Mikiso “Miki” Hane (January 16, 1922 – December 8, 2003) was a Japanese American professor of history at Knox College, where he taught for over 40 years. He wrote and translated over a dozen books, wrote many articles, and was appointed a member of the National Council on the Humanities in 1991.“Senate confirms Hane to council.” The Register-Mail, Galesburg, Illinois, 30 March 1991. He was born in California, lived in Japan during his teenage years, and was interned in Arizona during World War II. He taught soldiers Japanese at Yale, then studied there, where he attained a bachelors degree in 1952, a masters degree in 1953, and doctorate degree in 1957. He studied in Japan and Germany, then taught at the University of Toledo and studied in India before going to Knox College in 1961. He lived in Galesburg for the rest of his life, and both wrote and taught until his death.
Early life and education Hane was born in Hollister, California on January 16, 1922.Mikiso Hane, Curriculum Vitae, October 1994, Mikiso Hane Box, Faculty Series, Special Collections and Archives, Henry M. Seymour Library, Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois. While in Hollister, his family worked as tenant farmers.“Oral History Interview with Mikiso Hane,” interview by Gregory Kupsky, May 31, 2002, transcript, Internment (during WWII) folder, Mikiso Hane Box, Faculty Series, Special Collections and Archives, Henry M. Seymour Library, Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois. p. 5. He had three brothers and two sisters.“Oral History Interview with Mikiso Hane,” interview by Gregory Kupsky, May 31, 2002, transcript, Internment (during WWII) folder, Mikiso Hane Box, Faculty Series, Special Collections and Archives, Henry M. Seymour Library, Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois. p. 6. Hane attended Fairhaven Grammar School, a two-room elementary school in Hollister, California, during the 1930s, where he learned basic American history. He later likened this history, which mostly concerned topics such as George Washington's cherry tree and Columbus’ discovery of America, to both myth and the “great man” theory of Thomas Carlyle.Mikiso Hane, The Last Lecture, Mortar Board, 1992. pp. 1–3.
At 10, in 1933, he was sent to Japan by his family, where he lived in a ‘small peasant village’ near Hiroshima with his uncle. His parents sent Hane back with the hope to join him later after their retirement. He worked as a vegetable farmer to provide for the family. Hane discussed his early life experience of living in poverty to the Journal Star, describing “the sense that you can’t look forward.”Pam Adams, "Japanese historian destroys stereotypes." Journal Star, 27 April 1989. p. 11. In school, he continued to learn myths “designed to indoctrinate the youngsters,”Mikiso Hane, The Last Lecture, Mortar Board, 1992. p. 2. this time about the history of Japan, including topics such as the founding of Japan by the Sun Goddess and the daring heroics of General Nogi. Despite this “‘theological’ view of history,”Mikiso Hane, The Last Lecture, Mortar Board, 1992. p. 3. his stern teacher motivated Hane’s interest in history. Hane reports that he was kicked out of this school after he organized the other students into purposefully dragging out a game of tug-o-war to annoy the widely disliked physical education teacher. He was only allowed to return after his aunt and uncle begged the principal “on their hands and knees” to forgive him. Later, after Japan invaded China, Hane was worried that Japan might go to war with the United States, and so he asked his parents if they would let him return before such a war began. He returned to Hollister in 1940 and a teacher at the elementary school there tutored him in English.“Oral History Interview with Mikiso Hane,” interview by Gregory Kupsky, May 31, 2002, transcript, Internment (during WWII) folder, Mikiso Hane Box, Faculty Series, Special Collections and Archives, Henry M. Seymour Library, Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois. p. 12.
Internment during WWII After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and Executive Order 9066 was signed, Hane was forced to live in internment camps along with 120,000 Japanese-Americans. He shared in an interview with Quad-City Times that he was “frightened” he would be punished “for the crimes of my race”. He recalled many rumors surrounding what would be done to the people in the internment camp: “... they were going to put us on trains, take us to camps and machine gun us down … We didn’t know what to do. Two Japanese-American girls in a neighboring community were taken away and raped.”Scott Reeder, “I was frightened I would be punished.” Quad-City Times, 8 December 1991. Hane said that he burnt all letters, books, and other documents he possessed written in Japanese for fear of being arrested. This was 6 months before his family was ordered to report to a government detention camp in Poston, Arizona, in the hot Sonoran desert, in May 1942. They, along with 20,000 other Japanese in this camp, lived in old Army barracks stationed in the desert battered by sandstorms. If they did not profess loyalty to the United States, they would be sent to a “high-pressure concentration camp” in Tule Lake, California.Mikiso Hane, “Wartime Internment” in A Round Table: The Living and Reliving of World War II, The Journal of American History, Vol. 77, No. 2, September 1990. p. 573. According to Hane, the worst part of his own experience was a lack of privacy. Hane took the job as a dishwasher in the camp's kitchen and received $16 per month. Despite the difficult conditions of the hot, surveilled, impoverished camp, Hane was able to attend impromptu classes taught in the style of Socrates by a philosophy student interned in the camp.Mikiso Hane, The Last Lecture, Mortar Board, 1992. 3-4.
