Tuesday, March 22, 2016
2PM / Konover Auditorium, Dodd Center
Jack Hasegawa / Day of Remembrance Public Lecture
Sponsors: Asian and Asian American Studies Institute and Asian American Cultural
Center
Jack Koichi Hasegawa is a third-generation American of Japanese descent (Sansei) who
recently retired as the Executive Director of 4H Education Center at AuerFarms in
Bloomfield, CT. Prior to that, he supervised two units within the Bureau of Curriculum
and Instruction at the State Department of Education and served as Chief of the Bureau of
Educational Equity and member of the Sheff Office. He also held membership in the
NCATE Board of Examiners and coordinated the Teacher Preparation Program Approval
for Connecticut.
Jack Hasegawa was born in Greeley, Colorado, where his parents were part of a group of
Japanese American internees sent to a farm labor camp to harvest sugar beets. They spent
the rest of the war at the War Relocation Center in Poston, Arizona. His father, Peter K.
Hasegawa, later served in Italy with the famed all Japanese American 442nd Combat
Battalion.
The Asian and Asian American Studies Institute in close collaboration with the Asian
American Cultural Center jointly hold the annual Day of Remembrance at UConn as a
public, educational lecture that examines the historical context and continuing significance
of the federal government of the United States imprisoning en masse civilian members of
the Japanese and Japanese American community in camps located on American soil during
World War II in response to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Executive Order 9066 was
signed by then president Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942. After decades of
grass-roots organizing and the public hearings that formed the core of the findings of the
bi-partisan Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, an apology
was issued and reparations paid after the congressional passage of the Civil Liberties Act
on August 10, 1988 and signed by then president Ronald Reagan.
The bittersweet lessons of the internment experience that began 74 years ago resonate
today as troublingly public rhetoric whip up fear and distrust of migrants, foreigners and
minority communities. It is our hope that armed with knowledge and the courage to
examine complex issues we may yet avoid repeating this regrettable chapter of American
history.
Please email fe.delos-santos@uconn.edu or call (860) 486-5083 for more information.
For more information, contact: Fe Delos Santos at 860-486-5083