An ethnic studies pioneer whose scholarly family is closely connected to the U.S. internment camps of World War II has died—although not before he had produced yet another book on the subject.
In fact, Dr. James Hirabayashi, a San Francisco State University professor emeritus who died in late May at age 85, collaborated on the book with his son, Dr. Lane Hirabayashi.
Forthcoming by the University of Washington Press, the book contains wartime diaries and letters written by James’ older brother, Dr. Gordon Hirabayashi, a sociologist who became famous for defying the government’s mass incarceration of people of Japanese descent. Lane Hirabayashi holds the George and Sakaye Aratani Professorship in Japanese American Redress, Internment and Community at the University of California, Los Angeles.
An anthropologist by training, James Hirabayashi taught for nearly 30 years at SFSU and served as its first dean of ethnic studies, a position he held for six years. He joined SFSU in 1959 among a wave of minority intellectuals who conceived and developed courses in Japanese American, Asian American and ethnic studies. He was among the faculty who risked losing their jobs when they joined students in the 1968 strike on campus that led to creation of the ethnic studies school.
Hirabayashi was also dean of undergraduate studies for three years. Coinciding with the 40th anniversary commemoration of SFSU’s College of Ethnic Studies in 2009, president Robert Corrigan awarded Hirabayashi the President’s Medal in honor of his numerous contributions.
Widely published in Asian American studies and anthropology, Hirabayashi held additional teaching and research positions at universities in Japan and Nigeria. His scholarly travels took him to South America and the Pacific Islands as well—destinations far removed from the rudimentary wartime camp where he and most of his family were confined.
The U.S.-born Hirabayashi was a high school student when, in the hysteria and xenophobia following Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt signed an executive order singling out people of Japanese ancestry. The order included measures such as curfews and mass removal of Japanese Americans from their homes, workplaces and schools.
