I recently saw “Stanford Prison Experiment,” a feature film based on an experiment conducted by Stanford University professor Philip Zimbardo in 1971. This is a famous study, one that is apparently cited in many psychology classes and I had heard of it. It was to study human behavior in a prison setting and a group […]
UCLA removes ‘internment’ from professorship’s title
May 17, 2012 by 1 Comment
LOS ANGELES — Professor David K. Yoo, director of UCLA’s Asian American Studies Center, announced that the endowed chair and professorship of the Asian American Studies Center has been renamed The George and Sakaye Aratani Professor of the Japanese American Incarceration, Redress and Community. “After considerable consultation, Dr. Lane Hirabayashi, who is the current holder […]
S.F. DOR remembers civil rights icon Hirabayashi, urges vigilance
March 2, 2012 by Leave a Comment
On Feb. 19, hundreds gathered at the Bay Area Day of Remembrance (DOR), which was held at the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas in San Francisco’s Japantown, to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the signing of Executive Order 9066. The order, signed by then-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, authorized the mass incarceration of some 120,000 Nikkei during World […]
iTOUR THROUGH HISTORY: New app allows digital media to teach about the Japanese American incarceration experience
January 20, 2012 by 2 Comments
Have the days when students learned about Japanese American history through textbooks gone by the wayside? As consumers latch on to the latest tech gadgets, some companies are using digital media to teach about the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. From iPhone applications to video games, the emerging trend signals the innovative […]
Gordon Hirabayashi, civil rights icon who resisted wartime incarceration, dies
January 5, 2012 by 2 Comments
Gordon Kiyoshi Hirabayashi, one of three wartime litigants who challenged wartime curfew or exclusion orders and whose legal convictions were vacated four decades later, died on Jan. 2, 2012 after a long bout with Alzheimer’s disease in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, his family said. He was 93. “Dad was slowly declining in health after living 10 […]
A DAY OF INFAMY INCITES LIFETIMES OF ACTIVISM: Two iconic Nisei recall the event that changed the fate of the community
December 1, 2011 by Leave a Comment
The lives of Japanese Americans would forever be changed following Dec. 7, 1941, the date that President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “will live in infamy.” For many Nisei, that fateful day left an indelible memory of lives disrupted and changed forever. For two women who grew up in Southern California, this major event in U.S. […]
Microsoft Alumni Foundation awards Densho’s Tom Ikeda $25K
November 25, 2011 by Leave a Comment
SEATTLE — Bill and Melinda Gates announced the Microsoft Alumni Foundation’s 2011 Integral Fellows winners Nov. 16. at the third annual celebration to honor former Microsoft employees for making a meaningful difference in the daily lives of others. The Foundation, which was established in 2007, aims to make a difference in the world through the […]
RABBIT RAMBLINGS: A question of loyalty and ‘Conscience’
October 13, 2011 by Leave a Comment
It is a wonderful thing that my friend, Frank Abe, took the time and effort to expand on his very good documentary, “Conscience and the Constitution” (originally released in 2000). He has produced a two-disc Collectors’ Edition DVD, and because we now have the technology to add material, Abe’s story of the draft resisters during […]
CSU films recognize honorary degree recipients
October 13, 2011 by 1 Comment
The California State University (CSU) Office of the Chancellor announced in an Oct. 7 statement that it had completed six videos to honor Nisei who had received honorary bachelor’s degrees from the university’s board of trustees. The former students were forced to leave CSU campuses during World War II, and were among the some 120,000 […]
Why all the fuss over language?
“At what point are we, as Americans of Japanese ancestry, going to resist having our history written for us by others?” Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga, a Nisei survivor of the World War II incarceration, asked this question. She is revered as the researcher who found the document that proved the government claim of “military necessity” as the […]