Heart Mountain Relocation Center, Wyoming, 1942

Draft Resistance in Japanese American Internment Camps

Arguing that they had been stripped of their citizenship and rights, hundreds of Nisei risked extending their imprisonment by resisting the draft.
From the cover of Feeling Asian American by Wen Liu

Racial Hierarchies: Japanese American Immigrants in California

The belief of first-generation Japanese immigrants in their racial superiority over Filipinos was a by-product of the San Joaquin Delta's white hegemony.
Japanese "picture brides" being processed after arriving at Angel Island, California, c. 1910

Japanese American Wives and the Sex Industry

Japanese American immigrant wives in the American West attempted to improve their living conditions through sex work.
Members of the Japanese Independent Congregational Church attend Easter services in Oakland, California, 1942

Who Helped Japanese Americans after Internment?

Resettlement was difficult and traumatic, but the religious community worked to provide housing, food, and job opportunities.
Alan Watts

When Buddhism Came to America

Buddhism was embraced by the Beats of 1950s America. But some Buddhists felt these converts were engaging with the practice in a shallow way.
Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition logo

Cosmopolitanism (and Racism) at the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition

Seattle's Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition celebrated intercultural connections, but also reduced non-white cultures to quaint attractions.
Japanese American school children

Lessons From a Japanese Internment Camp

Trump ally Carl Higbie recently cited Japanese internment camps during World War II as a “precedent” for a proposed registry of Muslims in the U.S.