On the 28th of October, I interviewed Prof. Hanaki about Dr. Ogawa's lecture which was held during the Hawaii week. I had not been able to meet Dr. Ogawa during his stay in Nanzan, and therefore only knew his face from a photo. So the first thing I asked Prof. Hanaki was his impression of Dr. Ogawa. According to him, Dr. Ogawa is a third-generation Japanese-American, and has been supportive in protecting women's rights for many years. At the University of Hawai'i, he is currently working to improve the position of Japanese-Americans on the islands. Next, we went into the lecture details. The main point was that Hawaii is a melting pot of minority races, in other words, everyone in Hawaii is a minority. Despite the fact that it is a part of the U.S where white people are still the center of society, there are no such races or groups that are considered to be the mainstream in Hawaii. This fact is quite impressive, but another thing that surprised me was that a lot of people in Hawaii believe in spirituality. They deeply respect the dead, and even when it comes to politics, supernatural power can have a great influence on the administration. The lecture seems to have been very beneficial to the Japanese students and made them come up with clever ideas. One of the participants writes: I thought the ghost story was interesting but why hasn't any religious antagonism risen in Hawaii? In the long history as a collective of islands made up of many minority groups, hasn't there ever been a time when the idea of nationalism took over Hawaii?  

by Rina M