Now that my friend and collaborator Jonathan van Harmelen is publishing his 100th column for Discover Nikkei, he has expressed his intention to take stock of his achievement. In light of this, I thought I would share the origin story of our partnership and how Jonathan came to write for Discover Nikkei—first together with me, then as columnist in his own right.

I first met Jonathan in July 2018, in the reading room of the National Archives’s downtown Washington, DC branch. It was near the close of what had been a rather frustrating day. After spending the July 4th holiday with friends in Baltimore, I had vowed to put the next day aside and travel down to the Capital to get some research done (and thereby justify my vacation trip to myself). I left Baltimore early in the day, but because the train going to DC was delayed, I did not actually get to the Archives until late morning.

I proceeded to go through the usual ritual of finding and ordering boxes of records, then waiting breathlessly in the reading room for their arrival. When I finally received my cart with the cartons of records perched on it, I saw to my horror that they were not the boxes that I had intended ordering. Worse luck, it was midday, and the only staffers who were in a position to help sort out the situation had departed for lunch. Thus, I waited helplessly (and fretfully) for a time, then finally decided that I had had enough. Rather than spend more precious research time idle, I would simply look through the boxes that had been brought, in hopes that I might come across useful material in them.

It was at that point, when I was sitting at a table going through records of the War Relocation Authority, that I was approached by a young man. He had light brown hair and horn-rimmed eyeglasses, and was wearing what looked like a foreign soccer jersey for a shirt. He apologized politely for bothering me, then said, “Aren’t you Greg Robinson?” Flattered to be recognized by a stranger, I assented. The young man told me that his name was Jonathan, and explained that he knew my face because he had watched a past lecture of mine online, as well as seeing my book jacket photos. He added that he was an MA student at Georgetown who had done research on Japanese Americans himself, beginning as an intern at the Smithsonian Institution.

When Jonathan asked me if I could give him some professional advice, I suggested that we step out of the reading room, so as to avoid disturbing others, and I took him to chat in the hallway outside. There he asked me for my views on potential PhD programs in history to which he might apply. I gave him some suggestions of scholars I knew who might be able to direct him.

Interestingly, it did not occur to me to recommend myself. Because my university is a French-language institution, I had never thought of recruiting American students. Jonathan mentioned his interest in doing a PhD with my friend Alice Yang at UC Santa Cruz. I responded that she would indeed make a fine director.

We ended up speaking for the better part of an hour. I was especially glad to find a young historian who was aware of my work, yet did not seem to be intimidated by me—he had willingly approached me, after all. We also had many common interests, even beyond the question of Japanese Americans.

Like me, Jonathan was a francophile who had majored in history and French while in college, and had spent his junior year living and studying in Paris. I was also charmed by Jonathan’s personality and sense of humor, which seemed to match my own. (Jonathan would later describe me as “a curious combination of wise man and wise guy,” which is probably as neat a summing up of my character as any I’ve ever heard.)

When we parted, I proposed that we keep in touch, and told him that I would be glad to help him in his work on Japanese Americans, because it seemed so promising. I added that it would be nice if we could be friends as well, but that I was ready to help him in any event.

In the months that followed, we corresponded regularly by email. I passed along to Jonathan some research I had collected on topics of interest to him, and put him in touch with various people I knew whom I thought might be of use. I told him in particular about some Discover Nikkei columns that I was doing with different scholars, and the pleasure I felt in working together with younger historians.

For his part, Jonathan offered to do research for me free of charge, since I was in Montreal and he was in Washington, and had easy access to the National Archives. I did not wish to take unfair advantage of Jonathan’s generous offer, but I did have him check out one box of WRA files that I had not yet been able to access.

