"Densho" means "to pass on to the next generation." In this quest, this website offers an archive of more than 668 oral histories presented in countless hours of video interviews on Japanese American incarceration during World War II. Materials also include approximately 12,000 historical photographs, documents, and newspapers. Visitors to this website should keep in mind that Densho is continually engaged in expanding its resources and adding more interviews, photographs, and documents, so be sure to check back periodically to discover new content!
Access to archival materials requires free registration. Once registered, users may select materials according to 32 topics, including immigration, community, religion and churches, education, race and racism, identity values, resistance, economic losses, redress and reparations, and reflections on the past.
Materials available without registration include lesson plans and information on "Causes of the Incarceration," "Civil Rights and Japanese American Incarceration," "Sites of Shame: Japanese American Detention Facilities," and "In the Shadow of My Country: A Japanese American Artist Remembers." The website also offers 90 multimedia materials providing historical context, a timeline, a glossary, and a list of related sources in print and online.
Tukufu Zuberi of PBS's History Detectives speaks to Tom Crouch, Senior Curator of Aeronautics at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum about balloon bombs, used by the Japanese against the U.S. West Coast during World War II.
Three World War II veterans share their stories of serving on PT Boats in the Solomon Islands at the same time as John F. Kennedy during World War II. (John F. Kennedy's PT Boat, PT-109, was struck and sunk in 1943.) The presentation includes film clips of the (now deceased) survivors of PT-109.
Filmmaker Austin Hoyt answers questions on his new documentary, American Experience: Victory in the Pacific, which examines the final year of World War II in the Pacific, including the rationale for using the atomic bomb, and features firsthand recollections of both American and Japanese civilians and soldiers. The presentation includes a collage of audio and visual clips from the film.
Audio and video options are available.
Professors Seth Jacobs and Franziska Seraphim lecture on America's strategy in the Pacific during World War II, and how Americans perceived the Japanese enemy. They discusses America's war crimes against the Japanese, anti-Japanese propaganda, and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Mayor of Hiroshima Tadatoshi Akiba describes the effects of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima on the city and on the lives of the survivors, and calls for nuclear disarmament.
World War II veteran Susumu Ito talks about his memories of serving in the all-Japanese-American 442nd Regimental Combat Team during the war and the internment of his parents in an American internment camp. The presentation includes film footage, images, and subtitles.
Survivors of the sinking of the World War II U.S. torpedo boat PT-109, commanded by John F. Kennedy in the Pacific, discuss their memories of their rescue and of JFK. Robert Ballard, maritime explorer, also discusses the expedition that discovered the remains of the PT-109.
According to the Apple Learning Interchange site, "The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum and the National Park Service present a sobering visit to the Manzanar War Relocation Center. This National Historic Site provides a compelling classroom to relive the experience of Japanese Americans held captive during World War II, as well as the plight of countless nationalities who face discrimination and intolerance still today. This is a tale of the indomitable Issei and Nisei generations. Watchers can learn through the emotional memories of survivors, and the invincible cheers of detainees at baseball games that still echo across the desert valley.
Professors John W. Dower and Charles S. Maier contrast previous U.S. foreign policy events and relations with the current situation in Iraq, focusing on the U.S. occupation of Japan following World War II and the Marshall Plan designed to stop the spread of Communism in Western Europe.