News
Professor Judy Wu Reflects on Amsterdam Conference
Posted on: 04/05/2006
During my trip to Amsterdam, I gained a deeper appreciation of the fulfillment that is possible as a teacher and mentor. I traveled as part of a team of Ohio State University affiliated people (two undergraduates, four graduate students, one other faculty member, and even one mother of a student). We came to attend the European Social Science History Association Conference, held in Amsterdam from March 22-25, 2006. It was our first time at the conference. For many of us, it was the first time we were in Europe. We all came as a direct result of our involvement with the Japanese American Oral History/Documentary Project that was sponsored by the OSU Asian American Studies program during Winter 2005.
The Japanese American oral history/documentary project trained 42 OSU students to conduct oral histories and to create documentaries based on their interviews with former World War II internees, all of whom currently live in the state of Ohio. One student, Genna Duberstein, subsequently received a TELR research-on-research grant for the summer of 2005 to produce an hour-length documentary based on all the interviews and footage. She also created a multi-media website about the overall project.
While I always knew that the Japanese American oral history/documentary project was special, I gained a greater understanding of how much this experience has changed the lives of the students involved. I listened with great pride, emotion, and admiration to their academic presentations, which analyzed the meaning of internment, their roles in documenting and reconstructing historical narratives of the lives of former internees, and the impact of their participation in this project on their personal and professional identities. I realized that for these students, the oral history project is and will continue to be a defining moment in their lives; this experience of learning about internment helped to transform them into filmmakers, scholars, and public educators. They offered compelling arguments and insights about the value of oral history but also engaged in provocative and difficult discussions about the performative and mediated nature of memories.
I was particularly moved by the personal connections that all of these students had to internment. None of them are Japanese American; they come from diverse national and cultural backgrounds. In fact, some of the students could recount family memories of war-time atrocities committed by the Japanese military towards China, Korea, Malaysia, and even Dutch Indonesia. However, in contrast to some individuals who evoke historical crimes to justify mass incarceration, these students insisted on their empathy with people who experienced persecution due to their group affiliation and insisted on their desire for social justice and reconciliation.
In Amsterdam, I learned what it means to be a teacher. I cannot take credit for the brilliance and sensitivity of the students who came to present their work. I only helped to provide some opportunities and encouragement for their intellectual journeys, not all of which I could even anticipate. But, I now have the incredible satisfaction of learning from their insights and analyses. I know that they will go on to even more wonderful accomplishments, whether as academics, artists, or as citizens of the world.
Judy Tzu-Chun Wu
Associate Professor of History
Ohio State University
Amsterdam, 26 March 2006
