Duncan Ryūken Williams (born September 19, 1969) is a scholar, writer, and Soto Zen Buddhist priest who is currently professor of religion and East Asian languages and cultures at the University of Southern California.
[1] The child of a Japanese woman and a British man, Williams spent the first 17 years of his life in Japan and England.
[8] Williams also includes many anecdotes and stories to illustrate how ordinary people's lives were shaped by government policies and religious practices,[6] making the book accessible to a more general readership.
[10] To understand and document this history, Williams conducted bilingual research, including translating four volumes of diaries written by a Buddhist priest incarcerated at a high-security camp in Santa Fe, New Mexico from 1941-45[11] and obtaining and declassifying FBI documents that show that nearly 300 priests were picked up by the FBI after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
They typically include academic conferences, comedy shows, musical performances, film screenings, interviews, receptions, book fairs, art and photography displays, and an exhibit on multiracial Japanese Americans in the United States at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles.
This is the first time so many essays have been published together on the history, identification, and representations of global mixed-race people of Japanese descent.