![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.tedtajima.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Ted-Tajima.jpeg\" "\\"Ted")
<\/a><\/p>\n===<\/em><\/p>\n By J.K. Yamamoto<\/em> ===<\/em><\/p>\n Ted Tajima, a noted journalism instructor who was a mentor to many professional journalists, passed away on Feb. 20. He was 88.<\/p>\n Tajima, Alhambra High School\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s journalism advisor for 35 years until his retirement in 1983, was a founder and president of the Southern California Journalism Education Association, which named a scholarship after him, and a national vice president of the Journalism Education Association.<\/p>\n The California Newspaper Publishers Association gave him an award for outstanding teaching in 1967, and the JEA presented him with the Medal of Merit in 1970. He was also a recipient of the Asian American Journalists Association\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Lifetime Achievement Award.<\/p>\n During his tenure, Alhambra High\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s newspaper,\u00c2\u00a0The Moor<\/em>, was a perennial NSPA (National Scholastic Press Association) All-American, winning that distinction 26 consecutive times, starting in 1957. It also received two NSPA Pacemaker awards for innovation and overall excellence.<\/p>\n One of his prot\u00c3\u00a9g\u00c3\u00a9s is\u00c2\u00a0Los Angeles Times<\/em> staff writer Elaine Woo. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He was the kind of teacher you never forget, compassionate but strict, particularly about adhering to the facts, writing without affectation, and learning all aspects of newspaper production, including selling ads,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she recalled. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Many of his lessons have remained with me \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sad that he could not become a reporter or editor for a mainstream newspaper. He finished college right after World War II and anti-Japanese sentiment was a huge barrier. I never heard him express bitterness about this, although I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure he felt it.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153At the same time, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m grateful he became a teacher because without his encouragement, I would not have gone into journalism, a very non-traditional field for Asian Americans in the 1970s when I was his student.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n Woo, who worked for the\u00c2\u00a0Herald-Examiner<\/em> before joining the\u00c2\u00a0Times<\/em>, has said that Tajima had the same impact on her that the late Jaime Escalante, the Garfield High School math teacher who was the subject of the movie \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Stand and Deliver,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d had on his students.<\/p>\n Joe Saltzman, a journalism professor at USC and former CBS producer, was Tajima\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s student in the 1950s. He remembered being devastated when the high school counselor told him he wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t college material and should go into his father\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s profession, washing windows. He told his English and journalism teacher, whom everyone called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153T.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153In all the years I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve known Ted, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never seen him that angry,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Saltzman said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He told me to wait there for him, and then went to see that high school counselor. He came back and told me that together, we would work to get me into the best school of journalism on the West Coast \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the University of Southern California \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and with a scholarship as well. And he made it happen.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n Having taught for 44 years at USC, where he directs the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Image of the Journalist in Popular Culture\u00e2\u20ac\u009d project, Saltzman added, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I know I became a teacher because of his influence on me. I wanted to do for future journalists what he had done for me \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 My story is not a unique one. Hundreds of Ted\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s former students would tell you much the same thing. He changed their lives as he did mine. And he did it with humor, with patience, with grace, with intelligence, with compassion.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n Others who benefited from Tajima\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s guidance include Arnold Shapiro, a Emmy winner for the documentary \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Scared Straight\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, and Steve Padilla, an editor at the Los Angeles Times.<\/p>\n On the occasion of his retirement, Tajima\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s former students raised money to send him and his wife on a trip to Japan.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Experiencing Prejudice<\/strong><\/p>\n Born in Salt Lake City to Issei parents on Aug. 6, 1922, Tajima moved to California with his family at the age of 6. He had three brothers and a sister. Another sister had died as an infant in Japan. His father, Kengo, was the pastor of Japanese Union Church of Pasadena, now known as First Presbyterian Church of Altadena.<\/p>\n In an interview he did for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Face to Face,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d an educational project comparing the experiences of Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor and Arab Americans after 9\/11, Tajima described what it was like to experience prejudice: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Well, the public pool in Pasadena down at Brookside Park was closed to ethnic minorities six days of the week and open only one day of the week. It was called, euphemistically, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcInternational Day,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 and it was the day that the blacks and the Latinos and the Asians could swim. We didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t say, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcGosh, this is terrible, this is racial discrimination of the worst kind!