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Mia Nakaji Monnier

Mia Nakaji Monnier

Mia Nakaji Monnier's journalism and essays have appeared in The Washington Post, O: The Oprah Magazine, BuzzFeed and more. Before going freelance, she worked on staff at The Rafu Shimpo, a century-old Japanese American bilingual community newspaper based in L.A.'s Little Tokyo.

Mia Nakaji Monnier
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A photo of a Starbucks Coffee location, with Googie-style mid-century modern architecture.
Today, the Crenshaw district of South Los Angeles is known as a predominantly Black neighborhood, while Japanese Americans are most commonly associated with Little Tokyo, Sawtelle, Torrance and Gardena. But after World War II, Crenshaw had the largest concentration of Japanese Americans in the continental United States.
CARE NOT CAGES" written in in the sky, contributed by Patrisse Cullors, over the L.A. County Jail as seen from Griffith Park | Chris Mastro, In Plain Sight
“In Plain Sight" conscripted 80 artists and organizations to make visible the vast and invisible network of detention centers by writing messages in the sky.
 "George Takei Weaving" by Taiji Terasaki | Courtesy of the artist
Two new exhibitions explore the connection between World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans and the United States government’s more recent immigration and travel policies.
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