By Luna Noguchi ’25 (DCI Fellow)
When I heard discussions about DCI’s new Ginkgo Tree Project, I became immediately interested in the kinds of discussions it would spark. In spring of 2024, Davidson received and planted eight ginkgo trees, trees that were descendants of those that survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima by the US military. The seeds were donated by Green Legacy Hiroshima and were meant to spread a message of peace and the inhumanity of nuclear war. After the planting of the trees, some students and alumni of Chinese and Korean descent believed that focus on the trees’ direct relationship to the tragedy in Hiroshima failed to capture the historical context of Imperial Japan’s invasions of East Asian countries throughout World War II.
The DCI was then invited to implement a deliberative process that would develop interpretative signage materials designed to provide more context about the trees that had been planted. I was part of a working group (Keya Zhou ‘25, Flo Moser ‘26, Casey Scheiner ‘28, Lily Ogawa ‘28, and Graham Bullock) that organized a deliberative forum for this purpose and then collated the ideas generated into interpretive materials to be put on signage in front of the trees.
While working on the project, I felt myself being stretched by the challenge of designing an event with enough scope of historical information and objectivity to make every viewpoint feel valued. Initially, my knowledge of WWII in East Asia was limited to Japan’s perspective. I have strong family ties to Japan and have both American and Japanese citizenship. I grew up hearing about the horrors of the tragedy and remember feeling changed when I visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in Hiroshima, Japan. I was appalled by the level of destruction and inhumanity capable of nuclear weaponry. This spring, I jumped into working on this project so I could expand my understanding of the war’s impact and reshape my perspective while making a tangible impact on campus.
However, writing about a history for the purpose of deliberation required a special attention to the power of language. The experience taught me that when writing about contentious topics for deliberation, one should be attentive to the gravity of the subject while also remaining neutral with regards to particular perspectives about it. Writing about a historical topic as complex as World War II in the Asia Pacific region demanded a comprehensive and nuanced review of the conflict’s events. I quickly realized how easily historical narratives can be shaped by the perspectives we are taught in school or by personal connections to the nations involved. For example, choosing merely between active or passive voice can influence whether a text is interpreted as blaming Japan or remembering victims.
Furthermore, the biggest challenge of the project was navigating the implications of certain word choices. While researching and writing the deliberation guide, I had to actively check whether my words assigned blame or victimhood to certain actors or drew misleading connections between events. For example, we wrote sections on Imperial Japan’s impact on countries in East Asia, such as China, Korea, and Southeast Asia. We discussed how to emphasize that Japan was the perpetrator of violence without assigning blame or judgment.
Because of the strong emotions associated with the victims’ experiences, we had to make sure each event that involved victims in the war was emphasized to the same degree. We had to strike a balance between calling for countries’ accountability while memorializing the victims of the war. The experience taught me about the kind of language that can spark respectful dialogue on sensitive topics, and as a senior who just graduated, I look forward to bringing these lessons with me into my career after Davidson.
Opinions expressed on the DCI Blog are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official views or positions of the Deliberative Citizenship Initiative.
