Mikiso “Miki” Hane (January 16, 1922 – December 8, 2003) was a Japanese American professor of history at Knox College, where he taught for over 40 years.
He later likened this history, which mostly concerned topics such as George Washington's cherry tree and Columbus’ discovery of America, to both myth and the “great man” theory of Thomas Carlyle.
Hane discussed his early life experience of living in poverty to the Journal Star, describing “the sense that you can’t look forward.”[7] In school, he continued to learn myths “designed to indoctrinate the youngsters,”[8] this time about the history of Japan, including topics such as the founding of Japan by the Sun Goddess and the daring heroics of General Nogi.
Hane reports that he was kicked out of this school after he organized the other students into purposefully dragging out a game of tug-o-war to annoy the widely disliked physical education teacher.
[9][10] After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and Executive Order 9066 was signed, Hane was forced to live in internment camps along with 120,000 Japanese-Americans.
Two Japanese-American girls in a neighboring community were taken away and raped.”[6] Hane said that he burnt all letters, books, and other documents he possessed written in Japanese for fear of being arrested.
By 1943, Hane got an interview for a job tutoring soldiers in the Japanese language program at Yale, which led to his release from the internment camp.
[12] Despite the challenges he had gone through, Hane considered the camp as having one positive impact on his life, that it allowed him the opportunity to go to college and work as a professor instead of staying a vegetable farmer.
In graduate school, he took courses with Professor Vernadsky, Hajo Holborn, and Franklin Le van Baumer, who inspired Hane to write a dissertation on the influence of English liberalism on Meiji Japan in the 1868-1890 period.
Just after Sputnik was launched, one of his friends who was in the air force told him to travel on the Siberian railway and take photos of the various train stops, and so, doubting this plan, he visited the Soviet Embassy in Tokyo, where he was immediately dismissed.
While working there, Hane explained, he found that “the best way to learn history is to teach it.”[12] He primarily taught Western civilization classes there.
[19] While teaching Western Civ, Hane was required to give a lecture in Knox's Beecher Chapel on Renaissance Art to all 250 freshman students taking it.
He later wrote, jokingly, “I believe it was my lecture on Renaissance Art that led the faculty to drop the Western Civ requirement and tear down Beecher Chapel”.
Hane's writings do not romanticize or rely on stereotypes which position emperors and samurai as any more central to Japan's history than peasants and rebellious women.
I finally decided that my misbegotten hope of gliding about in the rarified sphere of intellectual history was a self-deluding ego trip and that one can’t escape one’s roots.
[13]However, Hane's work faced criticism by some of his Japanese friends, saying that he needed to concentrate on “the real Japan” which includes the stereotypical “flower arranging, tea ceremonies, art” rather than peasants.
He was even described as a “third-rate Marxist, male radical historian.”[7] In 1985, he won a Burlington Northern Foundation Faculty Achievement Award, and from 1985 until 1988, he was a member of the board of directors and Northeast Asia council of the Association for Asian Studies.
[2][31] In 1992, Hane retired from Knox as emeritus professor, and he continued teaching three courses per year and writing books until his death.
He appeared on local newspapers numerous times in celebration of his nomination to the 26-member National Council on the Humanities, an interview of his memory of the WWII internment camp, and generally for his academic contribution to Knox College.