The FOUNDATIONS FOR CHANGE: Thomas I. Yamashita Prize is awarded annually to an outstanding young social change activist/scholar in California. The award of $2,500 honors a person whose work transforms the existing social landscape and serves as a bridge between the academy and the community. An awardee helps to build the capacity of community-based organizations and social movements to confront pressing issues by applying her/his academic expertise. Simultaneously, she/he enriches academic scholarship by sharing the insights and knowledge produced from community engagement with the broader academic community.

NOTE: The award is not limited to students or scholars, but an honoree's work should reflect a commitment to strengthening ties between the academy and communities. There is no age limit for this award, but the honoree should be in the early stages of his/her career as a social change activist/scholar.

2013 Nomination Process
The FOUNDATIONS FOR CHANGE: Thomas I. Yamashita Prize uses a nomination system, where someone other than the nominee identifies the nominee, their contributions, and the kinds of expertise they bring to understanding how change works. To download a nomination form, click here or go to http://crsc.berkeley.edu/foundations-change-thomas-i-yamashita-prize .

Nomination due date: Monday, February 14, 2013, by 5pm

(The Prize will be announced within four to six weeks after the deadline date. An award ceremony will be held in the spring.)

Please send nomination forms and supporting materials to:

FOUNDATIONS FOR CHANGE: The Thomas I. Yamashita Prize

Center for Research on Social Change

Institute for the Study of Societal Issues

University of California

2420 Bowditch Street, MC 5670

Berkeley, CA 94720-5670

Past Recipients

2012 Yamashita Prize Winner Hector Perla Jr. is Assistant Professor of Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He has become a leading scholar in his field, while also playing a pivotal role in democracy movements in Central America and in the Central American community in the United States. His forthcoming book, Revolutionary Deterrence, examines the strategies and tactics used by the Nicaraguan Sandinistas to resist the Reagan Administration’s efforts to overthrow them. Hector has leveraged his academic expertise to foment democracy and justice in Latin America through his speaking engagements, political lobbying, as an elections observer, and by co-authoring reports for policy makers based on his visits to Central America. He has collaborated with human rights groups and Salvadoran American organizations to persuade Congress and the Obama Administration to take a neutral stance on the Salvadoran elections and to respect their democratic outcome. Following the 2009 coup in Honduras, he helped to lead an academic and community effort to encourage the Obama Administration to denounce the coup and lobby for the return to constitutional democracy by reinstating the elected president Manuel Zelaya. In January 2009 he served as a member of the Salvadoran American National Association’s delegation to visit Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA), who, at the time, chaired the House’s Foreign Affairs Committee, and who represents an LA district with a significant Salvadoran American population. Hector provided an analysis of the current political situation and made recommendations on how Berman could help improve El Salvador’s democratic process. As a result of this effort, Congressman Berman issued a strong statement in the crucial days before the election, thus reassuring Salvadoran citizens to vote without fear of reprisal from the U.S. government for voting for their preferred candidate. Here in the U.S., Hector has been active empowering the Salvdoran diaspora. Drawing on his own experiences as a Salvadoran youth in San Francisco, Hector has done motivational speaking to inner city youth at Santee High School in South Central LA. At UCSC, he helped to form the first chapter of the Union Salvadoreña de Estudiantes Universitarios (Union of Salvadoran University Students) and has mentored the UCSC chapter of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador and the Sociedad Estudiantil de Psicologos Avanzando. He has facilitated visits from internationally renowned political leaders and human rights activists to UCSC, and he has engaged in extensive community outreach to the Salvadorian and Nicaraguan communities, serving as a bridge between the Central American Solidarity movement and academia.

2011 Yamashita Prize Winner Wanjiru Kamau-Rutenberg is Assistant Professor of Politics at the University of San Francisco where she teaches courses on the Politics of International Aid and Development, African Politics, and the Politics of Racial and Ethnic Identity. She is also the founder and executive director of Akili Dada, a non-profit organization dedicated to women's empowerment by providing leadership training, mentorship and scholarships for poor Kenyan girls, and she serves on the Board of Directors of the One World Children's Fund. Wanjiru left Kenya at the age of 14 to join her uncle in Denver, Colorado. She went on to earn a Bachelor's degree in Politics from Whitman College and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Minnesota. Her personal experience on both continents gave her insights into the challenges that poor women face in the quest for education, which have shaped both her academic scholarship and her social activism. Founded in 2005, Akili Dada identifies high-potential adolescent girls and gives them comprehensive scholarships to top secondary schools. Students are linked with local professional women who serve as mentors. Students also participate in a rigorous leadership training program grounded in community-based service projects and tailored to developing the skills needed to break into areas where Kenyan women are underrepresented. Alumnae of Akili Dada continue to engage with, and benefit from, Akili Dada by joining the leadership of the organization or by giving back to the organization either as interns or mentors to current students. Together they are building a powerful global women's network of scholars, mentors, and volunteers involved in diverse decision-making capacities beyond the household level. Wanjiru has used her expert knowledge of development, philanthropy, gender politics in Africa, and the barriers to education faced by young women to build the capacity of Akili Dada as an organization and contributor to social change. At the same time, she incorporates the lessons learned from Akili Dada into her teaching and scholarship, and she mentors USF students who undertake internships with the organization. Over the next decade, Wanjiru hopes to replicate the Akili Dada model and expand it to other African countries, with a goal of supporting 100 new scholars per year.

Read about other past recipients of the FOUNDATIONS FOR CHANGE: Thomas I. Yamashita Prize.

About Thomas I. Yamashita
Thomas Isao Yamashita was an undergraduate student in civil engineering at the University of California at Berkeley and a member of the class of 1942. He was one of the first Asian-Americans elected to two of the University of California's honor societies—Winged Helmet and the Order of the Golden Bear. The internment of Americans of Japanese descent on the West Coast of the United States in 1942 made it impossible for him to graduate from Berkeley. He eventually received his engineering degree from the University of Nebraska. Even so, Tom supported and cherished the University of California at Berkeley and was a life member of the Alumni Association.

As a civil engineer, Tom spent the majority of his career in Hong Kong. His work did not involve building the structures that typify its landscape. His work is unseen, focusing on foundations, on solving the complex engineering problems that enable steel and glass towers to be built. His work made possible the transportation corridors that allowed the city to become a regional economic hub. Through his leadership, Tom developed new construction techniques that altered the practice of building. His work changed the city's landscape. In this spirit of engineering the foundations of change, the FOUNDATIONS FOR CHANGE: Thomas I. Yamashita Prize is housed at the Institute for the Study of Social Change.

For more information about the Prize and nomination process go to http://crsc.berkeley.edu/foundations-change-thomas-i-yamashita-prize .

To download a nomination form, click here or go to http://crsc.berkeley.edu/foundations-change-thomas-i-yamashita-prize.

The Center for Research on Social Change (CRSC, formerly ISSC) is an interdisciplinary research center that is part of the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues (ISSI) at the University of California, Berkeley. CRSC researchers use a combination of qualitative and quantitative social science research methods to undertake empirical investigations into critical social issues facing the nation and to illuminate the lived experiences of people whose social locations are profoundly affected by broad processes of social change. A major focus of the Center is how immigration, globalization, economic restructuring, and development of new technologies have shaped and changed the structure and culture of various spheres within US society and societies throughout the world.