Scholar. Activist. Inspirer. That describes Franklin S. Odo, one of the early directors of the Ethnic Studies program that would become a department in the College of Social Sciences. He passed away on September 28, 2022, at the age of 83, in Northampton, Massachusetts.
Born and raised in Hawaiʻi, Odo was a Kaimukī High School graduate who earned his bachelor’s degree in Asian studies and PhD in Japanese history from Princeton, and MA in East Asian regional studies from Harvard.
Odo was part of a national movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s that gave rise to what is known as ethnic studies today. His innate understanding of the value and relevance of the field is reflected in his 1990 interview at the Center for Oral History (COH), based in Ethnic Studies.
In describing the role of cultural activities in mobilizing and empowering people, he said, “If you don’t control your own culture, and your own vision of life, and your own participation in life, then you don’t control anything.”
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Read the full article at CSS News, College of Social Sciences.