More than 2,500 Japanese American students across the country had their studies forcibly suspended in 1942, when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066 pushed them into internment camps.
But the new California Nisei College Diploma Project seeks to award honorary degrees to all students forced to leave higher education, as a result of AB 37, a bill introduced by Assemblyman Warren Furutani (D-Long Beach) and signed into law by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Oct. 11, 2009.
MJC believes approximately 28 students were forced to discontinue their studies in 1942 as a result of the executive order. The college plans to recognize the students during the 6 p.m. April 30 Commencement Ceremony, but the statewide search to identify and contact students to be awarded honorary degrees is ongoing.
For more information, or to help the college identify and locate former Japanese American students, visit www.mjc.edu/general/president/nisei-project/index.html or contact Susie Agostini at 575-6740 or agostinit@mjc.edu or Wendy Byrd at 575-7991 or byrdw@mjc.edu.
But the new California Nisei College Diploma Project seeks to award honorary degrees to all students forced to leave higher education, as a result of AB 37, a bill introduced by Assemblyman Warren Furutani (D-Long Beach) and signed into law by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Oct. 11, 2009.
MJC believes approximately 28 students were forced to discontinue their studies in 1942 as a result of the executive order. The college plans to recognize the students during the 6 p.m. April 30 Commencement Ceremony, but the statewide search to identify and contact students to be awarded honorary degrees is ongoing.
For more information, or to help the college identify and locate former Japanese American students, visit www.mjc.edu/general/president/nisei-project/index.html or contact Susie Agostini at 575-6740 or agostinit@mjc.edu or Wendy Byrd at 575-7991 or byrdw@mjc.edu.
