Iwao Ishino was born in San Diego, California in 1921. He earned his master’s and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard and served as an assistant professor at Ohio State University prior to joining MSU in 1956. While at MSU, he was a professor in the James Madison College, a professor of racial and ethnic studies, and chairman of the Anthropology Department. His academic career was characterized by a diversity of experiences that were part of a solid core of scholarly work as a social anthropologist. While he and his family were living in a war relocation (internment) camp in Arizona from 1942 to 1943, Ishino volunteered to conduct surveys that were later used by sociologist, Alexander H. Leighton, for his 1945 book, The Governing of Men. Later during World War II, Ishino served as a social science analyst for the Office of War Information and later with the occupation forces in Japan in the Public Opinion and Sociological Research Division. These experiences served to inspire Ishino’s work for the remainder of his career. He became particularly known for his co-authorship of several books dealing with cultural change in industrial society. He retired in 1991 and passed away on February 29, 2012.
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