Thursday, 3/6 @ 2:00pm in Student Union Bldg
Asian American Cultural Center Media Room 428
LANE RYO HIRABAYASHI, University of California at Los Angeles
“A PRINCIPLED STAND: Hirabayashi v. the United States” / DAY OF REMEMBRANCE 2014
“I never look at my case as just my own, or just as a Japanese American case. It is an American case, with principles that affect the fundamental human rights of all Americans …” Gordon K. Hirabayashi was a 24-year old student at the University of Washington and a U.S. born American citizen when he intentionally turned himself in to the FBI to defy the curfew restrictions imposed on all West Coast residents of Japanese ancestry, pursuant to Executive Order 9066. For his challenge to the World War II internment of Japanese Americans, Hirabayashi was sent to a federal prison camp in Arizona. He had studied the actions of World War I resisters, read the political writings of Nehru and Gandhi about passive resistance and the independence movement of India, embraced the Quaker faith, and became a conscientious objector and member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation.
Nephew of Gordon, Lane has written a compelling biography of his uncle in A PRINCIPLED STAND: The Story of Hirabayashi v. United States (University of Washington Press, April 2013), which will be available on-site, courtesy of the UConn Co-Op Bookstore.
The Asian+Asian American Studies Institute's annual Day of Remembrance lecture examines the unjust incarceration of people of Japanese ancestry in the Americas, including Canada and Latin America, during World War Two.
Funded by a grant from the Human Rights Institute, this Honors Event is co-sponsored by Department (s) of History, Philosophy, and Political Science, and the Asian American Cultural Center.
For more information, contact: Ms. Fe Delos-Santos at fe.delos-santos@uconn.edu