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Franklin S. Odo (May 6, 1939 – September 28, 2022) was a
Japanese American are Americans of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Americans were among the three largest Asian Americans, Asian American ethnic communities during the 20th century; but, according to the 2000 United States census, 2000 census, they have declined in ...
author, scholar, activist, and historian. Odo served as the director of the Asian Pacific American Program at the
Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...
from the program's inception in 1997 until his retirement in 2010. As the director of the APA Program, Odo brought numerous exhibits to the Smithsonian highlighting the experiences of
Chinese Americans Chinese Americans are Americans of Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans have ancestors from mainland China, Hong Kong ...
,
Native Hawaiians Native Hawaiians (also known as Indigenous Hawaiians, Kānaka Maoli, Aboriginal Hawaiians, or simply Hawaiians; , , , and ) are the Indigenous Polynesian people of the Hawaiian Islands. Hawaiʻi was settled at least 800 years ago by Polynesian ...
,
Japanese Americans are Americans of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Americans were among the three largest Asian Americans, Asian American ethnic communities during the 20th century; but, according to the 2000 United States census, 2000 census, they have declined in ...
,
Filipino Americans Filipino Americans () are Americans of Filipino ancestry. Filipinos in North America were first documented in the 16th century and other small settlements beginning in the 18th century. Mass migration did not begin until after the end of the Sp ...
,
Vietnamese Americans Vietnamese Americans () are Americans of Vietnamese people, Vietnamese ancestry. They constitute a major part of all overseas Vietnamese. As of 2023, over 2.3 million people of Vietnamese descent live in the United States, making them the fourth ...
,
Korean Americans Korean Americans () are Americans of full or partial Korean ethnicity, Korean ethnic descent. While the broader term Overseas Korean in America () may refer to all ethnic Koreans residing in the United States, the specific designation of Kore ...
, and
Indian Americans Indian Americans are Americans whose ancestry originates wholly or partly from India. The terms Asian Indian and East Indian are used to avoid confusion with Native Americans in the United States, who are also referred to as "Indians" or "Am ...
. He was the first Asian Pacific American curator at the
National Museum of American History The National Museum of American History: Kenneth E. Behring Center is a historical museum in Washington, D.C. It collects, preserves, and displays the heritage of the United States in the areas of social, political, cultural, scientific, and m ...
. He taught
American Studies American studies or American civilization is an interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary field of scholarship that examines American literature, History of the United States, history, Society of the United States, society, and Culture of the Unit ...
at
Amherst College Amherst College ( ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zepha ...
until his death.


Background

Franklin Odo was born in and grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii and was the first from Kaimuki High School to attend
Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...
, where he received his B.A. in History in 1961 and took meals at the
Ivy Club The Ivy Club, often simply Ivy, is the oldest eating club at Princeton University. It was founded in 1879 with Arthur Hawley Scribner as its first head. Club culture The club is described by F. Scott Fitzgerald in '' This Side of Paradise'' ( ...
. He then received his M.A. in East Asia regional studies at
Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
in 1963. He returned to Princeton University, where he completed a doctorate dissertation on Japanese feudalism in 1975. While his academic background and training had been in traditional Asian Studies, Odo became involved in the movement that created
Asian American Studies Asian American Studies is an academic field originating in the 1960s, which critically examines the history, issues, sociology, religion, experiences, culture, and policies relevant to Asian Americans. It is closely related to other Ethnic Studies ...
and other
ethnic studies Ethnic studies, in the United States, is the interdisciplinary study of difference—chiefly race, ethnicity, and nation, but also sexuality, gender, and other such markings—and power, as expressed by the state, by civil society, and by indivi ...
in California in the late 1960s and early 1970s as a result of the anti-war and anti-racism activism in the United States. Odo has taught for over 50 years at numerous academic institutions, most recently at
Amherst College Amherst College ( ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zepha ...
and the
University of Maryland, College Park The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1856, UMD i ...
. In the 1960s and 1970s, Odo taught at
Occidental College Occidental College (informally Oxy) is a private liberal arts college in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1887 as a coeducational college by clergy and members of the Presbyterian Church, it became non-sectarian in 1910. It is ...
; the
University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...
; and
California State University, Long Beach California State University, Long Beach (CSULB), also known in athletics as Long Beach State University (LBSU), is a public teaching-focused institution in Long Beach, California, United States. The 322-acre campus is the second largest in the ...
. In the 1990s, he served as a visiting professor at the
University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...
,
Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City, United States. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools ...
, Princeton University, and
Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
. He has also served as the director of ethnic studies at the
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa The University of Hawaii at Mānoa is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Hawaiʻi system and houses the main offic ...
. From 1989 to 1991, he also served as the President of the Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS).


Director of Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center

Since its formation in 1997, the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center (APAC) has provided vision, leadership, and support for Asian Pacific American activities at the Smithsonian, while also serving as the Smithsonian's liaison to APA communities. Odo was selected in 1997 to serve as the director of the program, and throughout his tenure, he has brought attention to Asian Pacific American culture and arts to various Smithsonian exhibits. Some of his efforts include a photo exhibit entitled "Through My Father’s Eyes," which featured Filipino American photographer Ricardo Alvarado at the National Museum of American History. In 2003, Odo co-organized a traveling exhibit of Korean American contemporary artists entitled "Dreams & Reality." He has also led projects to commemorate the centennial of Filipino immigration to the United States, and is the co-curator of “Exit Saigon, Enter Little Saigon,” a project that highlights the growth of the Vietnamese American community after the 30th anniversary of the
fall of Saigon The fall of Saigon, known in Vietnam as Reunification Day (), was the capture of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, by North Vietnam on 30 April 1975. As part of the 1975 spring offensive, this decisive event led to the collapse of the So ...
. Odo retired from his director position in January 2010.


Published work

Along with Amy Tachiki, Eddie Wong, and Buck Wong, Odo co-edited the first breakthrough Asian American anthology ''Roots: An Asian American Reader'' (1971). In 1985, Odo and immigration researcher, Kazuko Sinoto, co-authored and published ''A Pictorial History of the Japanese in Hawai‘i 1885-1924'', which opens with the experiences of the first Japanese immigrants to Hawai'i and ends with the 1924 exclusionary laws that effectively denied further Japanese entry into the United States. In 2003, Odo authored ''No Sword to Bury: Japanese Americans in Hawai’i During World War II'', which explores the experiences of a shrinking group of Japanese American men who survived World War II as part of the Varsity Victory Volunteers (VVV). He is also the editor of the ''Columbia Documentary History of the Asian American Experience'' (2003), the first book that brought together the canon of various documents pertinent to Asian Pacific American history. Odo wrote ''Voices from the Canefields: folksongs from Japanese immigrant workers in Hawaii,'' which is about the '' Holehole bushi'', a kind of folk song sung by Japanese plantation workers. He used Harry Urata's collection of ''Holehole bushi'' recordings to write the book.


Awards

Odo was awarded the President's Award by the Japanese American Citizens League in July 2008, an award from the
Organization of Chinese Americans OCA-Asian Pacific American Advocates (previously known as the Organization of Chinese Americans) is a non-profit organization founded in 1973, whose stated mission is to advance the social, political, and economic well-being of Asian Americans a ...
in August 2008,Andrei, loc.cit. and the Association for Asian American Studies Lifetime Achievement Award on April 14, 2012.


References


External links


Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program
{{DEFAULTSORT:Odo, Franklin 1939 births 2022 deaths American writers of Japanese descent People from Hawaii Princeton University alumni Harvard University alumni American academics of Japanese descent Hawaii people of Japanese descent