- [Narrator] With $10,600, congratulations Ed,
you are advancing to the finals.
- Ed, congratulations.
You are now a finalist
in the Jeopardy! Professors Tournament.
How does that make you feel?
- Oh, I can't believe it.
I still can't believe it's happened.
It's amazing.
I was really just overwhelmed when it finally was over
and I could take that big sigh and let it all out
because I felt like
I was holding it together by a shoestring.
- I saw a couple of fist pumps.
What's been the best part of this experience?
- Just everybody here at Jeopardy!.
It's great.
This is an amazing, amazing place.
And I'm so lucky to be part of it
for all the time we've been here.
- Let's talk about your game.
Were there any moments that stood out?
- I felt that there were times where
I could sense that my competitors
were coming up the rear and I really wanted to hold them off
and I would grab a clue and go with it.
But one that I'm sure when I go home,
I will not be able to live down,
is in the category where the food games were mixed up.
The response was what is Putin.
And my Canadian family will never let me forget
that I did not get that answer.
- You seem like a great guy.
What are some funny moments that may happen to you at work?
- Okay, there is a good one.
When I was a very new professor many years ago,
I dressed nicely like this and years have gone by,
I've really let down my standards.
But the gentleman who was the dean of the division,
who would have been my direct supervisor
was another Japanese American man.
And he was only a little bit older than me,
but he dressed much older than me.
And we would go out to lunch on Friday afternoons.
This is sort of a thing,
the younger guys would get taken to lunch by the older guys.
And I had to go and get the dean
because he was driving that day.
And so I walked up
and he was in a conversation with somebody else
and the person who he was having the conversation with said,
"Oh, is this your son?"
And I loved it, he didn't.
- Now, let's talk about your field of study.
What's the most interesting thing that you've learned?
- I think it's been really important to think about
how we have to discuss ideas
about race and class in this society.
We are committed as a nation
to principles of equality and justice,
and to see the times when those things do happen,
that's really remarkable, it's inspirational.
But we also have to look at the moments
in which we don't live up
to the promises that we've made to each other.
And it's instructive to show students that
we can come this far
and then we've still got some ground to make up.
- Is there anything that you're working on right now
you'd like to share with us?
- I've become increasingly interested
in the histories of migration.
Moving is something that we all do as people.
Whether we move to a new apartment across town
or to an entirely new country.
And where I work, in the community where I work,
we see constant new arrivals.
In fact, we're preparing for several thousand new arrivals
to be coming from Afghanistan.
And to get students to be aware how important that is
in the history of the United States,
how important it is in the history of California,
how important it is in the history of their families
and their neighbors.
That's something that I'm really trying to push more
in the classes that I teach,
whatever specialty that they might be.
- You're a professor,
how would you grade your performance so far?
- I'm a tough grader, so I'm gonna give myself a B.
- Ed, what do you think your students would say
about your performance and your success so far on this show?
- Well, I think the ones who know me pretty well would say,
okay, we thought he had it in him.
I think some of the other ones who maybe
wouldn't always be paying attention all the time in class
would be like, wow, that guy knows a lot.
- Well, good luck to you.
We wish you all the best in the finals.
And thank you so much.
- Thank you.
(upbeat music)