In recent months, an outpouring of stories of sexual harassment, abuse, and assault has sparked long overdue conversations around the prevalence of sexual violence and the policies, attitudes, and silences that uphold it. As descendants of Japanese Americans criminalized during WWII who often use our own families’ stories to warn against the repetition of history, we know well that to understand our present we must reckon with our past. But for too long, the stories we tell have erased the victims and survivors of sexual violence in our own community. It is time we broke that silence.

In honor of National Women’s History Month we are excited to introduce the Guyo Tajiri Collection, new to the Densho Digital Repository. Guyo Tajiri was a journalist and writer at a time when opportunities were limited for women. Her tireless work and unique voice helped establish the Pacific Citizen as one of the major Japanese American publications. And as if being a successful journalist wasn’t enough, she went back to school when she was in her fifties and became a beloved teacher to special needs students in Oakland.