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denshoproject.bsky.social
Densho
@denshoproject.bsky.social
380 followers 35 following 340 posts
Preserves and shares history of the WWII incarceration of Japanese Americans to promote equity and justice today.
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denshoproject.bsky.social
Densho @denshoproject.bsky.social · Aug 21
This is a crucial moment to safeguard our collective memory, especially as efforts to erase our histories grow stronger. Become a monthly donor and ensure stories of Japanese American WWII incarceration—and the lessons they carry—remain visible, powerful, and protected. densho.org/historykeepe...
Photo of a Japanese American man holding a young child and pointing to a barbed wire fence at the former Tule Lake concentration camp in 1974. Text reads, 'Safeguarding our collective memory.'
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denshoproject.bsky.social
Densho @denshoproject.bsky.social · 4h
Read more from guest contributor Rob Buscher for 10 little-known facts that uncover the hidden history of America’s last WWII concentration camp: densho.org/catalyst/lit...
10 Little-Known Facts About the Crystal City Family Internment Camp - Densho: Japanese American Incarceration and Japanese Internment
Guest post by Rob Buscher Located in South Texas about 80 miles southwest of San Antonio and 40 miles east of the Mexican border, Crystal City Family Internment Camp opened...
densho.org
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Densho @denshoproject.bsky.social · 4h
From its German beer hall to its layered history of wartime incarceration, migrant labor, and the Chicano Movement, Crystal City holds stories that few Americans know.
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Densho @denshoproject.bsky.social · 4h
Conceived of as a “family internment camp,” some of the Issei arrested under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 were eventually transferred and reunited with their families here.
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Densho @denshoproject.bsky.social · 4h
Ahead of the Crystal City Pilgrimage this weekend, we explore the history of this lesser-known site of WWII incarceration. Tucked away in South Texas, Crystal City imprisoned over 4,000 people of Japanese, German, & Italian ancestry—including thousands abducted from Latin America—from 1942 to 1948.
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Densho @denshoproject.bsky.social · 2d
Our mission is rooted in our name. Densho is a Japanese term meaning “to pass on to the next generation,” or to leave a legacy. Our legacy is an American story with ongoing relevance: during World War II, the United States government incarcerated innocent people solely because of their ancestry.
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Densho @denshoproject.bsky.social · 2d
Examples include but are not limited to Julie Otsuka’s When the Emperor Was Divine and George Takei’s They Called Us Enemy. Also, don't forget Scholastic’s attempt to remove all mentions of racism from the author’s note within Love in the Library by Maggie Tokuda-Hall.
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Densho @denshoproject.bsky.social · 2d
The stories facing the highest rates of censorship are those that center Black, LGBTQ+, Indigenous, and other marginalized experiences, and the history of Japanese American wartime incarceration has not slipped unscathed by this fearful and xenophobic censorship.
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Densho @denshoproject.bsky.social · 2d
Banned Books Week brings into sharp relief a truth we see in our work every day: stories are powerful. In the 2024–2025 school year alone, there were 6,870 instances of book bans — a sharp and alarming increase over the past two years, signaling a “disturbing normalization of censorship.”
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Densho @denshoproject.bsky.social · 5d
Yet she kept a secret: she was Japanese American. In post-WW2 America, prejudice forced her to conceal her identity and use a Chinese stage name.

Still, Mary fought back—challenging discrimination, protesting yellowface, and marching against Apartheid.
Ruby Richards, Lee Sharon, and Mary Mon Toy performing in "It's the Same". 1953. Mary Mon Toy Theatrical Collection. Courtesy of Marnie Mueller, Wendy Watanabe, and Lori Watanabe Saginaw, Densho.
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Densho @denshoproject.bsky.social · 5d
She moved to New York, studied voice at Juilliard, and—when told she couldn’t succeed as an opera singer because she was Asian—reinvented herself as a showgirl.

From the China Doll Club to Broadway’s World of Suzie Wong, Mary dazzled on stage & screen.
Mary Mon Toy China Doll Club promotional photo. 1944-1946. Mary Mon Toy Theatrical Collection. Courtesy of Marnie Mueller, Wendy Watanabe, and Lori Watanabe Saginaw, Densho. Mary Mon Toy in costume as Minnie Ho in The World of Suzie Wong. 1960. Mary Mon Toy Theatrical Collection. Courtesy of Marnie Mueller, Wendy Watanabe, and Lori Watanabe Saginaw, Densho.
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Densho @denshoproject.bsky.social · 5d
With Taylor Swift releasing The Life of a Showgirl, we honor the story of a real showgirl: Mary Mon Toy.