We also continued our dialogue about doctoral programs. Once I absorbed that Jonathan was fluent in French, I suggested that he might wish to apply to my university, and answered some of his questions about the UQAM history department. However, in the end Jonathan enrolled at Santa Cruz. Alice Yang turned out to be an excellent thesis director for Jonathan, as well as being gracious about my working closely with her student. Not being Jonathan’s thesis supervisor turned out to be a blessing for me, since I could still offer him help, just as if he was my student, but without worrying over the appearance of favouring him over others.

After several months, our connection moved to a new level. At some point during fall 2018, I mentioned that I would be attending the annual meeting of the Association of Asian American Studies the following spring, and was putting together a round table panel for the conference to mark the 20th anniversary of the landmark Japanese American documentary films Rabbit in the Moon and Conscience and the Constitution.

I asked Jonathan whether he wished to join the proposed panel. He declined with thanks, remarking that he would submit his own paper proposal. However, beset by a heavy work schedule and some life troubles, he ultimately missed the deadline for proposing papers. He now feared that he would not have the means to attend the conference at all, since his school would not pay for his trip unless he was a presenter. Providentially, a vacancy opened up in the round table I had organized, and I was able to invite Jonathan to fill the slot, an offer that he rapidly and gratefully accepted.

Meanwhile, I shared with Jonathan a Discover Nikkei column that I had published together with my friend and student Matthieu Langlois. It discussed Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker, and their response to Japanese American confinement. Jonathan sent me in return a letter he had found from Brother Theophane Walsh, a Maryknoll missionary who had been a stalwart friend of Japanese Americans, to a Japanese American woman at Heart Mountain.

We quickly agreed to collaborate on a Discover Nikkei column about Walsh. In order to plan out our work, Jonathan suggested that we schedule a video chat. Thus it was that on January 23, 2019, we saw each other’s face for the first time since our initial meeting. As at our encounter in Washington, DC, we immediately clicked, and felt at ease with each other. Once we had finished the business at hand, we moved on to speaking about more personal matters, and each shared some troubles and concerns. By the end of the call, we had decided to chat regularly. 

Meanwhile, the two of us went rapidly to work on our joint Theophane Walsh article. We soon hit a sticking point. Jonathan offered to write the initial draft himself, then give it to me to read over and rewrite. He explained that this would help him learn how to write better. It was an audacious proposal, as well as a new way for me to work. My practice with past collaborators had always been to write the first draft myself, or at least to divide the work, as I felt a strong sense of responsibility about doing my fair share.

I was revolted by stories I heard of senior scholars who made younger collaborators do most of the work, then added their own names at the end. Still, I recognized Jonathan’s talent and drive, and decided to let him write the initial draft. Once he sent me his text, I set out to reshape it. I found Jonathan easy to work with—rapid in his responses, willing to accept criticism, and insightful in his thoughts. Our ideas, research skills and approaches were sufficiently similar that I soon forgot which of us had originally contributed what parts of the column.

The Theophane Walsh piece appeared in Discover Nikkei in April 2019. It was only the first of a growing list of columns that we proceeded to write together on different subjects, notably the lives of Japanese American musicians and artists. At length, Jonathan was invited by Yoko Nishimura to contribute articles to Discover Nikkei on his own as well.

While he and I continued to be steady collaborators, we each worked with other people as well—we joked that we had an “open” writing relationship. We also began the habit, which we still keep up, of reading drafts of each other’s solo pieces, and offering our thoughts. Whenever I have worked on Jonathan’s drafts, I have been clear that my suggested edits and additions were designed to improve his work without changing his style—I didn’t want him to write bad Greg Robinson prose, but good Jonathan van Harmelen prose!

It was because of Jonathan’s impact on my work that I named him as coauthor of my new anthology of past columns, The Unknown Great. The anthology included a broad selection of our joint pieces. Even in the columns that he and I did not actually write together, such was the contribution he made through reading and discussing my drafts that I am convinced that there is a little bit of Jonathan present in everything I write, and vice versa. I much hope that we can continue our close intellectual partnership in the coming years.

© 2024 Greg Robinson