Send Me Anything / Children’s Playground, Manzanar, California, 2023/2024. Letter appears courtesy of the T.K. Pharmacy Collection, Densho.

Dean Terasaki‘s “Veiled Inscriptions” project started out with a mystery.

In 2012, 350 letters were discovered in the wall of his family’s Denver drugstore, T.K. Pharmacy. The letters were mail order requests from Americans of Japanese descent who were incarcerated during World War II. They asked the pharmacy to send them supplies – hair dye, medicine, art supplies and other items of everyday life.

1 Hair Dye, 1 Rubber Glove (small) / Fish pond, Block 34, Manzanar incarceration camp, California. Letter appears courtesy of the T.K. Pharmacy Collection, Densho.

During World War II, the U.S. government forced 120,000 Japanese Americans who lived on the West Coast into mass incarceration camps. But T. K. Pharmacy was located in Denver, outside the “exclusion zone,” so it was able to remain open. It was one of the few Japanese American businesses operating during the war, and Japanese Americans turned to it for needed supplies.

Decades after the war ended, the mail order letters were discovered when the building was being renovated. The letters were donated to the non-profit Densho, which created an archive that Dean discovered while doing some online research.

“I clicked on this link and I was reading the letters. And I was soon in tears. I had no idea about the power that those letters would have for me,” said Dean, who created photomontages combining the personal letters sent to the pharmacy with his photographs of the camps.

An interview with the artist follows.

Sometimes, I think it’s the two of us / Amache incarceration camp, Colorado, 2023/2024 – Request for Japanese medicine. Letter appears courtesy of the T.K. Pharmacy Collection, Densho.

Your idea for this project is inspired. I can hear our ancestors’ voices from behind the walls where the letters were hidden. Your layered montages captured that connection between the past and present. Can you talk more about your approach?

I am so pleased that you appreciate a sense of the ancestors’ voices echoing through my images. I’ve made photomontages using various means for over 40 years. The work has always been about memory. My interest in the ancestors began with my childhood discovery of my father’s WWII-era snapshots. He served in the 442nd Regiment, which was the highly-decorated, all Japanese American combat unit from WWII. That discovery, my conversations with Dad, my realization that – as he grew older – he wanted those sacrifices to be remembered, as well as the importance of honoring ancestors in Asian culture all helped me understand the significance of the T.K. Pharmacy letters.

The incarceration sites are powerful places to visit. Thousands of people once lived there and now there may be little or no evidence. Kids made snowmen. There were baseball games. There were angry protests and folks complaining about the food. Now there is silence.

I was stunned when I first saw a fish pond built by imprisoned Japanese Americans. They were forced from their homes, often separated from family members, and forced to live in a barracks with no privacy. And then they built gardens with ponds outside the mess halls to make the wait in the summer heat more comfortable. I mean, who does that?

There is a phrase, shikata ga nai, that was often used by people in the camps. It literally means there is nothing to be done. In the context of Japanese culture though, it implies that, because it’s fate, you quietly move past what is done and continue to do your very best.

I believe that phrase haunted many of the people that experienced the camps. The idea that you can’t do anything about the past led many of that generation to never speak about what had happened. And that meant that many of us on the outside or who were younger, did not understand the anger, confusion, shame, and betrayal that our ancestors felt.

So for me, the letters – these yellowing pieces of paper, which bear a script that I cannot read and were written by people who refused to speak about their lives – hold the mystery of those emotions. And when I go to these sites, I can only hope that my montages honor those experiences.

For Japanese Dance / Heart Mountain incarceration camp, Wyoming – request for two fans for dancing. Letter appears courtesy of the T.K. Pharmacy Collection, Densho.

Art Supplies / view looking toward Jerome incarceration camp near Dermott, Arkansas, 2023/2024 – Request for writing brushes and sumi-e ink. Letter appears courtesy of the T.K. Pharmacy Collection, Densho.

Topaz incarceration camp near Delta, Utah – Thank you for previous shipment. Would like to order mugwort and have it directly shipped to Poston. Letter appears courtesy of the T.K. Pharmacy Collection, Densho.

There is something poignant about the requests found in the letters – common household items, like hair dye. Can you talk about that?

Every letter in the archive has its own power. A request for hair dye can seem superficial. Understand that black hair is important in Japanese culture, especially for older Nikkei or people of Japanese ancestry. But the requests for hair dye are also asking for normalcy or dignity.

Many of those imprisoned had young families. It is hard to imagine the stress they endured. Imagine a farming family that had dinner together every evening before the camps. Suddenly, the kids choose to eat dinner with their new friends from the city. The family unit is broken.

People in the camps were last on the list for supplies. Medicines went to soldiers first and workers for the war effort next. Megan Undeberg, a pharmacy professor at Washington State University, has written about the frequency of requests to T.K.’s for stomach ailments at Poston, for example. Sanitation at the rapidly constructed camps was terrible. But the many requests for sake are signifiers that life continued in the camps. There were births and deaths, as well as celebrations for weddings, graduations, birthdays and farewells for soldiers.

The starry sky was fine and the sand was nothing / Poston Incarceration Camp, Arizona, 2023/2024 – Request for a Japanese writing brush and sumi ink. Letter appears courtesy of the T.K. Pharmacy Collection, Densho.

