Lane Ryo Hirabayashi is a full professor in the Department of Asian American Studies at UCLA, where he is also the inaugural "George & Sakaye Aratani Chair in Japanese American Incarceration, Redress, and Community.”
While Lane was growing up, his father Jim encouraged and enabled him to travel extensively. By the time he finished graduate school, Lane had been to Asia, Central and South America, Europe, and Africa. Among his favorite cities today he counts Tokyo, Kyoto, Cebu City, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo, London, Paris, and Malaga, as well as Zaria and Kano (both in northern Nigeria).
After years dedicated to classical music, and then American folk and blues, Lane decided to pursue doctoral studies in 1974. He earned an M.A. (1976) and then a Ph.D. (1981) in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley. Subsequently, Lane held a post-doctoral fellowship at the UCLA's Asian American Studies Center, 1981-82. He is author or editor of over thirty scholarly articles, as well as nine books and anthologies. His "research in progress" includes a book-length manuscript on Japanese American resettlement in Colorado as of 1946; and a cycle of articles focusing on the post-war life and writing of Carlos Bulosan, a project that he is writing in collaboration with Marilyn C. Alquizola.
In terms of current classes, Lane teaches courses on the Japanese American experience (on-going), Asian American history through the medium of documentaries (2012), redress movements in selected Asian American communities (2014), and multiracial Asian Americans (2014), among other classes and seminars.
In addition to his academic resume, Lane has actively sought ties to community-based organizations as one of the foundations to his academic work. Over the past thirty years he has worked with a wide range of groups including: NCRR (both the "National Coalition for Redress/Reparations," and the renamed "Nikkei for Civil Rights and Reparations"), Los Angeles; the Gardena Pioneer Project; East-West Players, Los Angeles; the Japanese Community Youth Council, San Francisco; the Japanese American Community Graduation Program, Denver; the "Harada House" museum project, Riverside; and the Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles. He also serves as a board member, and/or consultant, for additional Japanese American community organizations.
While Lane was growing up, his father Jim encouraged and enabled him to travel extensively. By the time he finished graduate school, Lane had been to Asia, Central and South America, Europe, and Africa. Among his favorite cities today he counts Tokyo, Kyoto, Cebu City, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo, London, Paris, and Malaga, as well as Zaria and Kano (both in northern Nigeria).
After years dedicated to classical music, and then American folk and blues, Lane decided to pursue doctoral studies in 1974. He earned an M.A. (1976) and then a Ph.D. (1981) in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley. Subsequently, Lane held a post-doctoral fellowship at the UCLA's Asian American Studies Center, 1981-82. He is author or editor of over thirty scholarly articles, as well as nine books and anthologies. His "research in progress" includes a book-length manuscript on Japanese American resettlement in Colorado as of 1946; and a cycle of articles focusing on the post-war life and writing of Carlos Bulosan, a project that he is writing in collaboration with Marilyn C. Alquizola.
In terms of current classes, Lane teaches courses on the Japanese American experience (on-going), Asian American history through the medium of documentaries (2012), redress movements in selected Asian American communities (2014), and multiracial Asian Americans (2014), among other classes and seminars.
In addition to his academic resume, Lane has actively sought ties to community-based organizations as one of the foundations to his academic work. Over the past thirty years he has worked with a wide range of groups including: NCRR (both the "National Coalition for Redress/Reparations," and the renamed "Nikkei for Civil Rights and Reparations"), Los Angeles; the Gardena Pioneer Project; East-West Players, Los Angeles; the Japanese Community Youth Council, San Francisco; the Japanese American Community Graduation Program, Denver; the "Harada House" museum project, Riverside; and the Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles. He also serves as a board member, and/or consultant, for additional Japanese American community organizations.
