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I visited the exhibit last week and found it very moving. Since 2010, I have been putting on programs on the Japanese American experience --based on letters written by Mills College students. The Mills girls wrote to the President Aurelia Reinhardt from their internment camps. The President was a 1905 PhD from Yale. Your exhibit had a piece from Mine Okubo. Mills College gave her her first public showing. I would be most interested in contributing to your programs. My website is www.deareva.org.
Please remember Mikiso Hane.
"No scholar has done more than Mikiso Hane to enable Westerners to understand what Japan's modern history has really meant to the Japanese people," wrote historian John Dower of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology about Hane's books in 1992.
Hane was born in 1922 in Hollister, California, to Japanese immigrant parents and lived there until the age of ten, when his parents sent him to Japan, where he lived with an uncle and attended school in Hiroshima.
Hane returned to the United States in 1940, and following the outbreak of war with Japan in 1941, he was interned by the United States government in a camp in Arizona from May 1942 until October 1943.
After 18 months in the internment camp, Hane applied for a position teaching Japanese at a program operated by the U.S. Army at Yale University. Following the war he earned college degrees at Yale — a bachelor's degree in 1952, a master's degree in 1953, and a doctoral degree in 1957 -- paying his own way through college by teaching Japanese and setting type for an Asian studies journal.
Hane's books on women and peasants -- segments of Japanese society often overlooked in traditional histories are credited with revolutionizing Japanese historical scholarship through extensive use of personal narratives. "The oral history tradition started in the United States with Studs Terkel's interviewing style," Hane told an interviewer in 1983. "I wanted to know what life meant for peasants, as individuals, in pre-war Japan; how women viewed life. I am interested in the personal experiences of individuals."
According to Dower, Hane went beyond "the elites and famous intellectuals... to those ground beneath the wheels of so-called progress. and he has revealed this to us in the most simple and eloquent way possible -- by letting the Japanese speak in their own numerous and varied voices."
Dower said Hane's research has been "more than just a significant scholarly accomplishment. It is a great humanistic contribution as well."
"No scholar has done more than Mikiso Hane to enable Westerners to understand what Japan's modern history has really meant to the Japanese people," wrote historian John Dower of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology about Hane's books in 1992.
Hane was born in 1922 in Hollister, California, to Japanese immigrant parents and lived there until the age of ten, when his parents sent him to Japan, where he lived with an uncle and attended school in Hiroshima.
Hane returned to the United States in 1940, and following the outbreak of war with Japan in 1941, he was interned by the United States government in a camp in Arizona from May 1942 until October 1943.
After 18 months in the internment camp, Hane applied for a position teaching Japanese at a program operated by the U.S. Army at Yale University. Following the war he earned college degrees at Yale — a bachelor's degree in 1952, a master's degree in 1953, and a doctoral degree in 1957 -- paying his own way through college by teaching Japanese and setting type for an Asian studies journal.
Hane's books on women and peasants -- segments of Japanese society often overlooked in traditional histories are credited with revolutionizing Japanese historical scholarship through extensive use of personal narratives. "The oral history tradition started in the United States with Studs Terkel's interviewing style," Hane told an interviewer in 1983. "I wanted to know what life meant for peasants, as individuals, in pre-war Japan; how women viewed life. I am interested in the personal experiences of individuals."
According to Dower, Hane went beyond "the elites and famous intellectuals... to those ground beneath the wheels of so-called progress. and he has revealed this to us in the most simple and eloquent way possible -- by letting the Japanese speak in their own numerous and varied voices."
Dower said Hane's research has been "more than just a significant scholarly accomplishment. It is a great humanistic contribution as well."
When I first saw Dorothea Lange's photographs of the Mochida family and learned they were from Hayward, CA, I was simply stunned. I was born in Hayward a few short years later, and simply could not believe this injustice happened in my hometown. It made it very personal for me. I regret I will not be able to attend this exhibit, but truly appreciate your efforts in putting it together. History teaches us lessons if we are willing to learn. Today's political environment is ripe for repeating our mistakes - let's learn from this exhibit!
Our visits to Topaz and the Topaz Japanese American Internment Camp Museum have made me always on the lookout to build upon that experience. Thank you for curating such a lovely collection of glimpses into the lives that inhabited those camps. This is a haunting site..
Most fascinating exhibition. I first learned of this sad chapter of American history in high school when a classmate brought in a documentary film about the camp where her parents and grandparents were interned. Later, coincidentally, I worked for the former chair of the Commission on Wartime Relocation on Wartime Internment of Civilians and read the Commission's report. Subsequently visited Heart Mountain's remains while on a family vacation. The exhibit continues to flesh out my understanding of this event and is especially timely given all of the current refugee concerns.
In memory of Kenso Kiyohiro an incredible American who always took the high road and never blamed the American government for his and his peoples internment. He got out of Camp Manzanar and went to work and never looked back. Dedicated to his Japanese community and to his country, the United States of America. A true example for all mankind.
Beautiful digital site. Thank you.
Seeing this exhibit has really inspired and rekindled my love for history. Thank you so much! ❤
Thank you for putting this together! I like how it gives a sense of place to this history.