|
|
Recipients of Fall 2012 Decorations |
|
| |
 |
|
| |
On November 3, 2012 (Japan Standard Time), the Government of Japan announced the recipients of its Fall 2012 Decorations. From our jurisdiction, the following three people will be awarded.
The Conferment Ceremonies will be held in Los Angeles later. For details, please see section 2, below.
| Decoration |
Outline of merit |
Main Career |
Name
(Gender)
Age |
Residence |
| Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon |
Contributed to the development of liquid rocket technology in Japan and the promotion of research exchange between Japan and the United States |
*Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering, California Institute of Technology *Fellow, American Society of Mechanical Engineers |
Allan James Acosta
(Male)
88 years of age |
Seal Beach,
California
U.S.A. |
| Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette |
Contributed to the development of Japanese American studies and promoted the understanding toward Japanese Americans in the United States and Nikkei in the Americas |
*Former CEO and the President of the Japanese American National Museum
*Current Visiting Scholar at Asian American Studies Center at University of California Los Angeles |
Akemi Kikumura Yano (Female) 68 years of age |
Sherman Oaks,
California U.S.A. |
| Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Rays |
Contributed to the promotion of the understanding of the anti-nuclear position and the advancement of the welfare of Atomic Bomb Survivors in the United States |
*Former Special Communicator for a World without Nuclear Weapons
*President of American Society of Hiroshima-Nagasaki A-Bomb Survivors |
Kazuye Suyeishi (Female)
85 years of age |
Torrance,
California
U.S.A. |
The recipients' meritorious service towards Japan is as follows:
Allan James Acosta
Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon Dr. Acosta was born in Anaheim in 1924 and grew up in the Los Angeles area. He received his undergraduate and graduate education at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) (BS in 1945, MS in 1949, and PhD in 1952). He joined the Hydrodynamics Research Laboratory at Caltech as a research assistant, and went on to become a member of the faculty. After serving as an assistant professor, associate professor, and professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, he was appointed Executive Officer for Mechanical Engineering. In 1993, he was awarded the status of Hayman Professor Emeritus by Caltech.
During his research years at Caltech, he welcomed many Japanese scientists and engineers who studied with and under him. He fostered many talented Japanese researchers and engineers who later became Japan’s leading scientists in the field of rocket engine technology, especially the development of turbo pump. Especially, his contribution to Japan’s advancement of liquid rocket engine technology is tremendous; he mentored many researchers from Japanese universities, the former National Aerospace Laboratory of Japan, and the former National Space Development Agency of Japan. Dr. Acosta’s research on cavitation played a critical role in the development of the turbo pump and inducer, which is the core mechanism of Japan’s liquid rocket engine technology. Dr. Acosta’s work as an advisor to the JSME International Journal, the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers (JSME)’s English publication, promoted theinternationalization of JSME. He actively participated in academic conferences in Japan and helped organize a seminar co-hosted by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and the U.S. National Science Foundation. Recognizing his years of contribution to the development of Japan’s mechanical engineering technology, JSME awarded him honorary membership in 2000.
|
| |
Akemi Kikumura Yano
Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette Dr. Akemi Kikumura Yano was born in a concentration camp in Rohwer, Arkansas during World War II. After the war, her family remained in Arkansas to farm then relocated to Lodi, California where her grandfather settled in 1900. In the late 1950s, her family moved to Los Angeles where her interest in the performing arts began. While performing in productions, such as “Flower Drum Song” and “Farewell to Manzanar,” her interests in Asian American history and her own roots as a Nikkei (person of Japanese ancestry) grew stronger.
She pursued research in ethnic studies at UCLA receiving a Ph.D. in anthropology (1979), has since taught at USC and UCLA, and is currently a Visiting Scholar at UCLA’s Asian American Studies Center. She has conducted fieldwork in Nikkei communities throughout the Americas and has promoted a greater understanding of Japanese immigrant communities worldwide through her numerous publications and production of books, exhibitions, articles, short stories and plays.
Starting in 1987, Dr. Kikumura Yano held various positions at the Japanese American National Museum (JANM), beginning as its first curator and contributing to the national and international recognition of the Museum’s excellence. In 2008 she was appointed President and CEO of JANM overseeing its fundraising, management, and program development that increased the public’s knowledge and understanding of the Japanese American experience as an integral part of American history.
A key initiative developed under her leadership was the “International Nikkei Research Project,” designed to deepen and disseminate the knowledge about Japanese descendants in North and South America. Based on research findings, she co-edited the award-winning book “New Worlds, New Lives; Globalization and People of Japanese Descent in the Americas and from Latin America in Japan,” with Lane R. Hirabayashi and James A. Hirabayashi. She launched the world’s largest online database of Japanese immigrants and its descendants called “Discover Nikkei.” In 2010, in recognition of the accomplishments that Dr. Kikumura Yano and her predecessors established, the Japanese American National Museum received the National Medal at the White House from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the nation’s highest honor bestowed upon libraries and museums.
|
Kazuye Suyeishi
The Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Rays
 Ms. Suyeishi was born in the city of Pasadena, California of the United States of America. At the age of 9 months, she was taken to Japan where her parents were from. She completed her compulsory education in her parents’ hometown of Hiroshima, and in March of 1944, she graduated from Hiroshima First Girls’ High School, and a year later, from the Home Economics. She then started working in April of 1945 as a member of women’s volunteer corps at Mitsubishi Heavy Industry. It was there on August 6, 1945 when she was exposed to radiation from the atomic bomb dropped to the city, and fractured her hip bones where she was pinned under the toppled buildings blasted by the bomb. She later came back to her birthplace of city of Pasadena by way of Hawaii. Hoping to become a dressmaker, she studied dressmaking design at Pasadena City College.
Since the inception of Committee of Atomic Bomb Survivors in October, 1971, she was an active member, and later was nominated as vice president. Through the organization, she has assisted the survivors abroad in obtaining or filling out the application forms for Atomic Bomb Survivor’s Certificates at the overseas consulates or embassies, has striven to realize the overseas medical examination for the survivors residing in the U.S., and has contributed in promoting the awareness among the students in Los Angeles areas on the danger of the nuclear weapons through “Peace Lecture” which is conducted both in English and Japanese.
In September 1992, out of Committee of Atomic Bomb Survivors, a new independent organization called American Society of Hiroshima-Nagasaki A-Bomb Survivors was established, where Ms. Suyeishi was appointed as vice president. She was then promoted to president of the organization in 2003, but still her active involvement in offering the “Peace Lecture” continued. Commissioned and designated as “Special Communicator for a World without Nuclear Weapons” by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, Ms. Suyeishi showed, in November, 2010 and again in October, 2011, the dedication and cooperative efforts with the Japanese government to spread the importance of nuclear disarmament and the horrors of nuclear war, when she gave not only special lectures to two hundred 6th-grade students in all four schools of Asahi-Gakuen in Los Angeles, but also the presentation of her testimonial speech as an atomic bomb survivor during the UN Disarmament Week. |
|
|
|
| |
 |
|
|
| |
-