A California Love Story-Professional and Personal
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A California Love Story-Professional and Personal Lee W. Formwalt ' s our thoughts tum to the annual meeting and Indeed, when I was growing up, histories were California, some of our more active members in written and taught to exclude rather than in A the Golden State come to mind. Among them are clude those groups. I realized that the founding Nadine and Don Hata. I first met Nadine and Don about fathers/mothers did not look like me. And so, five years ago when I flew to southern California to talk like Alex Haley; I was forced to search for my with OAH members there in preparation for our 2001 own roots as an American of Japanese ancestry. meeting in Los Angeles. Active OAH members, Nadine Upon completion of a master's degree in Japa and Don took me to dinner at one of their favorite Japa nese studies from the University of Michigan, I nese restaurants. We talked about OAH efforts to build received a scholarship to study in Japan." There support among American historians at community col shemetDon. leges (where Nadine taught) and four-year institutions Donald Teruo Hata was born in East Los (where Don taught). It was obvious that both of them had Angeles two years before Nadine. At the age of a love affair with their profession-history-and that they three, this California native and U.S. citizen was had devoted much of their time and energy to it. rounded up as a political prisoner and hauled off More recently, I learned about how collaborative to "the U.S. War Relocation Authority concentra- 1 their efforts have been on behalf of history. They have tion camp for persons of Japanese ancestry (WRA ] coauthored articles and books on Japanese American his File #312014) at Gila River, Arizona." From 1942 ~ tory and served on numerous civic and professional ad to 1945, he was officially prisoner #40451C, denied ~ visory boards. When Nadine codirected a special seminar due process and "guilty by reason of race." His § in summer 2003 to upgrade the research skills of commu work as a migrant child laborer with other Nikkei ~ nity college faculty (funded by the Ford Foundation) at (Japanese American) inmates and reservation In- !>-f. the Library of Congress, Don, her "closest professional dians in rural Arizona, Colorado and Utah, made _ colleague," was right there at her side. an indelible imprint on him and changed him for Don and Nadine Hata, at the Library of Congress in summer 2003. In addition to this shared passion for history, Nadine the rest of his life. After the war, he returned to and Don share a heritage and a curiosity about their families' southern California where he was a "full-time stu- As Nadine points out, "More than half of this coun past that resulted in their meeting for the first time a half a dent with a variety of full and part-time jobs (K-12 through try's undergraduate students are enrolled in a community world away in Japan in 1965. Don explains, "We are both graduate school)" including working as a "gardener's assis college. This may be the last opportunity for them to take fourth generation Americans of Japanese ancestry-she tant (low hedge and lawn edge trimmer), grocery store stock a course which provides historical perspectives which from Hawaii and me from the barrios in East Los Angeles. clerk and cashier, and door-to-door cooking ware sales should stand them in good stead for whatever job they We met as graduate students in Japan in 1965, searching for person." He went to the University of Southern California, undertake. These men and women are the bedrock of our our roots, on Ford Foundation Overseas Fellowships. Dur where he majored in history, graduating with a B.A. in 1962 communities; their contributions and successes epitomize ing the course of the year, I learned that she had a tumor and an M.A. in Asian Studies in 1964. what is so special about good teaching at the community in her breast, and that caused me to propose to her on our After returning from Japan with his new fiancee, Don college and lower division levels. How many plumbers, way home, on a Soviet freighter from Yokohama to Nakhod went back to USC where, in 1970, he earned his Ph.D. in construction workers, and health care professionals have ka-a port in Siberia-and then across the Soviet Union via modem Japanese history. That year he landed a position you met who love history and read history because of the Trans-Siberian Railroad." The following year after their in the history department at then ten-year-old California their history teacher?" return to the U.S., they married in Los Angeles. State University, Dominguez Hills, where Nadine had I asked Nadine when she looked back over her career Nadine Iku Ishitani was born taught the previous year. When what her proudest accomplishment was. "Playing a role," in Honolulu, Hawaii, in March Don came to Dominguez Hills, Na she replied, "in improving the quality of teaching and 1941, nine months before the at- dine moved to El Camino College learning both at my home institution and through larger tack on Pearl Harbor. "I am the in nearby Torrance. Nadine taught organizations by demanding that community college fac first of four daughters to graduate COMMUNITY COLLEGE her community college classes at ulty be treated as equal partners by faculty and admin from college (University of Hawaii, HISTORIANS El Camino and entered the Ph.D. istrators and professional organizations and by insisting 1963) from a hard-working family program in history at USC where that community college faculty remain current with the whose father worked in a small dry IN THE UNITED STATES she received her doctorate in 1983. research, become involved in professional activities, and goods store and a mother who was The following year Nadine began conduct scholarly research themselves so that there is no a seamstress; neither of them fin her administrative climb with an excuse for their being treated like second class citizens." ished high school because they had appointment as Dean of the Divi Aside from her community college advocacy; she served to work to support families. My sion of Behavioral and Social Sci on the California State Advisory Committee to the U.S. parents both believed in the value ences. After eight years as dean and Commission on Civil Rights during the 1970s: "I was par of education and were convinced a year as acting Vice President for ticularly proud of our public hearings and published re that it was one way for minority Instruction, Nadine was appointed ports on civil rights issues confronting Asian and Pacific women to become self-sufficient. Vice President of Academic Affairs, Americans. At the same time I was appointed by the gov I spent my summers on the night the position she held until her re ernor to the State Historic Resources Commission, where I shift of a pineapple factory assem tirement last year. Don, too, did rus supported official historic site designations for World War bly line-hand trimming-to pay stint in administration in the 1980s II incarceration camps for Japanese Americans, and pushed for my education. That grubby and as executive assistant to the presi for more sites reflecting the multicultural history of Califor exhausting job did more than sim dent at CSU Sacramento and then nia-including a published survey of minority sites." ply pay for books and tuition. It returned to full-time teaching at Nadine and Don Hata have a strong affection for served as a reality check that alert- Status Report on Community College Historians, edited CSUDH until his retirement sev OAH and, in fact, have included the organization in their ed me to the omissions and dis tor- by Nadine Hata and published by OAH, AHA, and eral years ago. estate plans. As she reflected on her appreciation of the or tions that made American history CCHAin 1999. Nadine and Don never limited ganization, she noted that OAH is "inclusionary" - "they as it was then taught irrelevant to me in Hawaii." their activities in promoting "the search for truth based on treated me as an equal; they put me on the Executive Di "With few exceptions," Nadine observed, "at all lev fact rather than passion or prejudice" to the classroom or rector selection committee. I chaired the community col els of ins.truction, history courses and textbooks perpetu the campus. Don's involvement in politics included ser lege task force and was given no agenda other than to find ated blatantly chauvinistic, sexist, and racist assumptions vice as a city councilman in Gardena, California. Both of out what OAH could do for community college faculty." about every facet of public and private life in America. them served on the state advisory committee for History She received support from both the executive board and U.S. history focused primarily on areas east of the Missis Day in California. They have been active in both the AHA executive office and "the executive leadership turned the sippi River, and world history covered mostly northwest and OAH championing the importance of history taught em Europe. There was no mention of trans-Pacific immi in community colleges and the significant contributions grants to America, nor were Asian civilizations included. made by community college historians. See HATA/ 9 ._ 4 • OAH NEWSLETTER February 2005 Opening the Convention John R. Dichtl T HATA I From 4 en years ago the OAH Annual Meeting in Washing among historians and precollegiate teachers.