For WWII internees, University of Washington degrees come after 66-year wait

Published 8:01 pm Sunday, May 4, 2008

SEATTLE — The University of Washington is planning to issue honorary degrees to Japanese Americans who were students at the school, but were forced to leave campus in the months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

A ceremony to honor the former students is scheduled for May 18 at Kane Hall on the university’s Seattle campus.

In the fall of 1941, about 450 Japanese Americans signed up to study at the University of Washington.

But Pearl Harbor was attacked in December that year, and in February 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt gave the military broad powers over anyone considered a security threat.

The military banned Japanese Americans from the West Coast, forcing most of the Japanese American UW students into out-of-state internment camps.

Many of the surviving students, most of whom are now in their late 80s, tell The Seattle Times they are excited about finally being recognized as Huskies — although others remain ambivalent, or wonder what has taken the UW so long.

Some finished their degrees after the war — at the UW or elsewhere — while others never did.