Japantown History Series with Dr. Meredith Oda: Japanese Americans and African Americans in Western Addition Redevelopment
Co-Sponsored by the National Japanese American Historical Society (NJAHS)
Thursday, May 20, 2021
6:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.
Free Admission, Advance Registration Required
Register online: http://bit.ly/jtownhistorymay2021
Order Books Online ($35 + S&H): http://bit.ly/jtownhistorybook
The Center and the National Japanese American Historical Society are pleased to present a two-part lecture series on the history of San Francisco Japantown with historian Dr. Meredith Oda. These lectures will be based on Dr. Oda's research and writings in her book, The Gateway to the Pacific: Japanese Americans and the Remaking of San Francisco. Join us for an enlightening lecture and audience Q&A, and uncover insights to our community's post-WWII past.
Order your own copy of Dr. Oda's book from the University of Chicago Press for $35.00, plus shipping and handling. Use promo code GATEWAY to receive 25% off the paperback edition, at: http://bit.ly/jtownhistorybook
Japantown History Series - Lecture No. 2: Japanese Americans and African Americans in Western Addition Redevelopment
This talk will explore the contrasting ways that redevelopment portrayed San Francisco Japanese Americans and African Americans, despite the quite similar ways in which both groups sought to carve out places for themselves in their discriminatory city. We’ll look at examples of Japanese American and Black cooperation and conflict with city officials (CANE, WACO, Nihonmachi Community Development Corporation, Fillmore Community Development Corporation) to see how redevelopment and city relations help to cast the two populations in opposing frames, despite the commonalities in tactics and overarching goals.
Praise for The Gateway to the Pacific: Japanese Americans and the Remaking of San Francisco
The American Historical Review:
“The Gateway to the Pacific is a superb work of urban, social, Japanese American, and transpacific history. . . . It is an excellent example of how a local history serves as a window into national and global dynamics.”
California History:
"The value of this work is greatly enhanced by the author’s voluminous original research in conducting her study, including letters, newspaper and magazine articles, archival municipal evidence, records of interviews by and about major figures, and records of city missions toJapan. The vast quantity of pertinent primary materials uncovered permits the author to demonstrate the step-by-step evolution of the relationship between San Francisco and Japan and the critical role that Japanese Americans played in this process."
About Dr. Meredith Oda:
Meredith Oda is Associate Professor of History at the University of Nevada, Reno. Originally from Philadelphia, she lived in the Bay Area for ten years, attending UC Berkeley for her undergraduate degree and working at the National Japanese American Historical Society in Japantown after college. She then received her doctorate from the University of Chicago and has had fellowships and grants from the Huntington Library, the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Chicago, and the University of Nevada, Reno. Her research and teaching focus on Asian American history, urban history, US-East Asian relations, and the U.S. in the world. Her first book, The Gateway to the Pacific: Japanese Americans and the Remaking of San Francisco (Chicago, 2018), is a transpacific urban history of San Francisco. Her current book project looks at alienage, mobility, and Japanese American resettlement from the WWII incarceration camps until the 1952 Walter-McCarran Immigration and Nationality Act.