Ronald Takaki

Educator, scholar, and writer

• Pronunciation: toh-shee-YOO-kee tah-KAH-kee
• Born: April 12, 1939
• Birthplace: Honolulu, Hawaii
• Died: May 26, 2009
• Place of death: Berkeley, California

Ronald Takaki was an ethnic studies scholar and professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He taught the very first African American history course at the University of California Los Angeles, and established Berkeley’s doctoral program in ethnic studies. Takaki is an ethnic studies legend who advocated for multiethnic education and civic equality regardless of race or ethnicity.

Areas of achievement: Scholarship, education, and sociology

Early Life

Ronald Toshiyuki Takaki was born on April 12, 1939, in Honolulu, in the US Territory of Hawaii. His grandfather immigrated to Hawaii from Japan during the nineteenth century and worked on a sugarcane plantation. Takaki’s father died when he was seven years old, and his mother and Chinese stepfather raised him and his two siblings. His stepfather owned a Chinese restaurant in Honolulu. At the suggestion of a teacher, Takaki attended the College of Wooster in Ohio, earning a bachelor’s degree in history in 1961. Takaki continued studying history in graduate school at the University of California (UC), Berkeley, earning a master’s degree in 1962 and a doctorate in 1967. His doctoral dissertation was about slavery in the United States and was published in 1971 as his first book, A Pro-Slavery Crusade: The Agitation to Reopen the African Slave Trade.

Life’s Work

Takaki taught history at the College of San Mateo in California from 1965 to 1967, after which he taught at UCLA (1967–72), introducing the university’s first African American history course. In 1972, he helped to found the doctoral program in ethnic studies at UC Berkeley, where he taught until his retirement in 2004. He also developed the American cultures requirement, the university’s multicultural requirement for graduation.

Takaki wrote over twenty books about ethnic studies. While in his early career he concentrated on African Americans and slavery, his later career focused on Asian Americans. Takaki’s first book, A Pro-Slavery Crusade, examines the white South and the reasoning behind slavery in the United States. In A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America (1993), Takaki writes about the history of Africans, Native Americans, as well as immigrants of Irish, Chinese, and Japanese descent.

Takaki’s works include books such as Violence in the Black Imagination: Essays and Documents (1972), Raising Cane: The World of Plantation Hawaii (1994), Issei and Nisei: The Settling of Japanese America (1994), Double Victory: A Multicultural History of America in World War II (2000), and Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans (1989), which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

Takaki was the recipient of several awards, including a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities (1970–71), a distinguished teaching award from UC Berkeley, and honorary degrees from Northeastern University, Wheelock College, Macalester College, and the College of Wooster. He gave lectures all over the world, including in Austria, the Netherlands, Japan, Russia, South Africa, Armenia, and New Zealand. He also debated other scholars such as Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and Nathan Glazer on issues such as affirmative action and multicultural education.

Takaki died on May 26, 2009, in Berkeley, California, having lived with multiple sclerosis for several decades. The cause of death was suicide. He was seventy years old. Takaki was married to Carol Rankin. They had two sons, Troy and Todd, and one daughter, Dana.

Significance

Ronald Takaki was a pioneer in ethnic studies. Not only did he teach ethnic studies, he also helped to define it as an academic field. He dedicated his career to writing a multiethnic history of the United States, because ethnic groups had traditionally been excluded from standard history textbooks. He sought to educate university students and scholars about the cultural diversity that permeates the United States. Takaki was passionate about equality for Asian Americans and other ethnic groups. He passed on his scholarly pursuits to his students by creating the ethnic studies program at UC Berkeley.

Bibliography

Chan, Sucheng. Asian Americans: An Interpretive History. Boston: Twayne, 1991. Print. Chronicles the history of Asian immigration, discussing such factors as discrimination, work lives, and social organization.

Lim, Shirley, and Amy Ling. Reading the Literatures of Asian America. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1992. Print. Themes in this collection include Asian American identity, gender, and race; various Asian American writers discuss topics such as culture, beliefs, and history.

Okihiro, Gary. Common Ground: Reimagining American History. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2001. Print. Discusses factors that have shaped American history, such as race, gender, and sexuality.

Takaki, Ronald. Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans. Boston: Little, 1998. Print. A history of Asian Americans that includes Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Vietnamese, Filipino, and Indian perspectives; documents immigration from the early 1800s and other issues.

Wu, Frank. Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White. New York: Basic, 2002. Print. Investigates Asian American racial identity and stereotypes, including legal cases and scholarly studies.

Zia, Helen. Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People. New York: Farrar, 2000. Print. Analyzes the political and cultural history of Asian Americans, including the author’s personal stories.