Descendants of Both Sides of the Atomic Bombs Searching to Repair the World 2023
Date: January 26, 2023 @ 3:00pm PST
Observing the second anniversary of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) that entered into force on 22 January 2021, today’s International Center for MultiGenerational Legacies of Trauma webinar recalls 26 January 1939, when Niels Bohr announced the discovery of nuclear fission to the 5th Washington Conference of Theoretical Physics. Descendants of former enemies (second generation Hibakusha from Hiroshima and Nagasaki and children of involved Americans) will discuss their own lives’ choices and missions that emerged from their parents’ catastrophic legacies in search for mourning, healing, meaning, reconciliation, reparative justice and peace.
Speakers
Kathleen Burkinshaw
An award winning Japanese American author/speaker and a 2nd generation Hibakusha. Her novel, The Last Cherry Blossom is a United Nations Office of Disarmament Affairs Education Resource for Students and Teachers. For the past 10 years Kathleen has spoken to thousands of students around the world about the humanity under the mushroom clouds, amplifying her message of the imperative need for nuclear disarmament. ICMGLT Advisory Council Member.
Kazuhiro Ihara
A 2nd generation Hibakusha from Nagasaki, Kazuhiro’s father, Toyoichi, was exposed at the age of nine and passed away in 2018, having served as the second Chairman of the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Survivor’s Notebook Friend’s Association. Now Assistant to the 3rd Chairman of this association, Kazuhiro-san is member of the Nagasaki Citizens’ Association for the Promotion of the TPNW. "In order to give children a world without nuclear weapons and war we, as global citizens, must eliminate nuclear weapons!”
Barbara Newsom, MA in Speech Communication and Human Relations University of Kansas
A daughter of Nagasaki atomic veteran F. Carter Newsom, MD, Barbara will share the impact on their family of her father’s year of service as a United States Navy medical doctor after the atomic bomb in Nagasaki. Her family’s experiences influenced her over-fifty-year career as a nuclear safety and security professional. Barbara now focuses on exploring aspects of atomic bomb trauma that need to be widely recognized and addressed by decision-makers. ICMGLT Advisory Council Member.
David Seaborg, MA in Zoology from University of California, Berkeley
An evolutionary biologist, passionate environmentalist educator, President of the World Rainforest Fund, speaker, author and poet. David will reflect on growing up as a son of Nobel Prize winning chemist Glenn T. Seaborg, who discovered and isolated plutonium, thereby significantly contributing to the Manhattan Project’s atomic bomb development. David will speak on the danger of nuclear weapons and the need to eliminate them.
Moderator
Dr. Yael Danieli, Founder and Executive Director, International Center for the study, prevention and treatment of MultiGenerational Legacies of Trauma; Director, Group Project for Holocaust Survivors and their Children; Past-President, International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies.
