Renee Tajima

[Renee Tajima @ReneeTajima]

Who else but @SLeoChiang would Zoom in to talk to my class at midnite his time only hours before Oscar nominations!

Congrats LEO and JEAN TSIEN!

Everyone watch the intimate, beautiful, essential ISLAND IN BETWEEN at NY Times Op Docs. Must see! https://t.co/8DQsrqKqkD

[Renee Tajima @ReneeTajima]

Years from now we'll watch @TaNehisiCoats' elegant take down of @tonydokoupil's hostile and biased @CBSMornings interview...

...much like watching the Cavett Show clips of James Baldwin scorching the oafish Prof Paul Weiss on racism in America.

[CBS Mornings @CBSMornings]

Ta-Nehisi Coates’ new book, “The Message,” is a trio of interconnected essays that examine how the stories people tell — or avoid telling — can shape and even distort reality: “I am most concerned always with those that don’t have a voice.” https://t.co/bDsBxZMbah

[Renee Tajima @ReneeTajima]

Dear Florida, if you're counting on the federal weather services and NOAA hurricane data it's a good day to remember that #Project2025IsTrumpAndVance wants to get rid of it.
https://t.co/Vw1v7gV273

[Renee Tajima @ReneeTajima]

from the Yard. But like so many students before & after us, we knew we were on the right side of history. 30+ yrs later Harvard gave Mandela an honorary degree.

Hypocrisy, yes. But the off-the-rails responses from Columbia, USC and universities today goes way beyond hypocrisy.

[Renee Tajima @ReneeTajima]

When we demanded divestment in apartheid S. Africa & Nelson Mandela's release from prison - remember he was on the terrorist watchlist until 2008 - we committed countless acts of civil disobedience. Takeovers, sit-ins, marches, sending Pres. Bok & his security team fleeing ...1/2

[Renee Tajima @ReneeTajima]

Trump's lawyers managing to make us love the #DAWillis family. And give showrunners ideas for a primetime series.

Tough-as-nails daughter and the home-spun father. Two generations of lawyering, both landing highly effective blows on the stand. https://t.co/Ksmqr9NB1G

[Renee Tajima @ReneeTajima]

A year and a day ago a gunman shot up the Star Ballroom in Monterey Park.

LA Times reporters who truly know SGV made a huge difference to the community. Some of those reporters have been laid off and it feels like we've lost part of the heart and soul of this city.

[Renee Tajima @ReneeTajima]

All that time, research, theorizing and raising alarms to expose the hypocrisy, corruption and outsize influence of the billionaire oligarchy...

And all we really had to do is let them tweet.

[Renee Tajima @ReneeTajima]

A nativity scene in Bethlehem, in the occupied WestBank. Christians cancelled Christmas in solidarity with Palestine.

"This is what Christmas looks like in Palestine," Rev. Munther Ishaq, Evangelical Lutheran Christian Church, Bethlehem..

[Renee Tajima @ReneeTajima]

My grandpa Rev. Kengo Tajima's last sermon in 1942 before Japanese Amer's were imprisoned in WWII camps.

"And we are responsible to the present world with its war system as much as any other people. War is the world’s common enemy." #Bethlehem

https://t.co/EsG7rwKeko 1/2

[Renee Tajima @ReneeTajima]

If anyone in Congress called on the DOJ to investigate us, they didn’t feel empowered to do it publicly. We weren’t silenced.

As for Harvard, 20 years later the university awarded Mandela an honorary degree.

#FreePalestine #FreeTheHostages #CeaseFireInGaza
Photo: Tony Butler

[Renee Tajima @ReneeTajima]

Been thinking back to the days when I co-chaired the Harvard United Front demanding divestment from apartheid S. Africa.

It was a time when Nelson Mandela was still imprisoned on Robben Island and deemed a terrorist by the U.S.

As student activists we marched, occupied...1/4

[Renee Tajima @ReneeTajima]

Student anti-apartheid activism got pushback. But this didn’t happen…

The orgs of the United Front coalition, which included the Asian American Assn, weren’t suspended. We weren’t arrested or evicted from university housing. We weren’t put on no-hire lists by angry alumni. 3/4

[Renee Tajima @ReneeTajima]

"Memory remains though..."

My grandma always talked about her deep shame in Japan's colonial brutality. She was a Japanese immigrant, a picture bride raised during Japan's rise as an imperial power.

But she knew right from wrong, truth from lies. And she never forgot.

[Stephanie Drenka @stephaniedrenka]

When Japan occupied Korea, it “became a crime to teach history from non-approved texts and authorities burned over 200,000 Korean historical documents, essentially wiping out the historical memory of Korea.” https://t.co/HqjuAqvrfc

[Renee Tajima @ReneeTajima]

My uncles Tsuneo and Ted served in U.S. military intelligence. Even tho Grandpa was unjustly incarcerated he translated for the U.S. Army from behind barbed wire.

They fought against our family homeland, Japan, because of its violent colonial occupation in Asia & the Pacific.

[Renee Tajima @ReneeTajima]

This toolkit would also be really helpful for academics writing solidarity statements.

[Renee Tajima @ReneeTajima]

I’ve often wondered what it was like to live under McCarthyism. Now I know.

But today the power of suppression is wielded by billionaire$.

Read: @Artforum editor #DavidVelasco fired, artists cancelled, after open letter calling for ceasefire.

https://t.co/pwiMZ5onHF

[Renee Tajima @ReneeTajima]

@zentronix
@juanmejiab77 @junstinson @tadashinakamurafilms @bomirhosseni @pjraval @mainmaing @joualeelens @anothergracelee @victoriachalk
@janetchenma @kanahammon @eurie.ka @itsannieto @dianaxkhong @hannareikinsey @tejaatej @zuluw

[Renee Tajima @ReneeTajima]

Can't teach Asian Am history w/out Black history.

Watch: Frederick Douglass & Wong Kim Ark fought for immigrants and the right to become Americans https://t.co/FeWigCMl9v

More May 19th Project AAPI solidarity videos https://t.co/28wZ11OrAz
#SolidarityIs #AAPIHM #FreedomToLearn