way to target immigrants.

How My Grandfathers Proved Their Loyalty to America

The stories of two American soldiers – one part German, the other born in Japan – challenge our romantic view of the "Greatest Generation."
Nihomachi Hotel in Seattle's Japantown.

Seattle’s Japantown Was Once Part of a Bustling Red Light District — Until Residents Were Pushed Out

The erased histories of the communities that built Seattle.
Japanese Americans stand in a line next to a train car, as U.S. military look on

The New Deal's Dark Underbelly

David Beito has penned one of the most damning scholarly histories of FDR to date.
Movie poster for "Bad Day at Black Rock."

Buried in the Sand

On John Sturges’s “Bad Day at Black Rock” and Japanese America.
Yoshitaka Watanabe family photo: from left Yoshitaka Watanabe, Toshiko, Masao, Kimiko, Tabo, Shigeo, Shizue Watanabe.

No, My Japanese American Parents Were Not 'Interned' During WWII. They Were Incarcerated.

The Los Angeles Times will no longer use "internment" to describe the mass incarceration of 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry during World War II.
Mike Masaoka speaking at a Dies Subcommittee hearing on July 6, 1943, in black and white.

Asian Americans Helped Build Affirmative Action. What Happened?

The idea of proportionality has roots in midcentury Japanese American advocacy.
A crowd of Japanese Americans behind the barbed wire of an internment camp.
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How a 1944 Supreme Court Ruling on Internment Camps Led to a Reckoning

An admission of wrongdoing from the U.S. government came later, but a Supreme Court ruling had lasting impact.
Sign that reads "Instructions to all persons of Japanese ancestry living in the following area"

Memory Work: Reading and Writing Japanese American Incarceration

What new possibilities might arise if we were to consider history as ongoing memory work, rather than a set narrative of progress or as singular “truth”?
An American soldier guards a Japanese internment camp at Manzanar, Calif., on May 23, 1943.
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Is it Possible to Condemn One Empire Without Upholding Another?

The danger of making wars into moral crusades.
Japanese migrants gather in Lima, Peru, in December 1941

America’s Forgotten Internment

The United States confined 2,200 Latin Americans of Japanese descent during World War II. They’re still pushing for redress.
Thirteen incarcerated children at Manzanar's Children's Village.

Manzanar Children’s Village: Japanese American Orphans in a WWII Concentration Camp

In June 1942, Kenji and just over one hundred other children were taken from their parents and relocated to Manzanar.
Comic book cover

The Propaganda of World War II Comic Books 

A government-funded group called the Writers' War Board got writers and illustrators to portray the United States positively—and its enemies as evil.
Yuri Kochiyama depicted in a Pop Art style panel of images

1921 Marks Anniversaries of Both American Exclusion and Inclusion

On the 100th anniversary of Yuri Kochiyama’s birth and the passage of the Emergency Quota Act, Railton explores inclusion and exclusion in US history.
Activists holding a banner saying "STOP ASIAN HATE"
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Violence Against Asian Americans Is Part of a Troubling Pattern

Recognizing that is crucial to ending the violence and the hate driving it.
Protester standing with sign that says "End the Violence Against Asians"

The Muddled History of Anti-Asian Violence

It’s difficult to describe anti-Asian racism when society lacks a coherent historical account of what it actually looks like.
The entrance at Camp Livingston.

Forgotten Camps, Living History

Reckoning with the legacy of Japanese internment in the South.
Survivors of Hiroshima

Daughters of the Bomb: A Story of Hiroshima, Racism and Human Rights

On the 75th anniversary of the A-bomb, a Japanese-American writer speaks to one of the last living survivors.
An outline of the United States filled with black figures who are outlined by a continuous white line.

"Other": A Brief History of American Xenophobia

The United States often touts itself as a "nation of immigrants," but this obscures the real story.

California to Apologize Officially for Mistreating Japanese Americans

Nearly 60 years after FDR authorized the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, California plans to apologize for its role.

Racists in Congress Fought Statehood For Hawaii, But Lost That Battle 60 Years Ago

It took more than five decades for advocates of statehood to vanquish white supremacists in Washington.

The Forgotten Internment of Japanese Americans in Hawaii

A dark chapter in the history of religious persecution.
Map of Oregon

Oregon’s Racist Past

Until the mid-20th century, Oregon was perhaps the most racist place outside the southern states, possibly even of all the states.

Pretending Not to Discriminate in the Name of National Security

America has always discriminated in the name of national security. It’s just gotten better at pretending it’s not.
A Japanese American woman holds a baby at an internment camp.

‘At Least During the Internment …’ Are Words I Thought I’d Never Utter

I was sent to a camp at just 5 years old — but even then, they didn't separate children from families.

The Johnson-Reed Act of May 24, 1924

The worldview laid out in the 94-year old law is still the foundational principle of American immigration policy today.
Map of the Panama Canal Zone

The Unknown History of Japanese Internment in Panama

The historical narrative surrounding the wartime confinement of ethnic Japanese in the United States grows ever more complex.
Roy Takeno, editor, and group reading paper in front of office, Manzanar Relocation Center, California

Behind Barbed Wire

Japanese-American internment camp newspapers.

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