Dr. Larry Gragg and Debra Griffith will give a talk titled “Japanese-American Student Success at the Missouri School of Mines in World War II” at 1 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 5, via Zoom. Register for the talk.

Gragg is a Curators’ Distinguished Teaching Professor emeritus of history and political science. Griffith is Missouri S&T’s archivist.

This talk is a collaboration between SHSMO-Rolla Center and the Missouri S&T Archives, and accompanies the Smithsonian traveling poster exhibit, “Righting a Wrong: Japanese Americans and World War II” currently on display in the Curtis Laws Wilson Library. The exhibit will be in the library through Friday, Nov. 13.

After the signing of Executive Order 9066, authorizing the evacuation of all persons deemed a threat to national security from the West Coast to relocation centers further inland, Japanese-American college students were at a loss. The National Japanese American Student Relocation Council managed to move over 4,000 students from the internment camps back into colleges in the Midwest and East Coast. Thirteen of those students came to the Missouri School of Mines.

During their talk, Gragg will discuss the 13 students and their success at MSM, and Griffith will discuss the research needed to identify the students. 

“Righting a Wrong: Japanese Americans and World War II” was developed by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and adapted for travel by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service. The traveling exhibition and poster exhibition are supported by a grant from the Asian Pacific American Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center; the Terasaki Family Foundation and C.L. Ehn and Ginger Lew.