Nadine Hata, 63; Pushed Inclusive Teaching of History

Nadine Ishitani Hata, 63, who worked to include both sexes and all races and ethnic groups in the teaching of history, died Friday of cancer at her home in Redondo Beach.

A fourth-generation Japanese American born in Hawaii, Hata was motivated to improve history education because of “omissions and distortions that made American history irrelevant to me.... At all levels of instruction, history courses and textbooks perpetuated blatantly chauvinistic, sexist and racist assumptions about every facet of public and private life in America.”

The former El Camino College vice president effected change, not only through her teaching and writing, but also in her work on a state advisory committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, as chairwoman of the State Historical Resources Commission and as the only Asian American on the 12-member governing council of the American Historical Assn.

Hata got her bachelor’s degree at the University of Hawaii, master’s at the University of Michigan and doctorate at USC. She taught at Cal State Dominguez Hills and Cal State Long Beach before joining the El Camino faculty in 1970. With her husband, Donald Teruo Hata, she wrote widely on Asian American history.