{"id":1568,"date":"2011-11-30T11:47:45","date_gmt":"2011-11-30T19:47:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=1568"},"modified":"2011-11-30T11:47:45","modified_gmt":"2011-11-30T19:47:45","slug":"honorary-degrees-awarded-to-interned-japanese-canadians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2011\/11\/30\/honorary-degrees-awarded-to-interned-japanese-canadians\/","title":{"rendered":"Honorary degrees awarded to interned Japanese-Canadians"},"content":{"rendered":"

VANCOUVER (CUP) – After much hesitation and public criticism, the University of British Columbia (UBC) has decided to give interned Japanese-Canadian students honorary degrees, a decision which Mits Sumiya says gives him closure on a dark incident from 70 years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the presentation of this honorary degree, it feels like UBC has opened their arms and said, \u2018You are part of our alumni, you\u2019re welcome, come on in,\u2019\u201c says Sumiya, who was interned at 18 and not allowed to return to his studies at UBC. \u201cIt\u2019s a great feeling of belonging.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Interned Japanese-Canadian students are now being recognized by UBC (UBC archives).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The university senate decided to present 76 Japanese-Canadian former UBC students with the degrees to recognize those who were interned and unable to complete their studies at the institution during WWII. This follows a course of action that many other universities in North America have already taken.<\/p>\n

After hearing about similar cases at other universities, Mary Kitagawa of the Greater Vancouver Japanese Canadian Students Association made the degrees a priority for their human rights committee for the past three years.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a long struggle,\u201d says Kitagawa. \u201cIt\u2019s been more or less trying to educate people in power to understand the issue and it\u2019s taken this long.\u201d<\/p>\n

UBC student senator Sean Heisler says the degrees are part of a three-pronged approach, which includes educational initiatives. Kitagawa says this component of the senate\u2019s decision is crucial.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a very important component, because I find a lot of people in Canada do not know that such a horrible event happened,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s a lesson of injustice and when democracy broke down.\u201d<\/p>\n

UBC associate history professor Henry Yu is one of several faculty members and students who are proposing a minor in Asian-Canadian studies. The program would include existing classes on Asian-Canadian history and literature and two new classes.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne [class] would be a broad introduction, multi-disciplinary, drawing on the strengths of faculty and students from many different departments,\u201d says Yu. \u201cThe other would really be about community-based research.\u201d<\/p>\n

UBC\u2019s libraries also plan to digitize parts of their Japanese-Canadian collections.<\/p>\n

Yu says that despite the negative publicity UBC received as a result of their hesitation in giving out the degrees, it ultimately helped the university to engage with the community.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs dark as an event it was 70 years ago, our marking it now gives us a chance to do things in a way that\u2019s going to make the university better,\u201d says Yu, \u201cand our relationships with Vancouver better.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VANCOUVER (CUP) – After much hesitation and public criticism, the University of British Columbia (UBC) has decided to give interned Japanese-Canadian students honorary degrees, a decision which Mits Sumiya says gives him closure on a dark incident from 70 years ago. \u201cWith the presentation of this honorary degree, it feels like UBC has opened their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1569,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-november-30-2011"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1568"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1571,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1568\/revisions\/1571"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}