Tuesday, February 21, 2017

I'm in it for free mochi


I did indeed make all three events, after a fashion. If the fashion is that I stayed at the last one for maybe 15 minutes. It seemed pretty windy-downy at that point.
 
There is a new proposed UCD Chancellor, if the regents vote to approve. Gary May. He received Obama's presidential award for excellence in STEM mentoring, has instituted many programs for STEM students of color, AND he credits Star Trek for sparking his interest in engineering, so that sounds pretty, pretty good to me! The fact that they are going for another person from the field of engineering (after Katehi) makes it seem like UCD would still like to be a big player in that scene. That's the direction Katehi was going.
 
Made it to the Crocker for the Day of Remembrance event. I got free mochi and sake. People were definitely tearing up during Doris Matsui's speech. Her parents met, married, and she was born in a camp in Arizona. Watched the taiko drumming but couldn't see the photo exhibit or Japanese ceramics because it was too crowded. Quite a successful event. The orange specter was hanging over everything, and was mentioned, but not by name.

2 comments:

DJ Rick said...

I don't usually read the text of legislative resolutions that come across my desk here at work, but I just read the one declaring Fred Korematsu Day in California, and it struck me that the text frequently referred to what we call "Japanese internment centers" as "concentration camps." No mincing words with our shameful history there. It's incredible how seldom you hear people use those words.

beckler said...

I probably mentioned before that the first time I heard them referred to concentration camps was from a friend who was in one. She called it as she felt it!