Once, a garden / Fish pond at Amache Incarceration Camp, near Granada, Colorado, 2022/2024 – Request for Shinmyoko medicine. Letter appears courtesy of the T.K. Pharmacy Collection, Densho.

Why do you think these letters were put in the wall? Why do you think your uncle never said anything?

I believe that Uncle Tak bundled the letters together and kept them on a back room shelf with the intention that they end up in an archive. Tak loved history, and I believe he knew that the letters were important. I think that the letters got pushed off the shelf and into a partially finished wall by accident.

Religious leaders, businessmen, teachers, fishermen, farmers … / Monument for the Santa Fe incarceration camp, New Mexico. Letter appears courtesy of the T.K. Pharmacy Collection, Densho.

The letters I’m working with are all dated 1943, and at that point no one really knew how the war was going to go. So Tak may have intentionally hidden the letters out of fear that he’d be seen as a collaborator. My family doesn’t know, nor do we know why Tak never said anything. That’s just part of the mystery of the letters. The letters, though, clearly signify years of generational trauma and the thousands of stories that remain untold.

Treat Me to Something / Amache incarceration camp, Colorado, 2022/2023 – Request for hair dye sent with an advertisement for Godefroy’s Larieuse Hair Coloring. Letter appears courtesy of the T.K. Pharmacy Collection, Densho.

I need to stand on the grass / Topaz incarceration camp, Utah – Request for medicine for sinus problem. Letter appears courtesy of the T.K. Pharmacy Collection, Densho.

How do you hope this will impact people when they look at your art?

I believe that making an image that looks mysterious and meaningful will make people want to learn more. I would hope ultimately some viewers would understand the passion that is felt in the community of people that are aware that this has indeed happened in the past. We need to think for a moment what it really means to round up a bunch of people and send them away to El Salvador, what it means to have your civil rights completely abrogated. Americans are very fortunate. I think we forget what a beacon of hope this country was. And I really think that I have an obligation to remind people, by whatever means possible, that this thing happened and do what we can to stop it from happening again.

A conspicuous disparity / Buddhist monument, Cemetery at Rohwer incarceration camp, Arkansas – Request for children’s aspirin. Letter appears courtesy of the T.K. Pharmacy Collection, Densho.

Medicine for a small child / Poston Incarceration Camp, Arizona, 2023/2024 – Request for ointment for baby’s skin rash. Letter appears courtesy of the T.K. Pharmacy Collection, Densho.

Artist Statement
Veiled Inscriptions is my ongoing project based on a collection of letters found by a couple in 2012. While demolishing a wall inside the old F.M. Hall building in Denver, they discovered over 350, almost-70-year-old letters sent to a pharmacy during WWII. The letters were mail order requests written by Japanese Americans, who were illegally incarcerated in the War Relocation Authority concentration camps during the war. The hand-written mail orders were sent to T.K. Pharmacy, which was located in the Hall building and one of the few Japanese American businesses that was still operating during the war. “T.K.” was Dr. Thomas Kobayashi, my uncle by marriage, who owned the business. The pharmacist was Yutaka Terasaki, who was my father’s oldest brother.

Executive Order 9066 resulted in the forced removal of Japanese Americans from most of California, Washington, Oregon and much of Arizona. The T.K. Pharmacy archive letters were written from all ten of the W.R.A. sites, as well as two Federal detention facilities, where Japanese Americans were incarcerated.

I am on a journey to photograph all of those sites. I make photomontages that reunite the T.K. Pharmacy letters with the locations where they were written. My pictures are about loss. Loss is in the lives that were torn apart by the forced incarceration. Loss is in the passing of an older generation that refused to speak about their imprisonment. I represent loss and the transient quality of memory through the semi-transparent letters with their beautiful and mysterious Japanese kanji script. I believe these elements speak to thousands of untold stories about this history. The T.K. Pharmacy letters are important not only for what they request – hair dye, skin lotion, dignity – but as a timely warning about the fragility of human rights in the face of social disruption.

Asking / Fish pond, Manzanar incarceration camp, California, 2023/2023 – Request for the price of sake. Letter appears courtesy of the T.K. Pharmacy Collection, Densho.

Dean Terasaki is sansei, a third-generation Japanese American. His childhood discovery of his father’s 442nd Regiment, WWII snapshots sparked a lifelong exploration of photography, memory, and the intersection of race and culture in society. As a young person searching for a future, Dean hopped freight trains, drove taxicabs, and realized that he seemed to carry a camera everywhere. Dean earned a BFA from the University of Colorado and a MFA in photography from Arizona State University. After a very brief move to New York City, he returned to Phoenix where, for 33 years, he taught photography and digital imaging at Glendale Community College. Dean’s solo shows include exhibits at ASU’s Northlight Gallery, the Phoenix Public Library, the Print Center in Philadelphia, Phoenix’s Modified Arts, Phoenix College’s art department gallery and at the Gilbert Museum in Arizona. Group exhibitions are currently scheduled in Denver and at the Chandler Museum in Chandler, Arizona. Dean is a member of the Eye Lounge Collective and currently resides in Phoenix with his wife, Teri, and their new puppy.

Instagram: @silvers_dk
Web: https://www.deanterasaki.xyz/

Spring Mist / Hospital site, Heart Mountain incarceration camp, Wyoming – Thank you note. Letter appears courtesy of the T.K. Pharmacy Collection, Densho.