Born Mary Teruko Watanabe, she rebuilt her life after surviving incarceration at Minidoka and an oophorectomy (removal of her ovaries).
Stage photo of Mary Mon Toy at Nouvelle Eve Club, Montmartre, Paris. 1953-1954. Mary Mon Toy Theatrical Collection. Courtesy of Marnie Mueller, Wendy Watanabe, and Lori Watanabe Saginaw, Densho.
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Densho @denshoproject.bsky.social · 6d
Join us at Remembering Resistance, our annual fall fundraiser, to hear Don Tamaki, Kathy Masaoka & traci kato-kiriyama reflect on the redress movement and its ongoing lessons.
Remembering Resistance
November 5, 2025 @ 5:00pm PST / 8:00pm EST
densho.org
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Densho @denshoproject.bsky.social · 6d
That revelation opened a whole new view of history. It prompted many Japanese Americans to unpack memories long buried and speak openly, accelerating the momentum for redress. For the nation, it exposed a massive failure of democracy.
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Densho @denshoproject.bsky.social · 6d
As Tamaki said: “It may have started that way, but it culminated at the highest levels of government as really an intentional plan to manipulate the outcome of these cases in order to validate them.”
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Densho @denshoproject.bsky.social · 6d
When Don Tamaki and his team reopened Fred Korematsu’s WWII case, they uncovered evidence proving the forced removal and incarceration of 125,000+ Japanese Americans wasn’t just wartime hysteria or an accident.
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Densho @denshoproject.bsky.social · 7d
Read the full article at densho.org/catalyst/ask...
Ask a Historian: Did Every Camp Have a Fence? - Densho: Japanese American Incarceration and Japanese Internment
The imagery of barbed wire fences, guard towers, and armed sentries is nearly ubiquitous in popular retellings of the story of Japanese American WWII incarceration. But did you know that...
densho.org
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Densho @denshoproject.bsky.social · 7d
At most of the camps, the fences were either not yet built or were still in the process of being built. In the weeks and months after opening, fences began to go up—bringing much anger and resentment, and even some outright resistance, from incarcerees.
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Densho @denshoproject.bsky.social · 7d
The ten War Relocation Authority concentration camps where most Japanese Americans were imprisoned during WWII were unfinished to varying degrees when incarcerees began to arrive in 1942.
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Densho @denshoproject.bsky.social · 7d
In this latest edition of our recurring Ask a Historian series, Densho Content Director Brian Niiya delves into the complicated history “behind the barbed wire.”
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Densho @denshoproject.bsky.social · 7d
The imagery of barbed wire fences, guard towers, and armed sentries is nearly ubiquitous in popular retellings of the story of Japanese American WWII incarceration. But did you know that many of the camps didn’t actually have a complete fence when Japanese American incarcerees arrived in 1942?
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Densho @denshoproject.bsky.social · 8d
Featuring Kathy Masaoka, Don Tamaki, and traci kato-kiriyama, this virtual event will explore the lasting impacts of Redress and its connections to current movements for justice.
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Densho @denshoproject.bsky.social · 8d
Join Densho on November 5th at 5pm PT / 8pm EST for an evening of storytelling, poetry, and reflection on the Japanese American Redress Movement. Your support sustains Densho’s mission of preserving community memory for generations to come. Register for this event at densho.org/remembering-...
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Densho @denshoproject.bsky.social · 12d
Images:
1 - Takuichi Fujii c. 1953. Courtesy of Sandy and Terry Kita.

2 - Title page of Fujii’s Minidoka diary. Sandy and Terry Kita Collection.

3 - Watercolor painting by Takuichi Fujii: Minidoka, montage with barbed-wire fence. Sandy and Terry Kita Collection.
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Densho @denshoproject.bsky.social · 12d
Fujii's diary and artwork were stored by 3 generations of his family. His grandson, Sandy Kita, undertook the translation of the diary—which is reproduced in part in art historian Barbara Johns's biography, The Hope of Another Spring: Takuichi Fujii, Artist and Wartime Witness.
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Densho @denshoproject.bsky.social · 12d
After the war, the Fujii family resettled in Chicago’s Near North neighborhood, part of a large resettled Japanese American community. Though retired, Fujii continued to paint, exhibiting twice in the late 1950s and later turning to abstract expressionism before he died in 1964.
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