July 2015 
From Executive Director Tom Ikeda
At the end of the school year, I helped a Japanese American college student with her final project for an American ethnic studies class. She wanted to create a short documentary about her family’s experience during World War II and she needed advice on what might be available. After a 30-minute demonstration of the Densho website, she was excited to find oral history videos of family members talking about living in a camp, newspaper articles that included her grandmother’s work for a prominent Japanese American, and photographs of her great-grandparents in the Minidoka concentration camp as they accepted an American flag for their son who was killed in action in Europe.

I heard she got an A on her project, but more important than a grade, it was moving to see her discover what her grandparents and great-grandparents lived through during World War II. When we started 19 years ago we named the organization Densho, which means to pass stories on to the next generation. It is a pretty good feeling to see “Densho” in action.

And now we have a new website that we hope will help pass that story on to even more people.  Read more about it below, then take a tour of Densho’s newly redesigned website at www.densho.org.
Email me at [email protected] to let me know what you think!

And speaking of the next generation, take a look at this new Densho educational video narrated by George Takei. My daughter, Tani Ikeda, created this to show why the World War II incarceration story is important today—I couldn’t be more proud! If you like what you see, please share the video on Facebook or Twitter and help us spread the word about our new website.

Thank you!
Announcing a brand new website!
We are delighted to unveil Densho's latest digital asset: a wonderful new website that we are certain you'll find to be simpler and easier to navigate than our last site. Here are few things that we're especially excited about: 
  • The Core Story: Six short essays and videos covering the basics of Japanese American history, with a focus on World War II incarceration 
  • A new Learning Center, featuring resources for teachers and students
  • The Oral History Spotlight is now featured on our homepage—check back at the beginning of each month for a new interview clip
  • The Densho Blog is now integrated into our main website, with recent posts featured on the homepage
  • The Digital Repository and Archives are accessible from a single page, with clearer distinctions made between the two resources
  • The Timeline, Terminology, and Resource pages have all been updated with new information

Now, take a moment to poke around the new site and let us know what you like about it!
Oral History Spotlight
Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga married shortly before mass removal and gave birth to her first child in California's Manzanar concentration camp. In this clip, she describes coping with conditions in camp as a young mother.

Follow the link to watch the video:
 
Summer Appeal 2015
You may have heard the exciting news that we received a grant from the Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program of the National Park Service (NPS) to expand our digital encyclopedia and to initiate a new community partnership to link the story of Japanese American incarceration with other social injustices.  But did you know that we are required to raise matching funds before we can begin work on the funded projects?

If you believe we're doing important work here at Densho, please consider making a donation now. And, thanks to the NPS funding, your donations will go three times as far! 

Learn more about options for giving and the exciting incentives we're offering this year.
Online Course
We're sure you've heard about our new online course, Teaching WWII Japanese American Incarceration with Primary Sources....but have you taken it yet? Have you recommended it to teachers that you know?

Our free online course will give teachers the historical background, primary source materials, and instructional strategies you need to teach the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans in the secondary school classroom. Each learning activity in this online course is meant to give you a sense of the learning experience your students will have in your classroom.

We appreciate your support in helping to get the word out about the course; here are three easy ways to help:
  • Take the course, then encourage others to do so as well. Make it a deeper and more engaged learning opportunity by meeting with other participants to discuss the lessons and how you plan to incorporate them into the classroom.

  • Download this flyer and post it in a place where educators will see it, such as your local library or in teachers' lounges: bit.ly/DenshoFlyer

  • Share the blog post, Why teach Japanese American WWII history?, through Facebook or Twitter.

    *This project was supported, in part, by an award from 4Culture and by a grant from the Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program.  
Digitization Project Internships

Densho is seeking two to three interns to support our Digitizing Photos for Japanese American Oral Histories Project through the following activities: corresponding with narrators and their families to identify and collect materials, digitizing the materials (newspapers, photographs, documents, etc.), editing and performing quality control on digital images, transcribing documents, cataloging, data management in digital repository software, and other duties as needed.

Read more at the link: http://bit.ly/1J1m8xi

Funding for these internships was provided by 4Culture HeritageProjects. 
Densho Blog Highlights
 Densho |  [email protected] | www.densho.org
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