Tom Ikeda

Tom Ikeda is Founding Executive Director of Densho and has conducted more than 200 video-recorded oral history interviews with Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II. He also created classroom curriculum from these materials and helped design Densho’s award-winning website. Before founding Densho, Mr. Ikeda was a General Manager at Microsoft in the Multimedia Publishing Group. He has received numerous awards for his contributions in the humanities, education, and nonprofit sectors, including the Humanities Washington Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Public Humanities, the National JACL Japanese American of the Biennium Award for Education, and the Microsoft Alumni Foundation Integral Fellows Award.

Updated November 2013

war en

Khizr Khan’s words echo for Japanese American World War II Gold Star families

By Tom Ikeda
10 Aug 2016

I could feel myself getting choked up as I watched Khizr and Ghazala Khan address the Democratic National Convention last week. And when Mr. Khan—a distinguished man of the Muslim faith—described how his U.S. Army Captain son sacrificed his life to save his men and how his son represented “the best of America,” the tears started streaming down my cheeks.

What I was thinking at that moment was how Mr. Khan was giving voice to what my grandparents might have thought and said 72 years ago while being handed the American flag for the death of their ...

community en

Speaking Up! Democracy, Justice, Dignity

Japanese Americans in Seattle

By Tom Ikeda
25 Nov 2013

I’ve been asked to talk about the history of Seattle’s Japanese American community. And because Densho has 750 oral history interviews and thousands of historic photographs, I thought it would be easy to pick out a few stories to share with you today. But the more I thought about the task, the more overwhelmed I became over the many choices.

For example, I could talk about the Issei pioneers who came to Seattle in the 1880s and who worked in the lumber mills, salmon canneries, and railroads.

Or I could talk about how Japanese farmers dominated truck farming ...

Submit an article

Discover Nikkei

Japanese migrants and their descendants

Tom Ikeda

Khizr Khan’s words echo for Japanese American World War II Gold Star families

Speaking Up! Democracy, Justice, Dignity

Japanese Americans in Seattle

Series this author contributes to

Speaking Up! Democracy, Justice, Dignity

Featured Articles

The War between the United States and Japan and the Persecution of Japanese Immigrants in America

Nikkei Chronicles #4 — Nikkei Family: Memories, Traditions, and Values

Don’t Worry Be Hapa

What An Ungodly Place To Meet: Tales From Camp Toilets

Journey Sparked By A Photograph

Recent Articles en

My Name is Neal

Journal Entry #About 280 Miles Up: "Starry, Starry Ads..."

Imagine Little Tokyo Short Story Contest VI

Promise Me You’ll Remember

Nikkei Chronicles #8 — Nikkei Heroes: Trailblazers, Role Models, and Inspirations

My Hero: Setsutaro Hasegawa

MIS Members with Brothers Serving in Japanese Imperial Forces during WW II

Windy City Nikkei: Bite-sized glimpses of Japanese American Chicago

Recent Articles JA ES PT

孤独な望郷 ～ フロリダ日系移民森上助次の手紙から

第９回 京都に帰って余生を過ごしたい

デカセギ・ストーリー

第三十話（後編） ジョアナの大冒険

Migrantes Japoneses frente a la Justicia Penal en México

Parte 4: Shinichi Morishita y el Incendio de la Asociación Japonesa

Óscar Chambi y sus puentes hacia los nikkei

Migrantes Japoneses frente a la Justicia Penal en México

Parte 3: Francisco Nishikawa Nakamura - En Defensa Propia

Nikkei Heroes: Trailblazers, Role Models, and Inspirations

Get updates

Support this project

A project of the

Major support by

My Name is Neal

Journal Entry #About 280 Miles Up: "Starry, Starry Ads..."

Imagine Little Tokyo Short Story Contest VI

Promise Me You’ll Remember

Nikkei Chronicles #8 — Nikkei Heroes: Trailblazers, Role Models, and Inspirations

My Hero: Setsutaro Hasegawa

MIS Members with Brothers Serving in Japanese Imperial Forces during WW II

Windy City Nikkei: Bite-sized glimpses of Japanese American Chicago

“Letters to Memory” is a Sansei memoir of family, incarceration and Japanese American history

My Name is Neal

Journal Entry #3 Major Lines: "A Handful of Chiromancy..."

Imagine Little Tokyo Short Story Contest VI

A Reason to be Proud

Nikkei Uncovered: a poetry column

Holding

King of “Ikejime”—Seiichi Yokota

Chef and Author Caroline Ishii Introduces Japan to Canadian Food with a Vegan Twist

Tessaku

Kazuki Hirose - Part 1

My Name is Neal

Journal Entry #Over 4,000,000,000 Produced: "LEGO Fun!..."

The 150th Anniversary of Wakamatsu Colony, the First Japanese American Settlement on the North American Frontier

Part 3: Sharing of Family Stories

My Name is Neal

Journal Entry #Givin' You My 2¢: "A Calamity of Clichés..."

Twenty Thousand Cranes And More: Stories Behind Washington State's Tsuru For Solidarity and Crystal City, Texas

Nikkei Uncovered: a poetry column

Negotiating Place

My Name is Neal

Journal Entry # $200 Per Hour: "Animated Therapy..."

Brother Theophane Walsh

Killer Roll

Chapter Seven — The Magic of Kitchen

My Name is Neal

Journal Entry #Channel 2, 4, or 7: "30 Minutes of Fun..."

“Thirty Minutes Over Oregon” Introduces Children to the Complexity of War and Friendship

Mike & Tsuchino Forrester - Remembering the early days of an international marriage

The 150th Anniversary of Wakamatsu Colony, the First Japanese American Settlement on the North American Frontier

Supplement: The Article that Revealed Okei to the World

Killer Roll

Chapter Eight — Try Tamago

Teru Shimada - a Japanese American Pioneer in Hollywood - Part 1

孤独な望郷～フロリダ日系移民森上助次の手紙から

第９回京都に帰って余生を過ごしたい　　

第三十話（後編）ジョアナの大冒険