Beyond Barbed Wire

The Harriet Beecher Stowe House bears witness to generations joining their voices for truth in the nations struggle toward freedom and humanity for all.

Harriet Beecher Stowe House

Denny Kato shares his family's living legacy of the Japanese internment camps in WWII.

Lecture Series

The Harriet Beecher Stowe House's lecture series highlights the Power of Voice to make change in society. Join us on-site or online to engage with speakers from around Ohio and across the nation.  Generously sponsored by Dr. Allen Bernard.

As a schoolboy, nobody believed Dennis Kato when he told them that his father’s parents and their families had been forced into incarceration camps simply because they were of Japanese descent. He is speaking up again now in hopes that you believe this happened in America.About the speaker:Born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, Denny Kato is third generation Japanese American, or Sansei. He graduated from Walnut Hills High School, received a BA from the University of Cincinnati in 1971, and served in the US Army as a 1LT in military intelligence. After retirement from restaurant management, what started out for Denny as curiosity about his family history, grew into thoroughly researching how people of Japanese descent were forced from their homes during World War II and placed in internment camps. Like the thirteen members of his family, most were American citizens. He and his wife, Janet, have visited all ten of the internment camps from the Pacific west coast to the rural southeast of Arkansas. Since 2019, Denny has lectured both live and via zoom for the Art Institute of Cincinnati, several sessions for OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute) at the University of South Florida, Japan America Society of Greater Cincinnati, and soon for the JACL (Japanese American Citizens League) and actively posts news about the camps on his Facebook Page “Beyond Barbed Wire.”

Public Health Requirements:This will be a hybrid program, with limited tickets available for on-site seating. It will also be livestreamed online to those who have reserved tickets. Online participants will be able to hear and participate in live Q&A after the lecture.

Lecture Series Sponsor:Huseman Group’s Cincinnati headquarters have been based in Walnut Hills for more than 50 years, and the Group takes pride in the dynamic history of this diverse and vibrant neighborhood. The Group’s exponential growth in the early 2000s was largely due to a passion for and expertise in historic renovation—they value history and know that it is important to preserve the past in order to learn and grow into the future.

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