USC to award degrees to Japanese interned during WWII
By Matt Stevens, Los Angeles Times
May 11, 2012
Friday morning, the USC campus will be filled with smiling students posing for pictures next to the most important people in their lives. For Hitoshi Sameshima, however, graduation comes a little too late.
It's been 70 years since Sameshima attended USC, and he has longed for this day. But his wife and daughter didn't live long enough to see it.
Commencement will be bittersweet for Nisei alumni like Sameshima, 91, whose educations were interrupted by internment during World War II and who will finally receive degrees from their alma mater. Nine former students will take part, school officials said.
Although they will cross the stage and shake hands with President C.L. Max Nikias, other Asian Americans are planning a morning rally against the private university.
Sameshima will stop by the demonstration too. He said he is grateful to get a diploma but sad that many of his peers won't be recognized at all. He also wishes USC had acted earlier, before his wife and daughter died.
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