Convo: Ronald Takaki May 7, 2005

Ronald Takaki, professor of ethnic studies at the University of California, Berkeley, will give a convocation address titled "America in a Different Mirror: Re-Visioning Our History" at 10:50 a.m. on Friday, May 6 at the Carleton College Skinner Memorial Chapel. The event is free and open to the public.

\The grandson of Japanese plantation laborers in Hawaii, Takaki attended the College of Wooster and earned a Ph.D. in American history from University of California, Berkeley. In college, Takaki found that because of his ethnicity, some colleagues did not see him as a fellow American. His scholarly career has been marked by such experiences, leading him to write more inclusive histories of different ethnic groups in America. His presentation of multicultural history, in his words, "leads not to . . . the 'disuniting of America' but rather to the re-uniting of America."

After receiving his Ph.D. in 1967, Takaki was hired by UCLA to teach the school's first course in black history. While there, he helped found the UCLA centers for African American, Asian American, Chicano and Native American studies. Since returning to Berkeley, Takaki has chaired the ethnic studies department and was instrumental in the establishment of the school's American cultures graduation requirement. He also is an advisor to the ethnic studies Ph.D. program, the first of its kind in the country.

Takaki is in demand as a lecturer throughout the world and even spoke in Armenia and Moscow during the last years of the Cold War. He is a prolific writer, and has published four books, including the critically acclaimed "Iron Cages: Race and Culture in 19th Century America" (1979) and the Pulitzer Prize-nominated "Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans" (1989). He is currently working on another book titled "Hiroshima: Why America Dropped the Bomb."

For more information and disability accommodations, call Carleton's college relations office at (507) 646-4308.