Masaru Edmund Nakawatase
Japanese American Human Rights Activist and Organizer
Photo: American Friends Service Committee Peace Works Program
Mas was born in Poston, Arizona, in one of the 10 war-time internment camps set up by the US government to detain American citizens of Japanese ancestry. He grew up in Seabrook, New Jersey, with many kids whose parents, like his, had been interned. At age 20, he dropped out of Rutgers and had a seminal experience working in 1963-64 with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Atlanta, Georgia. He began his direct connection with AFSC in 1965 in a summer program as a community organizer in rural South Jersey in the initial efforts with the support of the state of New Jersey, to establish local antipoverty boards. His extended stint as national American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) staff began in 1972 as the first staff for the Third World Coalition (TWC), an institutional effort to address some of the programmatic concerns of people of color connected with the organization. Beginning in 1974, and for the next 31 years, he was the National Representative for Native American Affairs for AFSC, working within the Community Relations Division.
Mas is available for virtual engagement throughout the semester. Possible topics include:
- Japanese American history and identity,
- The early civil rights movement,
- Native Peoples’ concerns,
- The history and practice of the American Friends Service Committee,
- Viet Nam war activism,
- Anti-poverty programs
