Hane Biography

It is challenging to decide what is important enough to add in a biography. It’s daunting to think that I have any say in deciding what aspect of someone’s life is important enough to add to include in their own history. I have never met Hane, and up until this class I did not know that he existed. I imagine a philosophical conundrum; on one hand I tell myself “Who are you to decide what is important or not” and on the other hand I tell myself “If you don’t do it, someone else will.”. I wonder how many archivists struggle with something similar. Abstract obligations shroud positions of power.

What I believe to be important to add to the biography would be his accomplishments, any information on his internment and his life at Yale following said interment. Actually, I don’t know how much the audience of this biography would change what we include. I would say that adding the books he wrote would be a given but perhaps since this is just for the finding guide, we only include the books with the most notoriety such as Peasants, Rebels, and Outcast: The Underside of Modern Japan and Japan: A Historical Survey. His time at Knox and in Galesburg would also be a good inclusion. Though its dependent on what you would be able to verify based on the documents you add in his archive. I would imagine that the biography for the guide will be brief. The dilemma then becomes how to effectively communicate the depth of someone’s influence without writing a book about it. Maybe I’m overthinking it though, I could make it simple, but it feels irresponsible to do so.

What I can say for sure that should be included though is his internment, it is in the finding guide, and it is a notable event that occurred to Hane.