Samuel Yamashita, Henry E. Sheffield Professor of History, began his impact on student lives at Â鶹´«Ã½ in 1983. A Confucian specialist with mastery of classical Chinese and classical Japanese, he has written extensively about early modern and modern Japanese intellectual and cultural history, as well as Japanese cuisine and the new hyperlocal cuisines that have appeared in global cities along the Pacific Rim. In his forty years at Pomona, he has seen the College change in many ways and is championing this year’s spring campaign for Pomona’s Annual Fund. Learn more about Prof. Yamashita and his support for Pomona.
Tell us your story.
I am a third-generation Japanese American born and raised in Hawaii. I grew up in a beautiful beach town called Kailua, which offered opportunities to do many other things besides study. But I was saved when I was sent to a boarding school in Honolulu and had to study every night. I attended Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota and was lucky enough to receive a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, which led to many years of funded graduate work at the University of Michigan followed by language study and research in Tokyo. When I returned to the United States, I taught at Hobart & William Smith Colleges and was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard. While there, I met the dean of Â鶹´«Ã½, who urged me to apply for their position in modern Japanese history. Although I received tenure at Hobart & William Smith that year, I gave it up to come to Pomona without tenure in 1983. I have never regretted that decision.
What attracted you to Pomona?
Pomona had real Asian language programs. As happens with all graduate students, I wanted to replicate myself and teach somewhere where there were good Asian language programs so that I could produce miniature versions of myself. Being close to Asian communities in California and having access to East Asian food also were attractive. Finally, I left Cambridge for my job interview in the middle of a fierce blizzard.
You teach several fascinating topics—Japanese history, the Pacific Rim, World War II, Confucianism and food in Asia and the Pacific. Could you share your interests in these?
I became interested in Confucianism after discovering that I liked studying classical languages—particularly, Latin, classical Japanese and classical Chinese. Following a summer of classical Chinese study, I started reading the Chinese classics in the fall of 1969 and read them every morning until 1992. I'm probably one of the few Japanese specialists in this country who has a mastery of the Chinese classics, and I studied Confucian academies in early modern Japan for twenty years. In the 1990s, I realized that the people teaching modern Japanese history in the United States had only a few English translations of diaries or letters written by ordinary Japanese in Japan during World War II for their students to read. Thus I searched for diaries and collected about 200 during my annual trips to Japan. After reading and translating some of them, I developed a new perspective on the home front in Japan and the experiences and sacrifices of Japanese during and after the war. In 2005 I published eight of these diaries as Leaves from an Autumn of Emergencies: Selections from the Wartime Diaries of Ordinary Japanese, and the University of Kansas Press invited me to write a history based on the diaries for their Modern War Series. The result was Daily Life in Wartime Japan, 1940-1945, published in 2015. In 2009 the director of the University of Hawaii Press invited me to write a history of Japanese food, which I will finish in 2030. By the time I retire in 2026 I will have published three books and many articles on food in Asia and the Pacific.
From your perspective, what impact has philanthropic support had on the College’s ability to pursue innovative academic programs, research or other initiatives?
In the 90s, Pomona created a summer scholarship program open to all majors called the Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP). Made possible by philanthropy, SURP allows our brightest students after their sophomore and junior years to do research in their major under faculty guidance. This this means that they are doing real research and will be able to write a senior thesis that is almost at a master’s level. As a result, they’re extremely attractive to graduate schools. I would say SURP, financial aid, faculty salaries, and the faculty housing program, which allows faculty to borrow from the College to buy a house in the expensive Southern California real estate market are what philanthropic support for Pomona and its endowment make possible and what not every college currently has.
What makes you want to share the opportunity to support Pomona through philanthropy?
In my time at Pomona, I have mentored fourteen students who went on to receive doctorates in the social sciences and humanities. My newest is an alumna who arrived at Pomona as an undocumented student from China. She earned her Ph.D. from Columbia in U.S. history with a focus on Asian Americans, did postdoctoral work at Harvard and landed a job at a top liberal arts college. Pomona generously funded her undergraduate education. So many of her accomplishments, I believe, were made possible by her time at this college in addition to her own talents and perseverance.
Could you share a favorite memory from your long tenure at Pomona?
Because I have so many memories, it's hard to pick just one. I distinctly remember what it was like to help integrate the Pomona faculty: I was the third Asian-American faculty member that the College hired, and the first to survive. But after I began to publish scholarly works and won my first (of six) Wig Distinguished Professor Award, it seemed safe to hire Asian Americans. Powerful memories are jogged when, at conferences, I run into my former students who went on to do graduate work in history or the social sciences. At these conferences I always gather with my students for a meal—usually at a Chinese restaurant—which allows me to catch up and to introduce them to other students I have advised and/or taught. We are like a family that gathers once every year or two. I think these dinners are the sites of my favorite “college memories.â€
Read more about Prof. Yamashita and his work here.
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