The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa College of Social Sciences (CSS) honors the legacy of the late U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (DKI) through faculty and graduate student research grants that recognize his indelible mark on the state and work to shape the U.S. into a more tolerant and inclusive society.
Leanne P. Day, an assistant professor of English at UH Hilo and a research affiliate in the CSS Department of Ethnic Studies, was the inaugural DKI faculty research fellow in 2020. Day’s research project was titled, “Gestures of Apology, Reparations, and Comparative Racial Formations in Senator Daniel K. Inouye’s Congressional Papers.”
“My research focused on the still unresolved issue of 2,300 Latin American Japanese who were forcibly deported and incarcerated in U.S. detention centers under suspicion of being Japanese spies, and Filipino veterans who served in World War II and did not receive full veterans’ benefits,” said Day. “My most exciting research findings were the fascinating declassified intelligence documents from World War II that articulated the strategic moves to forcibly deport Latin American Japanese, and how the Senator referenced these documents as ‘an extraordinary effort by the U.S. government’ to relocate, intern and deport them.”
The 2022 DKI fellow is Colin Moore, chair of the UH Mānoa School of Communication and Information.
Applications now accepted
To commemorate the advancement of democracy, public policy and good government, faculty researchers and UH Mānoa graduate students may apply for $5,000 grants through the CSS DKI Fellows Program and DKI Graduate Archival Research Grant. The application deadline for both is November 30, 2022.
Selected fellows and graduate students will conduct archival research using DKI collections housed at the UH Mānoa Library’s Hawaiʻi Congressional Papers Collection: Daniel K. Inouye Papers; and UH West Oʻahu’s ʻUluʻulu: The Henry Kuʻualoha Giugni Moving Image Archive of Hawaiʻi. Selected fellows are faculty researchers who will be in residence at UH Mānoa, such as Day.
“We are proud that the college houses the Daniel K. Inouye Initiative, which is the hub for programs like the Congressional Archives Internship, Distinguished Visiting Scholar and special events,” said CSS Dean Denise Eby Konan. “The initiative is a living tribute to the man whose public service leadership, democratic ideals and global awareness remain relevant and impactful years after his passing. We are especially grateful to our partnership with the Daniel K. Inouye Institute, which makes this possible.”
The Daniel K. Inouye Institute was established in 2013 to preserve Inouye’s papers and tell his life story; support STEM education, civics learning and international educational-cultural exchanges; and establish a repository of the Asian American/Pacific experience.
“Senator Inouye was a proud alumnus of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa,” said Jennifer Sabas, director of the Daniel K. Inouye Institute. “We are so pleased that UH students and faculty will be able to access his archives for original research and be inspired into public service.”
