Jonathan van Harmelen

Jonathan van Harmelen está cursando doutorado em história na University of California, Santa Cruz, com especialização na história do encarceramento dos nipo-americanos. Ele é bacharel em história e francês pelo Pomona College, e concluiu um mestrado acadêmico pela Georgetown University. De 2015 a 2018, trabalhou como estagiário e pesquisador no Museu Nacional da História Americana. Ele pode ser contatado no e-mail jvanharm@ucsc.edu.

Atualizado em fevereiro de 2020

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Paul Higaki – The One Who Made It Big

On August 2, 1949, legendary Nisei composer and musician Takeshi “Tak” Shindo penned an article for the Rafu Shimpo profiling the rise of a new Nisei musician in the jazz scene: Paul Higaki. Then just 25 years old, Higaki had earned a spot in Lionel Hampton’s orchestra as a top-notch trombone player, and was declared by Shindo to be “the top Nisei trombonist in the country.” To some, he was the one “who made it big” - the first Nisei jazz musician to become a full-time member of a nationally-known jazz orchestra. Between 1943 and 1953, Paul Higaki r…

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The legacy of Toyo Takata, Who Captured the Voice of Japanese Canadians

The book Nikkei Legacy served as an important reminder to Canadians of the suffering that Japanese Canadians endured during the war. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the publication of Toyo Takata’s Nikkei Legacy, a book that put the history of Japanese Canadians into sharp focus. For Japanese Canadians across Canada, Takata’s book captured the voice of the immigrant generation and served for decades as a “bible” of Japanese Canadian history, alongside Ken Adachi’s The Enemy that Never Was. Nikkei Legacy served as an important reminder to Canadians of t…

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Making History: Remembering Nikkei Legacy

Recently, I have been researching the life of Toyo Takata. The late Japanese Canadian journalist and author was a leading voice within the postwar Japanese Canadian community, working as the editor of the community newspaper The New Canadian from 1949 to 1951 and as a columnist from 1949 until his retirement in the 1980s. Originally born in Victoria, BC, Takata and his family were incarcerated by the Canadian government in several camps in 1942, first at Hastings Park and later at the inland camps of Sandon and New Denver. In 1945, the Takata family relocated to the greater Toronto area, w…

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Fresno Stories

Dutch Leonard - The Ballplayer who challenged Fresno's racism

“Dutch” Leonard is no longer a household name, but he left behind an enduring reputation in baseball history. Originally born in Birmingham, Ohio and raised in Fresno, California, Hubert Benjamin Leonard became one of the greatest pitchers in baseball as a left-handed pitcher for the Boston Red Sox. In 1914, he achieved the modern-era record for lowest single-season earned run average (ERA) of all time at 0.96 – a record that he still holds to this day. He led the Red Sox to World Series championships twice, first against the Philadelphia Phillies in 1915, and then the fol…

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Our Man on the Hill: Sidney Yates — Part 2

Read Part 1 >> In January 1952, Masaoka again approached Yates for a private bill. Unlike the other cases, here Masaoka pleaded Yates to help a war husband. The case involved Yoshiko Joy Okamoto, a translator working for the U.S. Air Force in Japan. Okamoto, born in New York City, had been stranded in Japan during World War II, during which time she met Toshio Tsuzuki. Although Okamoto was initially stripped of her U.S citizenship because she had lived in Japan during the war, following a lengthy investigation the United States reinstated her citizenship in 1946. After the war, O…

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