Thomas M. Nishi

Born in Kemmerer, WY, Nishi grew up in the Crenshaw area of Los Angeles. He received his BA from UCLA and MPH from University of Hawai`i. He is now retired after about 40 years as an academic counselor and advisor in secondary schools and colleges in California, Hawai`i, and Michigan. He now resides in Oakland, CA.

Updated November 2021

Stories from This Author

A Japanese American Perspective on DEI and Citizenship

March 27, 2025 • Thomas M. Nishi

The new administration has made me contemplate how I fit into the new definitions being made and implemented. Since the renaming of geographic locations now appears to be standardized, I wonder about how DEI, and then citizenship will be standardized. I was a DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) hire in one of the first jobs I found after earning a BA. I worked in an academic program in the university dedicated to assisting low-income and first-generation to college students after …

California diversity governments Japanese Americans politics United States universities

Is It Racist?

Dec. 28, 2023 • Thomas M. Nishi

Racism against Asian Americans has been in the news recently. There’s often discussion as to whether an attack is a race-based hate crime or not. Yet, there has been anti-Asian hate in the United States as long as there have been Asians. The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act and the 1942 Executive Order 9066 imprisoning Japanese Americans are well-known examples. There are different definitions of racism—discrimination, bigotry, bias, and intolerance. I always thought of it as prejudice and negative attitudes toward …

discrimination interpersonal relations racism stereotypes

A Sansei Selective Service Story

May 29, 2023 • Thomas M. Nishi

In my 73rd year, I began to gather memories of 1973 and the moments leading up to that time. Fifty years have passed since the end of the war in Vietnam. I graduated from high school in 1968, a year behind most of my classmates, at age 19. Moving to California from Wyoming must have had something to do with me being older than everyone else in the class. I was one of two Asians in the school, and I …

anti-war demonstrations British Columbia Burnaby Canada collective behavior crowds demonstrations (political) generations Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre people public meetings Sansei Vietnam War, 1961-1975 volunteerism

A Silver Star Story

Nov. 11, 2021 • Thomas M. Nishi

Less than a year after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the 100th Infantry Battalion was activated on June 12, 1942. It was a segregated, all Japanese American unit of volunteers from Hawai`i. Early the next year, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team was activated on February 1, 1943, with Japanese Americans from the Mainland US. The 442 trained at Camp Shelby at Hattiesburg, Mississippi for a year starting in April 1943. They were then sent to Italy for …