Fall-Winter 2019: As part of completing departmental honors in history, I was part of a year long class to work on research and complete a 30-50 page history paper of my choosing. Part of history curriculum emphasizes taking classes from different fields (ancient/modern, geographical location) and more. I knew I was interested in postwar studies, Japan, and Cold War politics.
It was a daunting challenge to chose my year-long research topic
I didn't just want to write a history paper, I wanted to write a great history paper up to academic standards. This meant I needed to properly examine secondary resources and quality primary sources. If I wanted to really explore Japanese or Chinese history, I needed to be able to read and translate documents in multiple languages. I wasn't able to do that, so I had to pick a field in which I had some information and could have a good primary source base. I also needed to pick a mentor who could help guide me through reading and evaluating my primary sources.
my primary resource base was based on what was available and what I could read most effectively
As a result, I decided to work from the United States National Files accessing newly declassified files from the CIA, State department, and other branches of the government. These files were great in analyzing the American perspective on postwar politics and the shaping of Japan after the Pacific World.
I got rejected by two history professors
Both of the professors who rejected me were quite kind. They were in my area of interest "postwar Japan" as well as "human rights," but they weren't experts in American Foreign Policy and working with the U.S. National Archives. I talked to my class advisor, and she recommended me to somewhere completely unexpected from history, the field of international studies to Professor Bessner whose publications were with Germany and California corporate archives. However, he was an expert on US foreign policy and national archives, and was willing to work with me. :)
Spring-Summer was lots of reading, lots....
I got a long long reading assignment. A picture of my final bibliography for secondary resources...each hundreds of pages long. I didn't up using all of it, such is the burden of background research.
A glimpse into part of the books I used in writing my paper
I had to learn how to be extremely selective in what primary resources I read, even though I wanted to read as much as possible. Professor Bessner told me that I couldn't read everything. When I was worried that there would be some documents out there that could potentially change my entire paper, he had to calm me down and say "that's part of history." What I had to focus on was analyzing and critically evaluating the documents I would end up working with.
I made my peace that my paper isn't going to be the most amazing thing out there, but it is fully mine.
Fall 2020 - Spring 2021
Abstract of my paper presented at the 2020 UW Undergraduate Symposium and also to present at the April 2021 PAT Historical Conference
Studying wartime atrocities was not only depressing, but it was also a bad yardstick for "evil"
This research was a long winding process that took a lot out of me. In the beginning when I was thinking about whether I wanted to start studying such a depressing time, and also whether it would devastate my mental health. Professors who teach wartime atrocities only do so one quarter a year because of the nature of such topics. There were times I wanted to give up. It was difficult topic because I was working on the worst of human atrocities.
Some days I had to take a step back from my research.
I think it also impacted my ability to evaluate terrible things in general. When someone tells me about something bad in history, or something bad happening right now, my mind instantly jumps to wartime atrocities because that was what I studied for two-three years.
The other part of research is that people who survive are those who participated in research or survived experimentation. They were the ones who lived, and the ones who could talk about their experience. And it really reminds me that most of these people tried to put the past behind them, and simply survive & live through the Cold War era...
Life really does go on.
My first time getting into heated intellectual academic debate with another colleague
Model Replication of an Experiment
Picture from Harbin-Unit 731 Museum in Harbin, Heilongjiang.
Part of the new field in wartime atrocities is whether or not such pictures should be displayed for the public. One of the arguments it that these pictures are captured by someone in power. These lens display the victim at one of the worst, suffering moments in their life. To keep them is to immortalize that pain, remind their surviving family members of that pain, and even make them famous for that pain. One of the students researched this topic for a year, and I was intrigued by her notion that any and all pictures should be destroyed.
I was surprised. I asked if new historical pictures were found, should we destroy them? Do we not even archive them? She said yes, all these pictures should ultimately be destroyed and thus our spirited debate began...
As a young women trying to carve her place in the world, starting with the words, "I think," "in my opinion," or heaven forbid, "from my experience," instantly enables other people to not listen to your opinion. My professor who was part of US Foreign Service taught me that. No one knows "everything," and for you to be heard, you have to fight. You have to justify and defend your situation. When it comes to a job or a funding grant, no one is going to hand it over to you, you have to advocate for you want.