Shows
Asian American History 101A Conversation with Satsuki Ina, Trauma Therapist, Activist, Filmmaker, and the Author of The Poet and the Silk Girl Welcome to Season 5, Episode 46! Many of our guests are multi-hyphenates when it comes to their impact in the world, and today's guest can definitely be described that way. Satsuki Ina is a Trauma Therapist, Activist, Filmmaker, Educator, and the Author of the Memoir The Poet and the Silk Girl which was released on September 9, 2025. Satsuki is a survivor of the Japanese incarceration during World War II. She was born in the camps and spent her first few years there, both experiencing the trauma in her early years as well as through her parents. In her mem...
2025-11-1734 min
Talk CocktailEchoes of Japanese Incarceration: It Can Happen HereToday, as immigrant families are again separated and detained, Satsuki Ina joins me on the California Sun podcast to talk about her memoir “The Poet and the Silk Girl.” Her story chronicles her family’s journey through California’s network of assembly centers and permanent camps during World War II. It’s a reminder, she says, that what happened then is not just history — it’s a warning about how easily such chapters of fear and racism repeat themselves.Satsuki was born behind barbed wire at Tule Lake, where she became one of roughly 120,000 Japanese Americans incarcerated during the war...
2025-10-1536 min
Whole Wellness MamasEp26: Japanese American Stories You Need to Hearn this conversation, Satsuki Ina shares her journey as a Japanese American and the impact of her family's history of incarceration during World War II. She discusses her memoir, 'The Poet and the Silk Girl,' which explores themes of trauma, identity, and activism. Satsuki emphasizes the importance of sharing stories to process trauma and the role of activism in channeling personal pain into social change. The discussion also touches on the significance of reclaiming one's identity and the healing power of community solidarity in addressing social injustices.Connect with Satsuki: https://www.satsukiina.com/Get The Poet and...
2025-10-1248 min
Solidarity Is ThisSolidarity As Public MemoryHow are Native and Japanese American communities marking a shameful part of American history? Our guest, Satsuki Ina, shows us how to build solidarity from a national tragedy.
2025-10-0124 min
California Sun PodcastSatsuki Ina on echoes of Japanese incarcerationSatsuki Ina was born behind barbed wire at Tule Lake, where she became one of roughly 120,000 Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II. Her parents, both U.S. citizens, lost their freedom and faith in America, leaving a legacy of silence and trauma. Today, as immigrant families are again separated and detained, Ina's memoir "The Poet and the Silk Girl" chronicles her family's journey through California's network of assembly centers and permanent camps. It's a reminder, she says, that what happened then is not just history — it's a warning about how easily such chapters of fear and racism repeat th...
2025-09-1136 min
National Native NewsThursday, September 11, 2025
(Photo: Brian Bull)
During World War II, at least 100,000 Japanese Americans were forced into so-called internment, or concentration, camps across the U.S.
Seen by the government as a potential threat within America’s borders, memories of the mass incarceration still burns hot for former prisoners and their families.
Senior reporter Brian Bull of Buffalo’s Fire reports on a Native American college that held a special dedication that preserves that history.
About 200 people gathered at the Snow Country Prison Japanese American Memorial last Friday at the United Tribes Technical College (UTTC...
2025-09-1104 minNational Native NewsThursday, September 11, 2025
(Photo: Brian Bull)
During World War II, at least 100,000 Japanese Americans were forced into so-called internment, or concentration, camps across the U.S.
Seen by the government as a potential threat within America’s borders, memories of the mass incarceration still burns hot for former prisoners and their families.
Senior reporter Brian Bull of Buffalo’s Fire reports on a Native American college that held a special dedication that preserves that history.
About 200 people gathered at the Snow Country Prison Japanese American Memorial last Friday at the United Tribes Technical College (UTTC...
2025-09-1104 min
Opening Dharma Access: Listening to BIPOC Teachers & PractitionersBelonging to Zen, Belonging to Shin: Two Traditions, One Engaged Heart w/ Judy Yushin NakatomiJudy Yushin Nakatomi talks about her practice in the Zen and Shin traditions. She also discusses how she is practicing with her Bodhisattva vows through engaging with the current internment of minority people, while practicing awareness of her own family's history with war wounds. Judy and Rev Liên share with each other some of the nuances of having or not having access to ancestral languages and culture, and how they navigate being Asian American Buddhist practitioners in the United States. People/Organizations mentioned in the episode:Dr. Satsuki Ina Dr...
2025-09-0241 min
Think Out LoudJapanese Americans recount experiences of internmentOn February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order No. 9066, which sent people of Japanese descent – many of them U.S. citizens – from their homes to “relocation centers,” resulting in the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Every two years, people come from all over the country to Klamath Falls to remember the Tule Lake internment camp, just south of the Oregon border. Today, we listen back to a conversation we recorded at the Tule Lake Pilgrimage in 2016. We talked to Satsuki Ina, one of the organizers of the pilgrimage and a former resident of Tule Lake. We also s...
