HIROKO HARADA
Inducted: 2023
HIROKO HARADA
Hiroko Harada arrived in Alaska in 1998, when she was hired by the University of Alaska Anchorage as a Japanese language professor and coordinator of the Japanese program, a position she held for 25 years until she retired in 2023. In this role, she taught college students, involved herself with children’s education, and tirelessly advocated for Japanese education and international collaboration throughout Alaska, nationally and internationally. She has gone beyond just teaching by creating cultural experiences, language contests, and international opportunities.
Every semester she also taught special topics courses in Japanese, ranging from Japanese folktales and pop culture to literature and history. Other classes were in business Japanese, Japanese calligraphy, and about the long ties between Japan and Alaska. She mentored and taught many students in independent studies classes on topics ranging from Japanese and English translations, teaching and tutoring including through technology, cultural differences and international consulting. In addition to her teaching in the language department, she taught courses in the History, English, and Creative Writing & Literary Arts departments. She chaired dozens of committees.
She is a popular speaker, including on Japan TV Broadcasting, aired both in Japanese and English. Being honored by the Japanese government attests to her national and international impact.
Professor Harada has a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign. She earned her B.A. in English Literature from Baika Women’s University, Osaka Japan. She earned two Master of Arts degrees, one from Baika Women’s University in Japan and the other from University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire.
She created two exchange programs with Kokkaido University of Education and Iwate University. She works closely with Sand Lake Elementary School, the Anchorage School District’s Japanese Immersion Program and its follow-up Bartlett High School.
She co-founded the UAA-HUE Internship Program and the Alaska Japanese Speech Contest which has enhanced student learning for many years. She co-founded the Alaska Association of Teachers of Japanese. Together with others, she launched the Alaska Japanese Language Pedagogy Workshop.
With a Rasmuson Foundation Grant, she created “Monty’s Room,” a Japanese Tea Room on the UAA campus, so her students could experience Japanese culture first hand.
Since 2009, she has played first violin in the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra and the Anchorage Concert Chorus Orchestra.
She has received various honors and awards including:
2023: Awarded Professor Emerita by the University of Alaska Anchorage
2022: Recipient of Foreign Ministry Commendation from the Japanese Government
2021: Ray Verzasconi Northwest Postsecondary Educator of the Year, Pacific NW Council for Languages.
2017: Received Alaska Humanities Forum Grant to invite two 2017 Nobel Peace Prize Laureates to Alaska.
2015: American Association of Teachers of Japanese Teacher Award.
In addition to her awards, she received more than twenty grants as large as $100,000.
She was the Invited Speaker, Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership’s Online Seminar No. 4. 2021. Her list of publications include:
Harada, H. (2000). Aspects of Post-War German and Japanese Drama: Reflections of War, Guilt, and Responsibility (1945 – 1970). Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press.
(2022). Her book will be published in Russian by Academic Studies Press, Brookline, MA.
Harada, H. (Co-Translator). (2022). アッツ島の少年 (Japanese Translation of Attu Boy), Anchorage: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service [Nick Golodoff’s memoir of WWII.]
Harada, H. (2020). Anchorage, An ICAN City: What Future Can We Choose? (A booklet for youths). Anchorage: Center for Japanese Language & Culture.
Harada, H. (2018). (Translator [into English]).「船舶工兵警備規定案」(Proposed Defensive Plan for Shipping Engineers)for the Voices of Attu Project.
Harada, H. (2010). On the Trail of the Picture. Partial translation from Japanese to English for the “Lost Villages of the Aleutians” project by the National Park Service, Alaska. Published in Remembering and Revisiting the Lost Villages of the Aleutians (2010).
Harada, H. (2014). Monty’s Kakehashi (Bridge) to Tomorrow. An Online textbook for advanced Japanese learners.
Harada, H. (Translator). (2009 – 2018). Two books and numerous materials related to the Battle of Attu. For National Park Service and U.S. Army Center of Military History
Harada, H. (in progress). Disaster Preparedness Drill Book, in collaboration with Iwate University.
Harada, H. (2016). NHK (Japan Broadcasting) TV broadcasting on Montgomery Dickson and Japan Center. The English version was aired through the NHK World on 3/11/16, and the Japanese version, on NHK NewsWatch 9 on 3/14/16. Video: https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/editors/3/20160311/
Her presentations nationally and internationally are too numerous to list.