By 1943, it had become possible for people to leave the camp if they were getting jobs in inland states. Hane signed up for a job in the U.S. military, as he feared being declared a liar, given that he had already professed loyalty to the United States. Government officials deemed Hane as an “enemy alien, potentially dangerous” because his return to the U.S. was not long before his detainment. Hane disagreed, referring to himself as a “physical coward” and not a threat to the country. By 1943, Hane got an interview for a job tutoring soldiers in the Japanese language program at Yale, which led to his release from the internment camp. He went to Chicago to be interviewed for the position. He was then hired and sent to New Haven, Connecticut to start his professional career at $600 per year for this part-time Japanese teacher role. It was at this time when he found a passion for history after going to lectures at Yale.Lewis, Cynthia. “A Passion for the Past: “History Speaking”.” Knox Magazine, September 2001. He reports reading many classic historical fiction novels at this time, such as Native Son and Grapes of Wrath. Despite the challenges he had gone through, Hane considered the camp as having one positive impact on his life, that it allowed him the opportunity to go to college and work as a professor instead of staying a vegetable farmer.
Education at Yale After World War II ended, Hane began a bachelor's degree at Yale. He gravitated towards history courses and was taught by Bernard Knox, Robert Lopez, and Samuel Bemis. In 1947, he had kidney problems and took a year off of work.“Oral History Interview with Mikiso Hane,” interview by Gregory Kupsky, May 31, 2002, transcript, Internment (during WWII) folder, Mikiso Hane Box, Faculty Series, Special Collections and Archives, Henry M. Seymour Library, Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois. p. 29. He soon met Rose Kanemoto, who was working as a doctor's assistant. They married in 1948.“Mikiso Hane: 1922-2003”, Memorial Service folder, Mikiso Hane Box, Faculty Series, Special Collections and Archives, Henry M. Seymour Library, Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois. They had two daughters, named Laurie and Jennifer. He earned his B.A. in 1952 and went on to finish a master's degree in 1953. In graduate school, he took courses with Professor Vernadsky, Hajo Holborn, and Franklin Le van Baumer, who inspired Hane to write a dissertation on the influence of English liberalism on Meiji Japan in the 1868-1890 period.“Oral History Interview with Mikiso Hane,” interview by Gregory Kupsky, May 31, 2002, transcript, Internment (during WWII) folder, Mikiso Hane Box, Faculty Series, Special Collections and Archives, Henry M. Seymour Library, Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois. p. 18.
During 1957 and 1958, Hane was a Fulbright research fellow at Tokyo University, assigned to Masao Maruyama. Just after Sputnik was launched, one of his friends who was in the air force told him to travel on the Siberian railway and take photos of the various train stops, and so, doubting this plan, he visited the Soviet Embassy in Tokyo, where he was immediately dismissed. Later, when working at Knox College, an FBI agent called him out of his office to ask him why he had gone to the Soviet Union, and Hane cleared up the confusion, explaining that he had just gone to the embassy to ask a question about traveling to Siberia.“Oral History Interview with Mikiso Hane,” interview by Gregory Kupsky, May 31, 2002, transcript, Internment (during WWII) folder, Mikiso Hane Box, Faculty Series, Special Collections and Archives, Henry M. Seymour Library, Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois. pp. 20–21. In 1958 and 1959, he became a student at LMU Munich, Germany, in the field of language, to study concepts which he would use while translating one of Maruyama's works.“Oral History Interview with Mikiso Hane,” interview by Gregory Kupsky, May 31, 2002, transcript, Internment (during WWII) folder, Mikiso Hane Box, Faculty Series, Special Collections and Archives, Henry M. Seymour Library, Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois. p. 3. Hane earned his B.A. (1952), M.A. (1953), and Ph.D. (1957) from Yale University.
Academic career From 1959 to 1961, Hane was an assistant professor of history at the University of Toledo. While working there, Hane explained, he found that “the best way to learn history is to teach it.” He primarily taught Western civilization classes there. In the summer of 1963, he studied Indian civilization at the University of Mysore on a Fulbright grant.
From 1961 to 1966, he was an assistant professor of history at Knox College. Hane taught some courses on Japanese studies in a collaborative program with nearby Monmouth College.“Oral History Interview with Mikiso Hane,” interview by Gregory Kupsky, May 31, 2002, transcript, Internment (during WWII) folder, Mikiso Hane Box, Faculty Series, Special Collections and Archives, Henry M. Seymour Library, Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois. p. 4. While teaching Western Civ, Hane was required to give a lecture in Knox's Beecher Chapel on Renaissance Art to all 250 freshman students taking it. He later wrote, jokingly, “I believe it was my lecture on Renaissance Art that led the faculty to drop the Western Civ requirement and tear down Beecher Chapel”.Mikiso Hane, The Last Lecture, Mortar Board, 1992. p. 10. In 1963, Hane gave a faculty seminar lecture on “The Japanese Language and the Japanese Mode of Thought.”“The Japanese Language and the Japanese Mode of Thought”, Lectures On Campus Folder, Mikiso Hane Box, Faculty Series, Special Collections and Archives, Henry M. Seymour Library, Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois. After some difficulties deciding what to write, Hane decided to write about peasants, as he saw himself as a peasant, having lived in Japan, California, and Arizona as one.Mikiso Hane, The Last Lecture, Mortar Board, 1992. pp. 10-11. In September 1966, he was promoted to associate professor of history. In 1972, he became a professor of history.“Biographical Data,” General & Biographical Folder, Mikiso Hane Box, Faculty Series, Special Collections and Archives, Henry M. Seymour Library, Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois.