"There was no giddy 'wave'' in the stands, no exuberant hat-throwing or silly beachball-tossing.
Laced in leis of blue-and-gold origami cranes, 42 former University of California-Berkeley students whose education was disrupted by World War II internment were awarded honorary degrees on Sunday. Relatives represented 78 more students who had died or were too infirm to attend.
If my father were alive, he, too, would have sat onstage at Haas Pavilion in cap and gown, shaken the hand of Chancellor Robert Birgeneau and heard Norman Mineta, former congressman and U.S. transportation secretary, speak. But Dad died in 1986 at age 63."
