Pearl Harbor: History, Memory, Memorial

FAIN: BH-50195-07

Center for Cultural and Technical Interchange Between East and West, Inc. (Honolulu, HI 96848-1601)
Namji Steinemann (Project Director: March 2006 to September 2008)

Two one-week workshops for eighty school teachers to study the history and commemoration of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

In most history books, Pearl Harbor is reduced simply as an event: a treacherous Japanese “sneak attack that incites “slumbering” America to war and ultimately to its victory. Missing is the complexity of causes and legacies of war, including social and cultural—the important lessons of history. This proposal outlines a plan for two weeklong workshops for 80 teachers, held in Honolulu, Hawaii in June and July 2007. The workshop will engage teachers in examining the Pearl Harbor attack and investigating the structuring of that history within broader social, cultural, and historical contexts that emphasize multiple perspectives and connections to global forces, events, and ideas. Participants will apply their workshop learning in web-based lessons and collaborative projects that they develop in peer groups. Project work will begin in October 2006 and end in December 2007.