A Warrior for Multicultural Studies: Remembering Ron Takaki

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Category: Race & Liberation

Created on Friday, 29 May 2009 02:00

Written by asianweek.com

On May 26th, Prof. Ronald Takaki (1939 - 2009) passed away.  He was a founding figure in the development of multicultural studies in the U.S..

Perhaps it is hard to reconstruct how radical and controversial the very idea of African American studies or "Ethnic Studies" once was. But suffice it  to say that it was once widely and officially assumed that the U.S. was a "white, Christian, Anglo nation" and that the study of white settler expansion and the subsequent culture of that nationality WAS the history and culture of the U.S. The experiences and struggles of Black people, of Chicanos, of Native Americans, and of non-white immigrants was a void -- a large gaping hole enforced by the assumptions of white supremacy. They were not studied (or taught) because there was assumed to be nothing there -- and that marginalization helped hide (read: defend) the profoundly ugly truths that lie at the foundation of the United States, its founding, its expansion, its wealth, and its century-old attempt to dominate the world.

And we need to remember this now precisely because the nature of U.S. society remains the focus of sharp struggle -- and the forces of a white, Christian, male-dominated America have not rested or conceded the future. And because there needs to be intensified struggle over what a liberated multicultural society in North America would look like.

Pioneers like Ronald had to fight -- often literally in building takeovers and other militant actions -- to be heard. And it is only in the wake of Black rebellions, leaving smoking city cores in the mid-1960s, that the hidebound racist stonewalls of official academia started to crack.

* * * * * * This story originally appeard in asianweek.com.

Remembering Ron Takaki

It is with great sadness to announce that Professor Emeritus Ronald Takaki passed away on the evening of May 26th, 2009. He is survived by his wife, Carol Takaki, his three children Dana, Troy, and Todd Takaki, and his grandchildren.

Ron Takaki was one of the most preeminent scholars of our nation’s diversity, and considered “the father” of multicultural studies. As an academic, historian, ethnographer and author, his work helped dispel stereotypes of Asian Americans. In his study of multicultural people’s history in America, Takaki sought to unite Americans, today and in the future, with each other and with the rest of the world.

He was a professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught over 20,000 students during 34 years of teaching.

Born in 1939, Professor Takaki was the grandson of immigrant Japanese plantation workers in Hawaii. He graduated from the College of Wooster, Ohio, in 1961. Six years later, after receiving his Ph.D. in American history from UC Berkeley, Takaki went to UCLA to teach its first Black history course.

As a Professor, Takaki hoped that his students would learn that skills of critical thinking and effective writing could be used in a revolutionary way. Epistemology, critical thinking, or in Takaki’s words “how do you know, you know, what you know about the America and the world you live in?” was a question Takaki posed to his students to challenge the way they looked at history, current policies, and even life.

In 1972, Professor Takaki returned to Berkeley to teach in the newly instituted Department of Ethnic Studies. His comparative approach to the study of race and ethnicity provided the conceptual framework for the B.A. program and the Ph.D. program in Comparative Ethnic Studies as well as for the university’s multicultural requirement for graduation, known as the American Cultures Requirement.

The Berkeley faculty has honored Professor Takaki with a Distinguished Teaching Award.

Takaki has lectured in Japan, Russia, Armenia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Austria, and South Africa.

He has debated Nathan Glazer and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. on issues such as affirmative action and multicultural education.

Takaki is a fellow of the Society of American Historians; its executive secretary, Mark Carnes stated that Takaki “has re-shaped American history.”

In 1997, Professor Takaki helped President Bill Clinton write his major speech on race, “One America in the 21st Century.”

Professor Takaki was the author of 12 books. Iron Cages: Race and Culture in 19th Century America has been critically acclaimed. Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans has been selected by the San Francisco Chronicle as one of the best 100 non-fiction books of the 20th century, and A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America is read on college campuses across the country and has over half a million copies in print.