Ronald Takaki
 How should Americans build
connections across cultures, backgrounds and identities?
No one is better able to answer that question than is
distinguished scholar Ronald Takaki. With debate about
borders and immigration swirling, his stories of the
United States’ “melting pot” history have never been
more timely. He calls for Americans to unite with each
other and the rest of the world.
"By the year 2060 we will all be minorities,” Takaki
says.
“We can view this tremendous demographic
transformation as the ‘disuniting of America’ or as the
opportunity to rethink the way we think about who we are
as Americans and our nation’s history. I am privileged
to be at this juncture."
An internationally recognized scholar, Takaki was
professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of
California, Berkeley for more than 30 years. His course,
Ethnic Studies 130, The Making of Multicultural
America: A Comparative Historical Perspective,
provided the conceptual framework for Berkeley’s
respected bachelor’s and doctoral degree programs in
comparative ethnic studies as well as for the
university's multicultural requirement for graduation,
known as the American Cultures Requirement.
Takaki's 11 books include significant titles. Iron
Cages: Race and Culture in 19th Century America
(1979) has been critically acclaimed. Strangers from
a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans
(1989) was selected by the San Francisco Chronicle
as one of the best 100 non-fiction books of the 20th
century. A Different Mirror: A History of
Multicultural America (1993) was chosen for an
American Book Award and was hailed by Publishers
Weekly as a "brilliant revisionist history of
America that is likely to become a classic of
multicultural studies." It is used in classrooms
worldwide.
A passionate advocate for multiculturalism, Takaki
debated Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., historian and social
critic, at the opening plenary session of the 1997
conference on American Diversity and American Foreign
Policy, sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations.
Takaki has also debated Nathan Glazer, an American
sociologist and former professor, four times since 1980.
These intellectual exchanges were one of the reasons for
Glazer's changed thinking announced in We Are All
Multiculturalists Now. In 1997, Takaki participated
in a White House meeting with President Bill Clinton to
help brainstorm ideas for his major speech, "One America
in the 21st Century: The President's Initiative on
Race."
Takaki graduated from the College
of Wooster in 1961 with a degree in history and received
his Ph.D. in American history in 1967 from the
University of California, Berkeley.
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