Ronald Takaki Quotes

• Our expanding ethnic diversity of this century, a time when we will all be minorities, offers us an invitation to create a larger memory of who we are as Americans and to re-affirm our founding principle of equality. Let's put aside fears of the disuniting of America and warnings of the clash of civilizations. As Langston Hughes sang, Let America be America, where equality is in the air we breathe.

  Ronald Takaki

  Time, Memories, Equality

  "What does it mean to be Asian American? / The passing of Cal Prof. Ronald Takaki, who helped define the term, leads Jeff Yang to reflect on its relevance in the Age of Obama" by Jeff Yang, www.sfgate.com. June 4, 2009.

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• The task for me is to not only comprehend the world, but to change the world. I would like to see a world where America lives up to its ideals, and resolves the contradiction between reality and principles.

  Ronald Takaki

  Reality, America, Principles

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• How can diverse Americans become "one people"? I believe that one path is for us to pursue the study of the past that includes all of us, making all of us feel connected to one another as "we the people," working and living in a nation, founded and "dedicated" (to use Lincoln's language) to the "proposition" that "all men are created equal."

  Ronald Takaki

  Believe, Past, Men

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• The nation was founded and "dedicated," to use Lincoln's language in the "Gettysburg Address," to equality as a "self-evident truth." But this very principle of equality, as Lincoln also noted, was a "proposition." To make it a reality remained "the unfinished work" of Americans.

  Ronald Takaki

  Reality, Unfinished Work, Self

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