CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Texas A&M University- Corpus Christi will host Akizuki Peace Prize winner Myako Jōdai and Secretary-General of the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Survivors Council Fumie Kakita, Tuesday evening to advocate for nuclear disarmament.
Jōdai was only six-years-old during the bombing of Nagasaki in 1945. She was about a mile and a half away from the drop sight. She did not sustain serious injuries but witnessed the horrors of the aftermath.
Kakita is a second-generation survivor of the attack and has worked with the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Survivors Council since 1993.
College of Liberal Arts Dean Kyoko Amano lost her uncle to the bombing of Hiroshima and spoke about the challenges of discussing history.
“He was alive for a month, but he suffered a lot,” she said. “My grandmother became sort of selective mute. And that's sort of the family story about, like, you know, just the trauma and not want to really relive that moment. That months since he came home and passed away, that they just don't want to talk about it. They don't want to relive that. Also in the small town, people sort of whisper and talk about it, and there's that stigma attached to it, like, why was he in Hiroshima and all that? Because he was not really living in Hiroshima. He was in Kure, about 50 miles or so away from Hiroshima, but that day, he just happened to be in Hiroshima, just by accident at that point.”
The event starts at 6:30 p.m. and will have a question and answer portion at the end of the event.