\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 We just lived with it \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00c2\u00a0 because we kind of grew up with it, you know.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n Tajima graduated from Pasadena High School in 1940 and majored in English at Occidental College, but his education was interrupted by World War II. He recalled the day his family\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life changed: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153On a Sunday, we were going home from church, and there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just a bunch of young people in the car. We stopped at Curry\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Ice Cream Store to indulge. And someone came in saying that Pearl Harbor was bombed \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 We thought that was kind of a stupid thing the Japanese were doing, but it didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t occur to us right away that this meant war.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n At the urging of his father, he relocated to Salt Lake City before the West Coast internment orders were issued. As \u00e2\u20ac\u0153voluntary\u00e2\u20ac\u009d evacuees, neither he nor his brothers were interned, but his parents remained behind and were sent to the Gila River camp in Arizona while his sister Sophie and her husband, Rev. Donald Toriumi, were sent to Heart Mountain in Wyoming. He later moved to Ohio, where he was reunited with his parents and married Setsuko Itow, whom he had met in high school.<\/p>\n Tajima said of the internment, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Too many lives were affected. Too much property was lost. It was not good in any respect that way. Education for example \u00e2\u20ac\u201d many people, their education was cut off. Kids in high school \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 went to camps and there was almost a jerry-built high school there. They used people who were in college, they used whoever they could recruit to come and teach in a God-forsaken place.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n After the war, Tajima returned to Occidental and graduated in 1946. He was drafted into the Army and spent one year with a counter-intelligence unit in Maryland, teaching Japanese to agents who would be serving in occupied Japan. He found deficiencies with their writing in English and taught them how to improve their English as well. He later earned a master\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s degree in English from USC.<\/p>\n Although he wrote for the campus newspapers at Occidental and USC, a job at a mainstream paper wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t in the cards. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153When I came out of the Army, I hoped to do some newspaper work, but the only newspapers that were hiring ethnic minorities were ethnic minority papers,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Tajima said in a recent interview. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153My wife said, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcWhy don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you teach?\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Best thing she ever said to me.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n In 1948, Tajima became the first Asian American teacher at Alhambra High School. At the time, he said, there were \u00e2\u20ac\u0153three Asians on campus \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 two students and me. But when I left, many more.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n While teaching, he contributed articles to the\u00c2\u00a0Rafu Shimpo <\/em>on a freelance basis.<\/p>\n For over 60 years, Tajima contributed his skills to The Clarion, the newsletter of First Presbyterian Church of Altadena. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153That was his baby,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said his brother Calvin. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Rain or shine, he would get it out.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Tajima was also a church elder who served on many presbytery, synod, and general assembly committees. His daughter Wendy, a minister, temporarily took over editing duties in December.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153A lengthy relationship between us has come to an end,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Tajima wrote last month. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153First and foremost, I have considered my work on The Clarion as a ministry which all of us share, and I trust that it will continue as such in new hands. It has been a long journey, but one that we find gratifying as we work for the family of God.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n In thanking Tajima for his decades of service, the church said in a statement, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ted is an icon among us of faithful service and Christian devotion. We continue to be grateful for his steady and positive presence in our community.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n He was preceded in death by his wife, Setsuko; brothers Tsuneo and Yuji; sister Sophie; and granddaughter Tara Kimberly Sims. Survivors include daughters Pamela Tajima Praeger, Elaine Tajima Johnston, Linda Tajima and Wendy Tajima; son-in-law Stanley Tajima Johnston; grandchildren David Yenoki, Aimee Epstein and Moira Johnston; and\u00c2\u00a0 brother Calvin.<\/p>\n Services will be held on Saturday, March 12, at 10 a.m. at First Presbyterian Church, 2775 Lincoln Ave. in Altadena. Messages of condolence are being posted on the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ted Tajima Fan Club\u00e2\u20ac\u009d page on Facebook.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ted Tajima Dies at 88; High School Journalism Teacher Inspired Many === By J.K. Yamamoto RAFU STAFF WRITER === Ted Tajima, a noted journalism instructor who was a mentor to many professional journalists, passed away on Feb. 20. He … Continue reading
\nRAFU STAFF WRITER<\/em><\/p>\n