The life of the pioneering ethnic and cultural studies scholar and 1961 College of Wooster graduate Dr. Ronald T. Takaki will be honored with a three-day academic conference of unprecedented national importance held at Wooster this weekend.
Takaki, who passed away in 2009, was one of the most influential scholars on ethnic studies in America since he received his Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of California at Berkeley in 1967.† He taught the first African-American history classes at the University of California at Los Angeles, where African -American students were skeptical of the small, Asian man and how he could help them fight for their rights. “Ron won them over and became a galvanizing force,” said Dr. Josephine Wright, who was chiefly involved in the organization process for the conference.
Takaki spent the remainder of his career at Berkeley, where he played a central role in the development of an undergraduate ethnic studies major and ethnic studies Ph.D. program.† Takaki has published numerous books, but is most famous for “A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America,” and “Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian-Americans.”
President Cornwell, who used Takaki’s works frequently when he was a professor of philosophy at St. Lawrence University in New York, was “thrilled” to discover that Takaki was a Wooster graduate when he first came to Wooster in 2007.† This didn’t surprise him, however, because of Wooster’s “amazingly influential” alumni in academia.
“Generations of students, in scores of classrooms in universities across the nation and throughout the world, have come to understand the dynamics of race and ethnicity through the critical and creative lens Dr. Takaki provides in his work,” he said.
President Cornwell met with Takaki in Berkeley, Ca. in 2008 and hoped to bring him closer to Wooster and encouraged him to spend time on campus.† Unfortunately, Takaki, who suffered from muscular dystrophy, died in 2009.
The Center for Diversity and Global Engagement has worked for several months to organize the conference that would be reflective of Takaki’s work and his legacy.† “We wanted to bring together college professors, administrators, students and scholars to talk about teaching and doing research on race and ethnic studies,” said Wright.
Over three days, 14 nationally-renowned scholars will give seminars at Wooster to staff, faculty and students, as well as other visitors from around the country.† The small gathering will allow attendees to interact with and ask the speakers questions during breaks for meals, an anomaly otherwise unheard of at large academic conferences.
Of the scholars who will speak at the conference, three will be Takaki’s former students: Sumi Cho of the DePaul University College of Law, Timothy P. Fong, Professor and Chair Department Ethnic Studies at California State University at Sacramento and Larry Shinagawa, the Director of Asian Studies Program at the University of Maryland, College Park.
The conference will address the study of race and ethnicity in the United States, and how it is changing as the U.S. demographic changes culturally.† Today, black Americans do not necessarily have a connection to American slavery, and Asian-American and Latin American groups are equally diverse within their communities, said Wright.† As the study of different cultures changes, “we need new lenses in which to study that phenomenon,” she said.
At the local level, President Cornwell sees this as an “occasion for faculty, staff and students to participate in a dialogue of national importance about race, democracy and nationality.” Nationally, President Cornwell said this conference is an opportunity for scholars to share the most recent thinking about race and ethnic studies in the U.S., honor Takaki and contribute to national scholarship.
In addition to the conference, Takaki will be honored with a festschrift, a collection of essays that honors a major scholar on the occasion of a milestone in his or her career.† In this case, it will honor Takaki’s life.
The festschrift will include 10 or more scholars and be comprised of the conference papers.† This particular body of work is widely-anticipated by publishers and academics because of its timely discussion of race and ethnicity in the U.S.
Takaki was born in Honolulu, Hawaii and he “found his vocation while earning a bachelor’s degree in history at the College of Wooster in Ohio,” according to the New York Times Takaki returned to the College in 1994 to receive an honorary doctorate of humanities degree.
Cornwell said that Takaki struggled as an Asian-American at the College.† He found his time here challenging because of his ethnicity.† Despite the struggle, Takaki valued his Wooster education and Cornwell believes that this period in his life served as motivation for his studies of ethnicity in the U.S.
“Ethnic studies is often motivated by injustice and struggle,” said Cornwell. The hope is that† this† conference will provide us with answers.
The conference will open today at 5 p.m. in Gault Recital Hall in Scheide Music Center with opening remarks by President Cornwell.† After three days of rigorous academic discussion, it will conclude in the same location at noon with remarks by Takaki’s wife, Carol Rankin Takaki.