The free college-level seminar will be on October 24 at HPU's Aloha Tower Marketplace campus.
In February 1946, a small American team in Tokyo drafted a new constitution for a defeated Japan in roughly one week. The officer trusted to carry its meaning across two languages was Warrant Officer Raymond Aka, born in Wailuku, Maui, a McKinley High School graduate who studied at the University of Hawaiʻi before the war. The document he helped shape, the Constitution of Japan, took effect on May 3, 1947, still governs Japan today unamended, and helped turn a wartime enemy into one of America's closest allies. November 3 of this year marks the 80th anniversary of its promulgation.
On Saturday, October 24, Journey to Peace Hawaiʻi will tell that story where it belongs. "From Enemy to Ally: Japan's recovery, the new international order, and the Hawaiʻi voices in the room" is a free college-level seminar, open to the public, from 10 a.m. to noon at Hawaiʻi Pacific University's Aloha Tower Marketplace campus (MPR3), downtown on Honolulu Harbor.
The panel features U.S. Ambassador (Ret.) Jim Moriarty; Mark A. Levin, J.D., Professor of Law and Director of the University of Hawaiʻi Center for Japanese Studies and the Pacific-Asian Legal Studies Program at UH Mānoa; and U.S. Army Col. (Ret.) John Hansen, a professor of political science at HPU, moderates. The session runs like a graduate seminar: a focused presentation, then an extended question-and-answer period built from questions the audience submits at registration and asks live.
"Raymond Aka’s story reminds us that Hawaiʻi has always had a voice in the conversations that shape the Pacific,” said Jana Stern, Director of Graduate Admissions and Admissions Operations at Hawaiʻi Pacific University. “By opening a true graduate-level seminar to the public at no cost, we’re inviting students, veterans, and lifelong learners to engage with that history the way our classrooms do: with real experts, real questions, and real dialogue.”
The seminar also honors two members of the U.S. Army's Military Intelligence Service with Hawaiʻi ties: Aka, later awarded Japan's Order of the Rising Sun as a "voice between two countries," who is interred at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl; and Col. Harry Fukuhara, who served through the occupation and in 2015 gave his name to the headquarters of the 500th Military Intelligence Brigade at Schofield Barracks.
Admission is free with pre-registration at www.hpu.edu/gradevents. Seating is limited.
The event is presented by the Journey to Peace Hawaiʻi with the Rotary Club of Pearl Harbor and is sponsored in part by Hawaiʻi Pacific University, offering bachelor's and master's degrees in diplomacy, cybersecurity, public administration, and more. Learn more at hpu.edu.
Recordings of past seminars are available at www.youtube.com/@JourneyToPeaceHawaii.
About Journey to Peace Hawaiʻi:
Journey to Peace Hawaiʻi is a multigenerational initiative developing future leaders for the Indo-Pacific region. Its premise is that the tragedies of twentieth-century wars were avoidable, but only with deliberate leadership from people who remember history and build meaningful connections across national boundaries.
