APSS Celebrates LMU @ 100
In the spirit of the centennial year, Asian Pacific Student Services (APSS) is taking a moment to look back on Loyola Marymount University's long standing relationship with the Asian Pacific Islander (API) community. An interview with the Centennial History Project demonstrates how LMU has had a tradition of serving and welcoming members of the API community into their own. In this interview, Edison Miyawaki M.D.(class of 1952), looked back on his relationship with LMU and described his experiences as a student as one that encountered a lot of support from the college. Miyawaki was offered the opportunity to attend Loyola College when Father Lorenzo Malone came to Hawaii, watched Miyawaki playing baseball and extended an invitation to attend Loyola College. He, like many of LMU's current Hawaii students, experienced the spirit of aloha that extended past this initial stage into an integration into the campus community. His professors were patient and helpful, and his dorm mates became good friends to him. He even experienced kindness from Father Malone who would lend him golf balls and clubs for the weekends when Miyawaki visited the nearby golf course. Many times during this conversation, Miyawaki emphasizes the many good people he met at Loyola College who understood how his homesickness and helped him through a lonely time. Dr. Miyawaki went on to practice medicine, operate a hospital, and became co-owner of the Cincinnati Bengals. He has not forgotten his roots at LMU and not only serves as a Trustee, but has also established the Miyawaki Law Journal Center at Loyola Law School.
LMU also reached out to the Japanese American Community returning from California interment camps. Loyola President, Fr. Edward Whelan, provided jobs for many Japanese-Americans, and converted campus spaces in St. Roberts Hall into apartments to help ease the returning of Japanese-Americans who were displaced by Executive Order 9066. LMU continues to engage the API communities with the many services and fellowship opportunities offered through APSS and, for the Hawaii students in particular, a special reception for prospective students. Students have responded by giving back to the LMU community through a number of events that not only educate students on special API occasions (such as Chinese New Year or Chuseok, Korean thanksgiving), but also give them a taste of the unique flavors of their culture. One of Na Kolea's (the Hawaii club) annual events,the Luau which has been celebrated for 37 years, is well-known and attended by students, alumni and faculty. Other big events include Isang Bansa's (the Filipino club) Pistahan, an annual mass celebrating the life of Saint Lorenzo Ruiz, the first Filipino saint venerated in the Roman Catholic Church.
LMU has not only provided for and helped educate Asian-Americans who have become notable achievers and leaders in their fields, including James Wong (television producer and writer), Lisa See (author) and Benjamin Cayetano (former governor of Hawaii), but also captured the attention of a number of prominent Asian-Americans such as journalist Lisa Ling and Bishop Oscar Solis (the only Filipino bishop in the United States). Three years earlier, Ling was a keynote speaker at a student leadership conference on campus where she "encourage[d] her audience to become global citizens" and inspired students with her advocacy for social justice and passion for awareness on international issues.
APSS and our API community congratulates LMU as we celebrate the Centennial Year. We look forward to continuing this tradition, building stronger bonds and working together to create the warm community that has always been given to the students who have found a home here.