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Natasha Varner

Densho

Natasha Varner, PhD is a Seattle-based historian and writer whose work explores the intersections of race, gender, identity, and representation in the US and Latin America. She is the Communications and Public Engagement Director for the Japanese American history non-profit, Densho.

Natasha Varner, PhD is a Seattle-based historian and writer whose work explores the intersections of race, gender, identity, and representation in the US and Latin America. She is the Communications and Public Engagement Director for the Japanese American history non-profit, Densho.

A fence strung with signs and paper cranes

Immigrant detention centers are a grim reminder of Japanese American history

Immigration

Survivors of WWII Japanese incarceration camps are on the other side of the barbed wire now, but some say they want the world to know that they will not sit idly by and watch injustice happen again.

A solider with a rifle watches while men carrying suitcases line up next to a train.

The US imprisoned Japanese Peruvians in Texas, then said they entered ‘illegally’

Immigration
Modeling

Meet Doña Luz Jiménez, the forgotten indigenous woman at the heart of Mexico’s cultural revolution

Arts
black and white photo of group of young boys, faces smudged

The curious origins of the ‘Irish slaves’ myth

Justice
black and white photo of people holding up signs of location names

New immigration policies are convincing more Japanese Americans to engage in the radical act of remembering

Justice
People line up in front of a bulding

Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II could still vote, kind of

Justice

States were left to design a system for massive civilian absentee voting. And in a hodgepodge of rules and regulations, people held in camps were effectively disenfranchised.

A man holds up a box of berries in a field, waiting in a queue to load them onto a truck.

The people who pick your berries in Washington will now be represented by a union

Justice

But farm workers in Mexico say they are still fighting for better wages and working conditions while harvesting the berries sold in US markets under the Driscoll’s brand name.

A group of workers pose in a farm, wearing their work clothes. Top row standing, bottom row sitting. Black and white photo.

How Japanese and Mexican American farm workers formed an alliance that made history

Justice

Farm workers of Japanese and Mexican heritage created a multilingual and multiracial coalition to fight for fair wages. The organization had a short life, but it stands as a powerful example of interracial solidarity in the history of labor relations.Farm workers of Japanese and Mexican heritage created a multilingual and multiracial coalition to fight for fair wages. The organization had a short life, but it stands as a powerful example of interracial solidarity in the history of labor relations.

A man with a bullhorn stands in front of a line of protesters

The workers who pick your summer berries are asking you not to buy them

Economics

Protests over working conditions at a farm in Washington state have been going on for three years. This year, though, workers are meeting with the growers to talk about a union contract.

Two kimonos in the wind on a laundry line

These images of Japanese American incarceration were embargoed for almost 30 years

Justice

Dorothea Lange was famous for her Dust Bowl America images. But she also documented the 1942 removal and imprisonment of Japanese Americans.