Mitch Maki: An American Tale

Like many American schoolchildren growing up in the later half of the 20th century, Mitch Maki didn’t learn much about the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.

“I was in [probably] the fifth grade when I actually learned about the fact that Japanese Americans had been incarcerated during World War II,” he recalls. “And I was convinced it wasn’t Japanese Americans like me. It must have been the Japanese from Japan, because they wouldn’t put people like me in camp.”

Although Maki’s parents were originally from Hawaii and had not been incarcerated, many of his friends' parents had gone through the experience and his friends shared with him the stories they were told.

“Slowly, my disbelief that this could have happened turned into a smoldering anger that this could happen,” Maki says, “not only to my people, but to any American.”

Maki, dean of the College of Health and Human Services at California State University, Dominguez Hills, received the George Kiriyama Educational Excellence Award on April 5 at the Cherry Blossom Festival in Los Angeles' Little Tokyo . An expert on the issue of redress for the survivors of the internment camps, Maki says he is led by the desire to “make a difference in people’s lives for the better and wanting to empower individuals and communities to address issues of social justice.”

While a college student, Maki attended a Los Angeles hearing by the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians in 1982. The federal commission traveled across the United States, gathering testimony from people who had been involved with the internment camps. He remembers “sitting in a room full of Japanese Americans who were my father and mother’s age. That’s a generation that doesn’t show emotion. To see them crying, telling their stories, and to see them [gaining catharsis by] sharing what they hadn’t shared before was a very powerful experience.”

Maki co-authored the 1999 book, Achieving the Impossible Dream: How Japanese Americans Obtained Redress with the late Harry Kitano, renowned professor in Asian American studies at UCLA. He describes how his involvement with redress has influenced his social and career interests.

“More than what I learned about the redress movement, I learned from these people that if you dedicate your life to a principle that you strongly believe in, there are rewards in that, beyond money, position, [or] fame," he says. "It’s a very fulfilling process to be committed to principle rather than outcome.”

Maki emphasizes the relevance of this little-known chapter in American history to the current national awareness of racial profiling and terrorism.

“About seven or eight years ago, the story [of redress] started to get a little bit old,” he says. “People were looking at me like, ‘Okay, this is a nice story, Mitch, but the bill was passed 10 years ago, 15 years ago. The camps were 60 years ago, this is almost ancient history.’ And then, 9/11 happened. The story became relevant again because it talks about weighing civil liberties and rights that are the foundation of our nation, versus physical safety and military necessity.

“I’m a strong believer that an individual’s or a nation’s character is revealed in times of crisis and is molded in times of reflection,” Maki continues. “We have an opportunity now to see what our character was in 1942 and to make sure that we don’t do the same thing in 2008, that we make sure that we don’t violate the rights and liberties of American citizens simply based on the color of their skin or national origin or race. In times of war and times of crisis, people are scared and maybe they do things they wouldn’t do in other times. But that’s exactly the reason we need to be cognizant of our past so that we don’t repeat that mistake.”

The George Kiriyama Educational Excellence Award is named for the former Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) board member and principal of the Gardena Community Adult School. In 1968, Kiriyama created an outline for the first multicultural course to be taught in the LAUSD and was instrumental in the development of curriculum that promoted multicultural diversity.

Maki, who crossed paths with Kiriyama through their involvement in the Japanese-American community in Los Angeles, remembers the educator as “a man who was committed to [the] access and quality of education. He understood that education could make a difference and change communities. That’s what we’re all about here at Dominguez Hills. What we do here in terms of providing access and quality education [is something] that resonates with George’s life. Receiving the award, in great part for what I do here, is very gratifying.”

Maki has had 24 years of experience in social work and psychiatric social work, drug and other counseling, research, and education. He realized, after a career as a social worker, that “one way to change communities and empower people was by empowering them through the educational system” and chose the field of education. Since his arrival at Dominguez Hills in 2005, the CHHS dean has added a child development program, a social work program to the college’s offerings, as well as the expansion of the nursing and occupational therapy programs. He is also working to establish a new master’s program in public health.

“One of the [limitations of] being a social worker is you have these clients, you touch their lives, and you never hear from them again, because of the nature of the work,” says Maki. “But in education, you form lifelong relationships and hear about [former] students who are now doing great things.

“In my position today and in my [former] position as a professor, I’ve been able to help change the lives of countless students and they in turn, go on to change the lives of their families and all the people they touch,” he notes. “It’s an opportunity for me to affect the lives of many people who I’ll never see or know about, but I have faith that it’s happening.

Maki also enjoys the fruits of his labor when he talks to his 8-year-old twin daughter and son about what he did at work that day.

“Every night when I talk to my kids and they ask me, ‘What did you do at work today, Dad?’ I tell them stories of how students are doing great and wonderful things and new opportunities we’ve created. They get excited about the idea of going to college and the work that I do. And they say things like, ‘Cal State Dominguez Hills sounds like a great place, Dad.’”

Maki’s research interests include the influence of culture and ethnicity on public policy, the delivery of social services, and aspects of mental health. He helped coordinate “A Chance to Talk,” an emergency hotline response to the 1992 civil unrest in Los Angeles in 1992 following the trial of the police officers accused of illegally beating Rodney King. He also was a contributor to the column “Through the Fire” in the Rafu Shimpo newspaper. The first in his family to earn a college degree, Maki obtained his bachelor’s degree in social work at University of Southern California’s School of Public Affairs. He also earned his master’s degree and doctorate in social work at USC.

Maki serves on the Scholarly Advisory Board of the Japanese American National Museum (JANM) in Los Angeles, working closely with the museum’s National Center for the Preservation of Democracy. The project, funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, tells the story of the contributions to military history by diverse groups of Americans, including the Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the Tuskegee Airmen and the Navajo codetalkers of World War II. He is also on the advisory board to the state librarian of the California Civil Liberties Public Education Project, an initiative that funds curriculum, history and museum projects related to the Japanese American internment camps.

- Joanie Harmon

Photo above: Iku Kiriyama, widow of the late George Kiriyama and Kiyo Fukumoto, former principal of Anatola Elementary School, LAUSD, present Mitch Maki, dean of the College of Health and Human Services (at right), with the George Kiriyama Educational Excellence Award at the Cherry Blossom Festival in Little Tokyo.

Photo by Kevin Lee