Born and raised in Cincinnati, Denny Kato is a third-generation Japanese American or Sansei. He graduated from Walnut Hills High School and received a BA from the University of Cincinnati.  After a stint in the US Army in military intelligence, Denny spent most of his working career in restaurant management.

Over the past seven or so years, Denny and his wife, Janet, have devoted much of their energy and time to researching the history of Japanese incarceration during WWII.  What started out as a search for more information on the incarceration of his parents’ families, turned into a quest to learn as much as possible about the internment and relocation of the Japanese and Japanese Americans.

Janet and Denny have visited all ten of the internment camps from WWII and the memorial at the Santa Fe location of the Department of Justice camp where his paternal grandfather was imprisoned. Denny has given numerous presentations on the camps to various groups and has hosted an eight-hour lecture series webinar on the camps for OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute) at the University of South Florida.

Denny and Janet are members of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), Japanese American National Museum, Densho, Heart Mountain Foundation, Amache Preservation Society, and the Japan American Society of Greater Cincinnati.

This is a family-friendly event and school-age kids are welcome.  The presentation will last one hour not including Q&A.

Cover image: “Kids at Mazanar.” Credit: Toyo Miyatake