Ronald Takaki Has Died: A Great Loss for the Country, and for Race Scholarship

AsianWeek has a sad notice, about the untimely death of the great scholar of race and racism, Prof. Ronald Takaki at U. California-Berkeley (Photo: AsianWeek).

I will do a long post over the next week or so, but for now their summary is fine:

It is with great sadness to announce that Professor Emeritus Ronald Takaki passed away on the evening of May 26th, 2009. He is survived by his wife, Carol Takaki, his three children Dana, Troy, and Todd Takaki, and his grandchildren.

Ron Takaki was one of the most preeminent scholars of our nation’s diversity, and considered “the father” of multicultural studies. As an academic, historian, ethnographer and author, his work helped dispel stereotypes of Asian Americans. In his study of multicultural people’s history in America, Takaki seeked to unite Americans, today and in the future, with each other and with the rest of the world.

He was a professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught over 20,000 students during 34 years of teaching.

HeraldNet has this good post too.