Skip to main content

Fred Korematsu Day

As a Californian and Japanese-American (fourth-generation in both cases), I'm very proud that my state now officially recognizes today as Fred Korematsu Day. I realize that some may see the proliferation of specially-designated days like this as political correctness run amok, but unfortunately, it's clearly necessary - it's appalling how often I encounter people who know nothing about the Japanese-American internment. It's particularly scary given the current political climate where it seems like many in Washington believe "national security" should trump civil liberties.

Brief History Lesson
For those who don't know what I'm talking about, between 1941 and 1945, after the bombing of Pearl harbor, the United States government forcibly removed over 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry from their homes on the Pacific coast and placed the majority in 10 "camps" in the western interior of the country (I put "camps" in quotes because although they were euphemistically referred to as internment camps, I really think "prison" is the the proper word for an institution surrounded by barbed wire where you are shot if you try to leave). Over two-thirds of the prisoners were American citizens, including my grandparents. Although the Japanese community was rounded up in the name of 'national security', not a single person of Japanese ancestry was ever convicted of spying or treason, and ironically, Japanese American men were later allowed to join the army (to fight in Europe) and their unit, the 100th Battalian/442nd Regimental Combat Team, became one of the most decorated units in history.  Fred Korematsu was a Californian who refused to obey the order to report to the assembly centers; similarly, in Washington and Oregon, Gordon Hirabayashi and Minoru Yasui defied the curfew imposed on Japanese individuals. All three cases went to the Supreme Court, where they lost at the time, but those convictions were finally overturned in the 1980s.  

If you are not familiar with this chapter of U.S. history, the National Asian American Telecommunications Association has a great site, Exploring the Japanese American Internment through Film and the Internet, and there's also a cool Digital History site. Personally, I learned a lot about the internment when I was younger by reading the personal stories of internees, such as Desert Exile: The Uprooting of a Japanese-American Family, and Nisei Daughter.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Comments that contribute to the discussion are always welcome! Please note that spammy comments whose only purpose seems to be to direct traffic to a commercial site will be deleted.

Popular posts from this blog

THE podcast on Implicit Bias

I keep telling myself I need to get back to blogging but, well, it's been a long pandemic... But I guess this is as good an excuse as any to post something: I am Bonni Stachowiak's guest on the latest episode of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, talking about implicit bias and how it can impact our teaching.  Doing the interview with Bonni (which was actually recorded a couple months ago) was a lot of fun. Listening to it now, I also realize how far I have come from the instructor I was when I started this blog over a decade ago. I've been away from the blog so long that I should probably spell this out: my current title is Associate Vice President for Faculty and Staff Diversity and I have responsibility for all professional learning and development related to diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as inclusive faculty and staff recruitment, and unit-level diversity planning. But I often say that in a lot of ways, I have no business being in this position - I've ne...
Post a Comment
Read more

When is an exam "too hard"?

By now, you may have heard about the biology professor at Louisiana State (Baton Rouge) who was removed from teaching an intro course where "more than 90 percent of the students... were failing or had dropped the class." The majority of the comments on the Inside Higher Ed story about it are supportive of the professor, particularly given that it seems like the administration did not even talk to her about the situation before acting. I tend to fall in the "there's got to be more to the story so I'll reserve judgment" camp but the story definitely struck a nerve with me, partly because I recently spent 30 minutes "debating" with a student about whether the last midterm was "too hard" and the whole conversation was super-frustrating. To give some background: I give three midterms and a cumulative final, plus have clicker points and Aplia assignments that make up about 20% of the final grade. I do not curve individual exams but will cu...
3 comments
Read more

Designing effective courses means thinking through the WHAT and the HOW (in that order)

I think most folks have heard by now that the California State University system (in which I work) has announced the intention to prepare for fall classes to be primarily online. I have to say, I am sort of confused why everyone is making such a big deal about this - no matter what your own institution is saying, no instructor who cares about their own mental health (let alone their students) should be thinking we are going back to 'business as usual' in the fall. In my mind, the only sane thing to do is at least prepare  for the possibility of still teaching remotely. Fortunately, unlike this spring, we now have a lot more time for that preparation. Faculty developers across the country have been working overtime since March, and they aren't slowing down now; we are all trying to make sure we can offer our faculty the training and resources they will need to redesign fall courses for online or hybrid modalities. But one big difference between the training faculty needed ...
Post a Comment
Read more