Ronald Toshiyuki Takaki (April 12, 1939 – May 26, 2009) was an American academic, historian, ethnographer and author. Born in pre-statehood Hawaii, Takaki studied at the College of Wooster and completed his doctorate in American history at the University of California, Berkeley.
His work addresses stereotypes of Asian Americans, such as the model minority concept. Among his most notable books are Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian-Americans from 1989 and A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America from 1993. Takaki was a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles from 1966 to 1971 and University of California, Berkeley from 1971 to 2003.
Early life
Born in 1939 in Hawaii Territory, Takaki grew up in the Palolo neighborhood of Honolulu. He was the descendant of Japanese immigrants who worked on the sugarcane plantations. His father, Harry Toshio Takaki, immigrated to Hawaii from Mifune, Kumamoto, Japan as a teenager and worked at a plantation in Puʻunene before studying under Ray Jerome Baker and opening his own photography studio. Harry died when Ronald was five, and Ronald's mother married Koon Keu Young, an immigrant from Guangdong, China who became Ronald's stepfather. As a young boy, Takaki cared more for surfing than academics, earning the nickname "10-toes Takaki." During high school a Japanese American teacher, Rev. Shunji Nishi Ph.D encouraged him to pursue college and wrote him a letter of recommendation for the College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio. As one of only two Asian Americans on campus, he gained a new awareness of his ethnic identity.
Takaki then began graduate studies in American history at the University of California, Berkeley and completed his master's degree in 1962 and Ph.D. in 1967.
Takaki's personal experiences inspired him to devote his life to working for equality for Asian Americans and others. A seminal event in his life developed when his wife's family refused to accept him because they could only see him as a "jap"—not as a native-born American citizen just like any one else. One of his students on the first day asked what the class was going to learn about "revolutionary tactics," and he later recalled that his immediate response was to suggest that he hoped students would learn skills of critical thinking and effective writing—and that these could be quite revolutionary. The long-time Professor of Asian American Studies retired in 2003.
Personal life
Takaki married Carol Rankin in 1961; they met as students at the College of Wooster. They had three children.
- Bay Area Book Reviewers Association, Fred Cody Lifetime Achievement Award, 2002.
- Cornell University, Messenger Lecturer, 1993.