UW to give honorary degrees to Japanese-American former students

In 1942, all students of Japanese ancestry were removed from the UW and taken to internment camps, thus interrupting their education. At a ceremony to be held May 18, 440 of these students will receive honorary bachelor’s degrees in recognition of the degrees they would have earned had they been allowed to remain on campus.

Professor Gail Nomura, associate professor in the American Ethnic Studies department, was one of many at the UW who worked for several years to get the degrees approved. Nomura first got involved because she was interested in learning about the University’s past.

“Whenever I’m at another university, I like to know something about its history,” she said. “I like to see how my university did during a time of crisis.”

What she found as she looked through records and archives from 1941 through 1942 was moving.

“I was pleased that even our president at that time, Lee Paul Sieg, urged support for the students,” Nomura said.

Sieg encouraged deans of the different colleges on campus to make allowances for this disruption. He wanted them to allow the students to graduate, Nomura said.

“Many were able to finish their degrees, but many were unable to finish,” she said. “War and removal kept them from the completion of their degrees.”

When Nomura first came to the UW, she met a Japanese-American student who had been removed from campus when he was just one course away from graduation.

“I thought that was unfair,” she said. “I thought, surely, if you’re only one quarter shy, you should be able to graduate.”

Nomura worked with professor Tetsuden Kashima, also of the American Ethnic Studies department, to come up with a plan to recognize the students.

“Maybe two years ago, Nomura and [other professors] sat down and asked, ‘What should we do now?’” Kashima said. “‘Wouldn’t it be nice to honor those students who were here in 1941 and ‘42?’”

They wanted to do it last year, Kashima said, in time for the 65th anniversary of President Roosevelt’s signing of Executive Order 9066, which led to the mass internment of people of Japanese descent. The project gained steam as more organizations began to get involved.

Originally, the group of people working to recognize these former students wanted to give out actual degrees on a case-by-case basis, but many records have been lost since 1942, Nomura said. Case-by case analysis would take a long time.

“Many of these students are approaching 90,” she said. “We would like to do some sort of gesture before we lose more.”

The 440 honorary degrees are being given to a class of people who were removed solely because of their ancestry in 1942, Kashima said.

For students who nearly completed their degrees, Kashima said, the committee would like to go back through the records to see what can be done to get them their actual degrees.

Nomura said that the students themselves don’t want this honor — they would be the first to say that there were many others who deserved it more. But their desire to get the story out there is what has convinced many that the ceremony is necessary.

“A lot of people say, ‘This is the past; it won’t happen again,’” Nomura said. “We need to get the story out. The students want the lesson to be learned that this should never happen again.”

Current Japanese-American students on campus appreciate the efforts.

“I’m really glad they’re doing this,” said Lisa Akiyama, president of the Nikkei Student Association at the UW. “Most of them never got to finish their education, even if they wanted to. I’m glad that, even after decades, they’re being honored for what they did.”

The Nikkei Student Association will be volunteering at the ceremony in May.

Kashima and Nomura agreed that the University has been wonderful throughout this process.

“There has been no opposition — none,” Kashima said. “Everyone is saying, ‘Why wasn’t this done earlier?’ This is really a great thing to do.”

Nomura is extremely gratified to see the project come to fruition.

“It’s not making a statement or anything,” she said. “It’s just the right thing to do. We want them back as official alumni of the UW. They should be home.”

[Reach reporter Molly Rosbach at news@thedaily.washington.edu]