In remembrance of that August day in 1945, we have two short videos on the lives of two women of Asian descent whose lives intersected with that event and the lives they lived afterward.
Bun Hashizume was a 14-years-old girl pressed into service, working at the Ministry of Communications the day the bomb dropped. She, her mother and two sisters survived the attack, but her brother died from his injuries. She lived a long life with children and grandchildren but suffered poor health due to her exposure to the bomb’s radiation. The sentiments that she ends with is something worth holding onto in one’s heart when we think about humanity:
“I don’t hate the people who dropped the bomb. I can say that I was able to witness how wonderful humans can be after losing everything. But I will never forget the fact that humans dropped an atomic bomb on other humans.”
Bun Hashizume, Hiroshima Survivor
Chien-Shiung Wu came to the United States from China in 1936 to study for her PhD in physics. She ended up at CalTech studying Beta Decay and joined the Manhattan Project at Columbia University in 1944. She was passed over when her two male research partners were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1957. She knew that it wasn’t a level playing field and continued her pivotal work that would eventually get recognized with the Wolf Prize in 1978. Wu left her home and parents in her twenties and never returned home. She moved from school to school when the work that she wanted to do was block or not allowed. She continued her work despite being passed over when it was her experimentation that produced the results that got her colleagues their Nobel Prize. But she stayed focused on her work and promoting the efforts of her students.
Is there something in the examples of the lives of these two women that we should hold on to and help us when we are overwhelmed by circumstances outside of our control?
Hiroshima – A Survivor’s Tale | Newsround 
Hiroshima – A Survivor’s Tale | Newsround 
Hiroshima – A Survivor’s Tale | Newsround 
Hiroshima – A Survivor’s Tale | Newsround 
Hiroshima – A Survivor’s Tale | Newsround 
Hiroshima – A Survivor’s Tale | Newsround 
Hiroshima – A Survivor’s Tale | Newsround 
Hiroshima – A Survivor’s Tale | Newsround 
Hiroshima – A Survivor’s Tale | Newsround 
Chien-Shiung Wu: The First Lady of Physics 
Chien-Shiung Wu: The First Lady of Physics 
Chien-Shiung Wu: The First Lady of Physics 
Chien-Shiung Wu: The First Lady of Physics 
Chien-Shiung Wu: The First Lady of Physics 
Chien-Shiung Wu: The First Lady of Physics 
Chien-Shiung Wu: The First Lady of Physics 
Chien-Shiung Wu: The First Lady of Physics 
Chien-Shiung Wu: The First Lady of Physics
Sources:
- Hiroshima – A Survivor’s Tale | BBC Newsround (2023-07-25), https://youtu.be/ptyYSs-X3DI, retrieved 2023-08-08
- Chien-Shiung Wu: The First Lady of Physics posted by Untold History (2020-11-04), https://youtu.be/TgAty6YSepM, retrieved 2023-08-08
- The Asian American Physicist Who Worked on the Manhattan Project | Chien Shiung Wu posted by Girl Genius Magazine (2020-10-18), https://youtu.be/NZdaKeXIHL0, retrieved 2023-08-08
