World scholars join culture symposium

Advertiser Staff

A free, two-day public conference exploring pluralism, human rights, civil rights, Native Hawaiian rights and their present and historical perspectives opens tomorrow at the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawai'i.

The conference is sponsored by the law school and by UH-Manoa Chancellor Peter Englert.

Scholars from as far away as the Netherlands, Israel and New Zealand will join Mainland and Hawai'i experts to offer insight into the practical implications of cultural differences in contemporary society.

The "Symposium on Practical Pluralism" opens at 8 a.m. both tomorrow and Saturday in the law school's courtyard with an informal continental breakfast before breaking into sessions at 9 a.m. The break-out sessions include Native Hawaiian Issues and History, Pluralism and Human Rights, Current Native Hawaiian Rights Issues, Comparative Pluralism, and Native Hawaiian/International Issues.

From 5 to 7 p.m. tomorrow the symposium also will include a public reception at The Plaza Club's top floor at 900 Fort Street Mall to honor author and UH law professor Eric Yamamoto for his new book "Race, Rights and Reparation: Law and the Japanese American Internment" about the internment of 120,000 Japanese-Americans during World War II and the reparations movement four decades later.

For reservations for both the symposium and the reception, call Trudy Wong at 956-5516 or e-mail trudywon@hawaii.edu.