Statement on Ron Takaki from Berkeley AAS
Ronald Takaki, 1939-2009
The Asian American Studies program expresses its profound sorrow at the loss of Ronald Takaki, world-renowned Asian American scholar and public intellectual. He had retired in 2002. After struggling for almost two decades with multiple sclerosis, he died by his own hand on May 26, 2009.
Born on April 12, 1939 in Honolulu, Takaki was the descendent of a sugar plantation laborer who migrated to Hawaii from Japan in the late 19th century. His father died when he was seven years old, so he and his two siblings were raised by his mother and his Chinese stepfather, who operated a Chinese restaurant in Honolulu. In his later years, Takaki would talk about how he had enjoyed surfing more than studying until a Japanese American teacher at Iolani High School encouraged him apply to the College of Wooster in Ohio. At Wooster, he found himself regarded as a foreigner. He became interested in the study of American history. At Wooster, he met his wife Carol Rankin who, together with his three children and seven grandchildren, survive him.
After graduating in history in 1961, Takaki went on to UC Berkeley, where he earned Ph.D. in 1967 in American history with a dissertation on the history of slavery in the U.S. He was hired that year to teach African American history at UCLA. After being denied early tenure, he accepted a position beginning in 1972 in the UC Berkeley Ethnic Studies program, which had emerged from the 1969 campus wide student strike. His classes were popular and well attended, and in 1981 he received a coveted Distinguished Teaching Award.
While he served as Chair of the Ethnic Studies Department from 1975 to 1977, Takaki helped craft an Ethnic Studies major. Later, he worked toward the establishment of an American Cultures requirement that all undergraduates take a course intended to broaden their understanding of racial and ethnic diversity. In the early 1980s, he also helped develop the nation’s first Ph.D. program in Comparative Ethnic Studies. During the past two decades, about 130 graduate students have earned doctoral degrees. They have gone on to become professors at virtually every UC campus. Ethnic Studies alumni can also be found teaching at many state universities in California and in other states from Hawaii and Washington to Delaware and Tennessee. They have also been placed at private universities around the country, from Cornell and NYU on the East Coast to Claremont and USC on the Pacific Coast.
A prodigious scholar, Takaki authored almost a dozen books between the early 1970s and 2002, including the critically acclaimed Iron Cages: Race and Culture in 19th Century America (1979). Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans (1989) was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and selected by the New York Times as a Notable Book of the Year and by the San Francisco Chronicle as one of the best 100 non-fiction books of the 20th century. A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America (1993) won the American Book Award. Double Victory: A Multicultural History of America in World War II (2000) was is the first major study of the “Greatest Generation” from the perspectives of our nation’s diverse racial and ethnic minorities. Like many of Takaki’s other works, this book focuses on the voices and viewpoints of ordinary people whose stories are commonly ignored. Takaki also wrote books and conducted workshops for K-12 educators. Indeed, his work has changed the way American history is taught. In 2002, he received the Fred Cody Award for Lifetime Literary Achievement, and in 2009, he was recognized by the Association for Asian American Studies with its Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Besides being awarded the Goldwin Smith University Lectureship and the Distinguished Messenger Lectureship at Cornell University in 1988 and 1993, he received honorary doctorates from Wheelock College, the College of Wooster, Macalester College, Northeastern University, the University of Massachusetts, the Massachusetts College of Art, and Whitman College. He was invited to lecture in Austria, the Netherlands, Armenia, Russia, South Africa, Japan, and New Zealand.
A prominent advocate of multicultural education, Takaki appeared on such national television programs as the NBC “Today Show,” ABC “This Week with David Brinkley,” CNN “International Hour,” “Cross Fire,” and the PBS “Jim Lehrer Newshour” to discuss issues of race, diversity, multiculturalism, and affirmative action. In 1997, he was asked to advise President Bill Clinton on his major speech on race. Between 1980 and 2004, he faced Nathan Glazer in public debates on the issue of affirmative action at five different universities. In 1997, the Council on Foreign Relations hosted a debate between Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and Takaki at the opening plenary session of its conference on America’s diversity and America’s foreign policy.
The Asian American Studies program was honored to have worked with Ronald Takaki.
