NEWS & LETTERS, June - July 2009
Third World warriors
Berkeley, Cal.--Recently the freedom movement lost two champions of ethnic diversity and social justice. On March 15 Richard Aoki succumbed to numerous ailments. On May 26 Ronald Takaki took his own life after a 15-year struggle with multiple sclerosis. Both were 70 years old and both were Sansei (third generation Japanese American). Takaki was born and raised in Hawaii, Aoki in the East Bay. Aoki and his family spent World War II in an internment camp at Topaz, Utah.
Takaki, after teaching Black History at UCLA, came to University of California at Berkeley (UCB) , where he developed the first ethnic studies doctoral program in the U.S. The UCB Ethnic Studies Department grew out of the 1969 Third World Liberation Front (TWLF) strike of which Richard Aoki was a key organizer.
In 1966 Aoki arrived at UCB fresh from Merritt Community College, where he had helped found the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense with Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. He didn't run with them in his childhood but he grew up in the same West and North Oakland neighborhoods. He balked at joining the Panthers until Newton told him, "As far as I'm concerned, you Black."
Aoki became a founding member of the Asian American Political Alliance, which worked with Black, Latino and Native American groups to organize a massive student strike demanding an autonomous Third World College at UCB. A veteran of the strike recalled it was Aoki who came up with the idea of solidarizing with unionized workers on campus. Many had kids in college. When they refused to cross picket lines, the campus was shut down for the first time in history. It took another first to open it back up: then-Governor Ronald Reagan calling out the National Guard.
After a record 90 days of bloody confrontation with authorities and millions of dollars in damage, the strikers settled for an ethnic studies department. While that was regarded as something of a compromise in 1969, today the diversity in both the student body and curricula attests to the historic import of the TWLF strike.
Perhaps that's why years ago Richard Aoki said to me, "I got one word for you: program." If by program he meant concretized ideas that enrich the meaning of being human, I take his word as wise counsel. I'm reminded of a televised debate in which Ron Takaki defended UCB's policy of requiring undergraduates to pass a course on the contributions of ethnic minorities. When his opponent expressed concern that academic standards were being lowered, Takaki replied, "Who's lowering standards? I'm talking about raising them."
--David M'Oto
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