Pearl Harbor: History, Memory, Memorial
July 21-28, 2007 and July 28-August 4, 2007 (same workshop offered twice)

Workshop Schedule

The preliminary schedule, described below, is intended to provide a sense of anticipated daily activities. The actual workshop activities will be further refined and made available at the time of the mailing of the acceptance letter.

Day one (Sunday) opened with an early afternoon visit to the Arizona Memorial and a welcome reception in the evening at the USS Bowfin Submarine Museum. Special guests included Pearl Harbor survivors and civilian witnesses of the Pearl Harbor attacks. An evening film discussion (back at the East-West Center), led by Daniel Martinez, featured the film Tora! Tora! Tora!, and raised the question of how the bombing has been projected in popular culture and film not only here in the United States, but also Japan.

Day two (Monday) began with an overview of the program, its goals, as well as pedagogical underpinnings, and expected outcomes. We opened the program with a presentation, delivered by Emily Rosenberg, on issues of "history, memory, memorial" concerning Pearl Harbor and its mythic place in American public history and memory. We then delved into the question of "What happened at Pearl Harbor?" with a presentation by the National Park Historian Daniel Martinez. Reflecting on Sunday's visit to the Arizona Memorial and using selections from The Attack on Pearl Harbor: An Illustrated History as well as the Japanese aviator Mitsuo Fuchida's account of the air attack in Stillwell's Air Raid: Pearl Harbor, and other sources of historical and eyewitness accounts, Martinez led participants' exploration of the factual history of the events as they unfolded on that fateful day on December 7, 1941.

Teaching strategy sessions, led by Namji Steinemann and Jean Johnson, examined maps (showing the alignment of Hawaii and its distance from Japan and the U.S. mainland, of Oahu and plane attack routes, of the "Battleship Row" at Pearl Harbor, etc.), photographs, and other visual resources, including those available on the National Park Service and the National Geographic websites, to engage participants in considering ways to use these resources to provide a sense of the "geography" of attack sites and to establish a framework for identifying visual and online materials suitable for classroom use. Importantly, Japanese and U.S. participants shared their perspectives on Pearl Harbor and issues they face in teaching about Pearl Harbor and the Pacific War.

During week one, an evening 'pizza social' allowed participants to mingle and get to know one another in an informal setting.

Day three (Tuesday) began early with a guided tour of the attack sites in order to give participants "a sense of place" where history happened. Led by Dan Martinez, the tour took the group to a number of key sites some of which are not open to the general public: the Ford Island Naval Air Station (the "ground zero" for the attacks on Oahu); the Wheeler Army Airfield (the first military installation on Oahu to have been attacked); and the Schofield Barracks (which was the key army installation for ground troops defending Oahu). Lunch at the Hickam Army Airfield enabled further storytelling about local impacts and broader ramifications of the attacks, including international dimensions of Pearl Harbor history, as participants met and talked with Pearl Harbor survivors and witnesses. The tour portion of the program ended late afternoon at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (better known locally as the Punchbowl Cemetery), the primary cemetery on Oahu for soldiers killed in World War II (including those killed at Pearl Harbor), Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, and Iraq.

Day four (Wednesday) opened with debriefing of the tour. Then, the question of "Why did Japan bomb Pearl Harbor?" explored from both U.S. and Japanese perspectives in Peter Duus's presentation and through discussions of assigned readings, i.e., Duus and Iriye, and analyses of primary sources found in Iriye's Pearl Harbor and the Coming of the Pacific War and Goldstein's The Pearl Harbor Papers. We also examined the question of culpability through discussions of readings, including Prange's "Revisionists Revisited" in At Dawn We Slept and review of various source materials from the other assigned reading sources. We further delved into "How the attacks changed the United States/Japan" by examining what happened to Japan vs. what happened to the United States following Pearl Harbor.

A lecture-music presentation by Jon Osorio, a scholar of Hawaiian studies at the University of Hawaii and a well-known local singer, provided yet a different glimpse of Pearl Harbor (or Pu'uloa in Hawaiian) as a place - a great lagoon where nature's abundance provided Native Hawaiians with sustenance. The group discussion that followed further explored the varied meanings of Pearl Harbor and the multitude of histories that converge there.

The formal segment of the day concluded with a film viewing of the PBS documentary The Massie Affair, followed by a discussion facilitated by John Rosa, a scholar who researched this interracial rape case as part of his dissertation on Hawaii's territorial period and who served as a consultant for the film.

An optional evening "Waikiki Walking Tour" was organized and led by the National Park Historian Dan Martinez.

Day five (Thursday) opened with a presentation by Gary Mukai, who talked about the ways in which the impacts of the Pearl Harbor attacks played out differently in Hawaii and on the U.S. mainland. Discussions of readings from Siegel's In Good Conscience, Allen's Hawaii's War Years, and Rodrigg's We Remember Pearl Harbor as well as web-based materials and oral histories from the Smithsonian sites further added to the exploration and discussion of Pearl Harbor's different histories, perspectives, and perceptions and their implications for teaching. In the early afternoon, the group chose to return to the Arizona Memorial for another look and further reflection and worked on their lesson plan/collaborative project ideas.

Day six (Friday) opened with a panel, titled "Pearl Harbor Memory and Issues of Reconciliation: Personal Reflections," featuring Pearl Harbor survivors. That was followed by discussion tracing the contested as well as changing memories of Pearl Harbor, including contemporary U.S. and global perceptions of Pearl Harbor in the aftermath of 9/11 (ref: Rosenberg's A Date Which Will Live and White's journal article "Public History and Globalization."). Emily Rosenberg (invited) will lead this discussion. A follow-on presentation by Yujin Yaguchi discussed Japanese perceptions of the bombing, drawn from Yaguchi's research interviewing Japanese visitors to the Arizona Memorial, and considered the significance of memorials as emotional places that may play a role in transforming conflict. Participants spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon working in small groups on their lesson plan/collaborative project ideas to share with the large group. These ideas shared at the conclusion of the workshop and subsequent revisions as well as successful outcomes are being posted on the East-West Center weblog and to be made available on the workshop partners' websites.