Wellesley Neighbors Events - Event View

A Nisei’s View of WWII

Dr. Yutaka Kobayashi

Wellesley College Club

Tuesday, November 28

Dr. Kobayashi will screen a DVD he prepared about his recollections of the events that led to the evacuation of all persons of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast after Pearl Harbor and of his experience living at the Tanforan race track in California and the concentration camp in Topaz, Utah. 120,000 people, 70% of whom were American citizens, were uprooted from their homes on the West Coast and confined in ten camps located in isolated areas of the West. Through the efforts of the National Japanese American Student Relocation Council, managed by the Quakers, Kobayashi was able to leave camp for college.

Dr. Kobayashi is a retired biochemist from DuPont. His early research field was biogenic amines and growth (normal and abnormal), about which he has published over 85 papers. He is best known for his expertise in a niche area of science, liquid scintillation counting. He has co-authored several scientific books on the applications of radioactive tracers in research and has lectured internationally on the subject. He currently serves on the board of the Nisei Student Relocation Commemorative Fund, which has provided scholarship aid (about a million dollars now) for over thirty years to 600 plus Southeast Asian Refugee students. Yutaka and his wife Maureen are members of Wellesley Neighbors.