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Hanford gives Tri-Cities a history like nowhere else. New WSU book series tell the tales

A new series of Tri-City area history books has launched with the story of the people whose homes, land and businesses were seized for a secret wartime project in 1943.

The Hanford History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities is using the oral histories it’s recorded as the basis of books that will tell the unusual history of the region as shaped by the Hanford nuclear reservation.

The first book—“Nowhere to Remember—Hanford, White Bluffs, and Richland to 1943”—will be featured at a launch party 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday at the visitor center for the Manhattan Project National Historical Park, 2000 Logston Blvd., Richland.

Robert Franklin.
Franklin
Robert Bauman.
Bauman

The book, edited by WSU history faculty members Robert Bauman and Robert Franklin, was written to academic standards but uses oral histories to make the history more accessible.

Franklin covers the tight bonds among early residents, and Bauman tells the story of the removal of those who lived on the land.

Other writers relate the experiences of women who lived in the region in the early 20th century and look at transportation to root the local history in the larger context of the American West at the time. » More …

Tri-Citians paid for a bomber in WWII. The pilot’s son has returned with his memories

Enthusiasm for buying war bonds at Hanford was flagging in 1944.

Workers had migrated from across the nation to the dust-blown, barren Eastern Washington desert for a World War II project so secret they didn’t know what they were building.

From the paychecks they earned for long days of work, they were urged to buy war bonds—another sacrifice for the war.

Robert Franklin.
Franklin

Workers were still buying bonds, but sales were dropping, said Robert Franklin, history instructor and archivist with the Washington State Tri-Cities’ Hanford History Project.

A new campaign rekindled their enthusiasm.

“Give a day’s pay and send a bomber on its way,” they were urged.

The 44,300 workers at the Hanford Engineering Works donated enough of their pay to cover the $300,000 cost of a B-17 Flying Fortress.

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Why the Scrapping of Section 377 Is Relevant to These Indians on America’s West Coast

On September 6, the Supreme Court of India scrapped Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, effectively decriminalising homosexuality in a judgement that quoted the gay pride anthem “I am what I am.”

Queer South Asians growing up in the United States have long had to suffer from the narrative about homosexuality being an American idea; that their queerness is a result of living in the West. While the scrapping of Section 377 has no legal impact on the South Asian diaspora in the US, some believe the striking down of this colonial norm helps queer Indians abroad convince their families that being gay is not a Western idea, since this is something that many parents seem to believe.

Nishant Shahani.
Nishant Shahani

Nishant Shahani, professor in the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program at Washington State University in Pullman and author of Queer Retrosexualities: The Politics of Reparative Return, credits the recent Supreme Court of India judgment for bringing LGBTQIA+ issues into public discourse, facilitating discussions on heterosexuality not being the default setting. “When I left India in 1999 for a master’s in the US, there wasn’t any public discussion on homosexuality,” he says.

“Queer South Asians in the US have to navigate both homophobia and certain structures of racism,” says Shahani, adding that queer Indians in the West are not spared from preconceived notions of India being a land of Bollywood and snake-charmers.

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The Wire

Science Pub talk features feminism in research

The role feminism plays in addressing the gaps in established science will be discussed at the next Science Pub talk, hosted by Washington State University’s Entrepreneurial Faculty Ambassadors and the Palouse Discovery Science Center.

The talk titled, “Doing Better Science through the Other ‘F’ Word” will take place 6-7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 11, at Paradise Creek Brewery in downtown Pullman.

Samantha Noll.
Noll
Amy Mazur.
Mazur

Amy Mazur, a Claudius O. and Mary W. Johnson Distinguished Professor in political science at WSU and an associate researcher at the Centre d’Etudes Européennes at Sciences Po, Paris, and Samantha Noll, assistant professor in The School of Politics, Philosophy and Public Affairs, will map out the different feminist approaches that are used in current research. In addition to discussing the gaps in established scientific practices, they will present one specific area of feminist political science that has an integrative, comparative feminist agenda.

“Feminism in today’s ‘me too’ world often conjures up images of war of the sexes and man hating. For us, two feminist scientists whose work is situated in the social sciences and the humanities, the notion of feminism provides a fundamental starting point to make science more scientific,” said Mazur. “Taking a feminist approach to research also has the promise of making science more meaningful and better suited to solve today’s wicked problems.”

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WSU Insider

A lifelong passion no longer a fantasy

WSU student published first book this summer

David Alexander Jones started writing the early versions of his book series, “The Memoirs of Elikai,” when he was 8 years old.

“When I was younger, I was obsessed with fantasy, like ‘Sailor Moon,’ ‘Power Rangers,’ ‘Dragon Ball Z,’ and I always wanted to create my own story,” he said. “I wanted to be able to express what those shows meant to me, and so I started forming it.”

David Alexander Jones.
Jones

Now 26, Jones, a junior at Washington State University, has taken what he said started as essentially fan fiction and created the bones of an eight-book series. “The Memoirs of Elikai” is a young adult fantasy series, following the life of Danny Elikai as he’s faced with the decision between his free will or letting destiny take the reins. The first book in the series, “Children of the Solstice,” was published in June.

Jones said juggling being a student and a writer was difficult, as he knows he must maintain a good grade point average to be a candidate for the master’s program he wishes to enter. Jones is studying English at WSU, and he plans to pursue a master’s in library sciences and technology.

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Moscow-Pullman Daily News