TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

University Awards Degrees To Honor WWII Internees

ADVERTISEMENT

The Associated Press

Published: May 20, 2008

SEATTLE - More than six decades after they were forced to leave college, about 450 Japanese-Americans interned during World War II have been awarded honorary degrees from the University of Washington.

Relatives wept during the ceremony Sunday to honor the students, who were among 120,000 ethnic Japanese who were relocated in 1942 under the executive order signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The degrees were presented to at least 65 surviving former students, mostly in their 80s, and 110 relatives representing others who had died or were unable to attend.

"It still seems like a nightmare to me," recipient Teru Nakata Kiyohara said. Like many other former internees, she later earned a degree at another school.

The UW Board of Regents voted in February to award the honorary diplomas.

"The message of today's event is a simple one, and one that I believe none of us should ever forget," former Secretary of Transportation Norman Y. Mineta, himself a former internee, told the crowd. "It's never too late to do the right thing. It's never too late to rejoice that the right thing has been done."

Evacuation notices were issued the spring after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that drew the United States into the war on Dec. 7, 1941. At the time, the University of Washington had more Japanese-American students than any college in the country except the University of California, Berkeley.

In short order they went from studying at the library to being confined behind wire.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT