This past summer (2020), I was part of Tadaima! A Community Virtual Pilgrimage, a massive digital undertaking intended to hold space for the many in-person pilgrimage programs put on each year at former World War II Japanese American incarceration sites. I was honored to have been asked to participate in two programs, where I led a book talk about Jeanna Wakatsuki Houston’s Farewell to Manzanar, and was in dialogue with the JACL Chicago Chapter’s Lisa Doi, talking about Japanese American resettlement in the Midwest during and after World War II:
I also joined the faculty of Kalamazoo College as a Visiting Assistant Professor of English in Fall 2020. I could not have chosen a better group of students with which to endure a season absolutely frenetic with the stresses of a worsening global pandemic, virtual schooling, a contentious U.S. election, and ongoing racial violence. To offer small pedagogies to help keep the classroom manageable, I wrote two blog posts for the College’s Teaching Commons:
illiterature.org 