Organizer and Chair: Namji Steinemann, East-West Center
Discussants: Kosuke Yoshitsugu, Okinawa International University; Jon K.
Osorio, University of Hawaii; Gary Mukai, Stanford University
Pearl Harbor has become an enduring part of U.S. popular
history and culture. In Japan, the way Pearl Harbor is remembered understandably
differs from the context of American memory. While many Americans regard Pearl
Harbor as a site of tragedy from which the nation emerged victorious, Pearl
Harbor for many Japanese is seen as a "mistake" and a reminder of
the tragedies of war and the devastations that followed bombing of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. At the same time, because many Japanese view Pearl Harbor as
the place where the conflict between the United States and Japan began, little
attention is given to the political and geopolitical developments in the Asia
Pacific region that led to the attack and the impacts that it had on the region
as a whole. Similarly, this longer historical context is often lacking in popular
American representations of Pearl Harbor, which glosses over multiple histories
that converge there, including Hawaiian and Japanese American experiences.
Although this history is still a living history, as the WWII generation passes,
how will the teaching of this history change? This roundtable will address
this question by tracing the contested as well as changing memories of Pearl
Harbor and the Pacific War, including contemporary U.S. and global perceptions
of Pearl Harbor in the aftermath of 9/11 as well as Japanese perceptions of
the bombing, drawn from research interviewing Japanese visitors to the U.S.S.
Arizona Memorial. A lecture-music presentation by a scholar of Hawaiian studies
will complement the discussions.
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