Ronald Takaki
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ronald Takaki (born 1939) in Oahu, Hawai'i is an ethnic studies historian. His work helps dispel stereotypes of Asian Americans such as the model minority myth. He strives "to write a more inclusive and hence more accurate history of Americans, Chicanos, Native Americans as well as certain European immigrant groups like the Irish and Jewish."
He received his PhD in American history in 1967 from and served as a professor at University of California, Berkeley until his retirement in 2004.
Recently, in 2005, won the Asian Pacific Council's Lifetime Achievement Award for a lifetime of service to the Asian American community with his writings, teachings, and exposure to America about issues affecting Asian Americans. The Asian Pacific Council is an organization on the UC Berkeley campus, where he teaches.
Was inspired to fight for equality and the Asian American movement from his personal experience where early in his life he faced discrimination as a college student in midwestern America. A key event in his life was when his wife's family (she was caucasian) refused to accept him because he was Asian American. And from that experience he has dedicated his life to the cause of Asian Americans, so that they and he could be accepted in America, as Americans, and not as foreigners and "strangers from a different shore."
Some of his books include:
- A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America
- Race at the End of History
- Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans
- A Pro-Slavery Crusade
- Violence in the Black Imagination
- Iron Cages: Race and Culture in 19th-Century America
- Hiroshima: Why America Dropped the Atomic Bomb
- Debating Diversity: Clashing Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity in America
- A Larger Memory: A History of Our Diversity with Voices