2025-02-1750 min
The California Report MagazineJapanese Americans Pledge to 'Fight Back' Against Trump Deportation PlanFebruary 19 is the Day of Remembrance, the anniversary of when President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which led to the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Some survivors of those prison camps are feeling like the rhetoric about immigrants and mass deportations today is hitting too close to home. In response, some survivors are mobilizing to protect vulnerable immigrants. Reporter Cecilia Lei spoke to a group of them in the Bay Area about how they’re fighting to keep history from repeating itself. One of the members of that Japanese American survivors group is...
2025-02-1530 minThe California Report MagazineEncore: The Poet and the Silk Girl: A Japanese American Story of Love, Imprisonment and ProtestNine months into Satsuki Ina’s parents’ marriage, Pearl Harbor was bombed. Their life was totally upended when, along with 125,000 other Japanese Americans, they were sent to incarceration camps. After unsuccessfully fighting for their civil rights to be restored, they renounced their American citizenship. That meant the US government branded them as “enemy aliens.” Ina was born in a prison camp at Tule Lake, but didn’t know much about that difficult chapter in her parents’ life. Then she discovered a trove of letters that they sent to each other while they were separated in different camps. Now, at close to 80...
2024-08-1730 min
New ArrivalsSatsuki Ina memoir explores her family’s wrongful WWII incarcerationSatsuki Ina lives in Albany. Her book, The Poet and the Silk Girl came out on March 26th, 2024.
2024-05-1402 min
The California Report MagazineThe Poet and the Silk Girl: A Japanese-American Story of Love, Imprisonment and ProtestNine months into Satsuki Ina’s parents’ marriage, Pearl Harbor was bombed. Their life was totally upended when, along with 125,000 other Japanese-Americans, they were sent to incarceration camps. After unsuccessfully fighting for their civil rights to be restored, they renounced their American citizenship. That meant the US government branded them as “enemy aliens.” Ina was born in a prison camp at Tule Lake, but didn’t know much about that difficult chapter in her parents’ life. Then she discovered a trove of letters that they sent to each other while they were separated in different camps. Now, at close to 80 years...
2024-03-1630 min
Alaska Teen Media InstituteMy Neighbor Totoro | Film Club #30Studio Ghibli is a Japanese animation company responsible for some of the most renowned and beloved animated films of all time. Founded in 1985, it has produced hand-drawn animated classics like “Spirited Away,” “Princess Mononoke,” “Grave of the Fireflies,” and many more.
This year, many of the films from the studio’s co-founder Hayao Miyasaki are getting a theatrical re-release in the U.S. So we thought we would revisit his works as they are coming back to the big screen.
Miyazaki’s first film to screen was his 1988 feature “My Neighbor Totoro.” It tells the story of Mei and Satsu...
2023-05-0130 min
The Pacific HeartEp. 26: Satsuki Ina, Tsuru for Solidarity, Migrant Detention and COVID19Dr. Satsuki Ina was born in the Tule Lake Segregation, a maximum security American concentration camp during WWII. She says she was born "doing time." She has dedicated her career to understanding and healing the effects of this collective and historical trauma on Japanese Americans. She is a co-organizer of Tsuru for Solidarity (https://tsuruforsolidarity.org and on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TsuruForSolidarity), which is working to end detention sites and to support front-line immigrant and refugee communities that are being targeted by racist, inhumane immigration policies. The vulnerable people in detention sites are likely to be heavily affected...
2020-03-2535 min
Making ContactWomen Rising. Migrations: Standing in Solidarity With the DesperateWomen Rising Radio chronicles the rise of three different movements to advocate for immigrant rights in the USA, and to support immigrants and refugees over the border in Mexico. These movements are spearheaded by women. Dr. Satsuki Ina co-founded Tsuru for Solidarity; Serena Adlerstein co-created Never Again Action; and Devi Machete co-created the Hecate Society, helping migrants stuck at the Mexican border with the USA.
2019-10-0228 min
Making ContactWomen Rising. Migrations: Standing in Solidarity With the DesperateLike this program? Please show us the love. Click here ow.ly/oSpU30hHCXp and support our non-profit journalism. Thanks!
Women Rising Radio chronicles the rise of three different movements to advocate for immigrant rights in the USA, and to support immigrants and refugees over the border in Mexico. These movements are spearheaded by women. Dr. Satsuki Ina co-founded Tsuru for Solidarity; Serena Adlerstein co-created Never Again Action; and Devi Machete co-created the Hecate Society, helping migrants stuck at the Mexican border with the USA.
Photo by Brooke Anderson
2019-10-0129 minSolidarity Is ThisSolidarity: Never Again Is NowDeepa is in conversation with Satsuki Ina, a trauma therapist born in a prison camp, and Brandon Shimoda, a poet writing about the afterlife of Japanese American incarceration.
2018-07-2543 min
The Pacific HeartEp. 8: Satsuki Ina and Stephen Gong at CAAMFest 36, on trauma and healingAt CAAMFest36, CAAM Executive Director Stephen Gong conversed with noted psychologist, documentarian and former internee Satsuki Ina about trauma and healing through storytelling and embracing a deeper narrative identity and vision for oneself in the world. For more, see my blog Memoirs of a Superfan Volume 13.11 (Umami, Jimami Tofu and Aunt Lily’s Flowerbook) at www.caamedia.org
2018-05-2719 min