Saturday, November 08, 2025

Dr. Arthur A. Hansen (1938-2025)

A great historian, a gifted teacher, a true friend of Orange County history, a powerful voice for civil rights, and a man with a tremendous heart, Dr. Arthur August “Art” Hansen died on Oct. 29, 2025 after a long illness. 

Art taught and guided students for 43 years as a professor of History and Asian-American Studies at CSU Fullerton. He was a trail blazer in gathering, studying, and writing about Japanese-American history for almost 60 years. His research specialization was resistance activity within the World War II Japanese American exclusion and detention experience. Art was also a leading light in the field of oral history; served on the boards of countless historical organizations, and provided a rare welcoming home for Orange County history in academia. In the process, he made the world a better place than he found it. 

Art never hid his feelings. From furious indignation in the face of injustice; to high enthusiasm for his work and his favorite sports; to deep sadness at the loss of a friend; to effusive kindness, to love and empathy for all in his life, no one ever wondered where he stood. 

His students found his vast knowledge, mentorship, and often lifelong friendship invaluable and inspiring. 

“His care and concern was uplifting, joyous, and affirming,” said Tracy Smith Falk, who, like fellow Orange County Historical Society board member Stephanie George, was lucky enough to have Hansen as both a professor and her boss. 

“Art supported and participated in elevating and celebrating local history and local historians,” said Falk. “He mentored his students to be the best writers, researchers, oral historians, and people they could be. He taught them to seek out the full story and uncover all the experiences that made Orange County so diverse, interesting and unique. He led several conferences celebrating Orange County history and brought together wide groups of people to then discovered common interests.”
Dr. Hansen (dark blue shirt) on a 2011 panel about Historic Wintersburg at the Orange County Historical Society.
Born October 10, 1938, in Hoboken, New Jersey, Arthur Hansen was born to Haakon A. & Anna Stover Hansen. (Art was always proud of his Norwegian heritage.) His older brother, Roy, also became a university professor. 

Art’s love of baseball began early, and he always kept his grades up, so he could play. (He would later become a big fan of Cal State Fullerton baseball and always had season tickets.)

The Hansens valued education so much that Art’s father decided to move the family to California, so his boys could attend Cal Tech. Misunderstanding where Cal Tech was located, and confusing it with Cal Poly, they ended up near Santa Barbara, settling in Goleta after learning that the new UC Santa Barbara would soon be built there. Ironically, Art briefly attended Cal Berkeley before deciding to enroll in UCSB after all. There, he earned his BA, MA, and PhD in history.  

While working on his PhD, he lived in Laguna Beach and taught at Tustin High School before accepting a position at California State University Fullerton in 1965.

Art met Debra L. “Debbie” Gold at CSUF and they were married in Maine in June 1977. Debbie also has a PhD in History and later taught library science classes at San Jose State University School of Information. The two were an impressive team and they split their time between their two homes in Yorba Linda and Los Osos.

Art taught at CSUF from 1966 until 2008, making a national name for himself as a professor of History and Asian American Studies and a central figure in the university’s Oral History Program (later called the Center for Oral & Public History or COPH and now The Lawrence de Graaf Center for Oral and Public History). He taught classes in local history, community history, and oral history methodology, as they related to Orange County and the world at large.  
Dr. Art Hansen with Stephanie George and Chris Jepsen at the Japanese American National Museum, Nov. 2023.
There aren’t enough terabytes on the Internet to list all his accomplishments and all the hats he wore during those years, but here are a few of them:
  • Founding director of the Japanese American Project of the CSUF Oral History Program (1972)
  • Founding faculty member of the Asian American Studies Program at CSUF
  • Director of the Center for Oral and Public History, CSUF
  • Visiting Professor, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (1979-1980)
  • Editor, Oral History Review (1980-1987)
  • President, Southwest Oral History Association (1991-1992)
  • President, Oral History Association (2002-2003)
  • Senior Historian, Japanese American National Museum (2001-2005) 
  • James V. Mink Oral History Award-winner, Southwest Oral History Assoc. (1988)
  • Named Outstanding Teacher, College of Humanities & Social Sciences, CSUF (1996-1997)
  • Named Outstanding Faculty Member, College of Humanities & Social Sciences, CSUF
  • Distinguished Faculty Member, College of Humanities & Social Studies, CSUF (2001-2002)
  • Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association for Asian American Studies (2007)
Art was also a prolific writer and editor. Just a few of his many, many publications included,
  • Reflections on Shattered Windows: Promises and Prospects for Asian American Studies (1987, co-editor)
  • Japanese American Evacuation World War II Oral History Project [5 volumes] (1992-2005, editor/author)
  • Barbed Voices: Oral History, Resistance, and the World War II Japanese American Social Disaster (2018, author)
  • Manzanar Mosaic: Essays and Oral Histories on America’s First World War II Japanese American Concentration Camp (2023)
  • Nisei Naysayer: The Memoir of Militant Japanese American Journalist Jimmie Omura (2018, editor & introduction)
  • Beyond the Betrayal: The Memoir of a World War II Japanese American Draft Resister of Conscience (2022, editor)
  • A Nikkei Harvest: Reviewing the Japanese American Historical Experience and Its Legacy (2024, author)
Many also remember Art raising money from the Japanese American community for the building of the 8,500-square-foot Orange County Agriculture and Nikkei Heritage Museum at the Fullerton Arboretum (at CSUF), which opened with an excellent exhibit in 2007. But despite promises made, the University scuttled the museum as soon as Art retired and they had the donations in hand. This infuriated and saddened Art.

In retirement, Art served as Emeritus Professor of History and Asian American Studies at CSUF; wrote, edited and lectured extensively; continued to serve as historian for the Japanese American National Museum; and won the Manzanar Committee’s 2014 Sue Kunitomi Embrey Legacy Award.
At one point in his later years, he suffered a heart attack while delivering a presentation at CSUF.  True to form, he insisted on finishing his program before being taken to the hospital. He recovered from the heart attack, but there would be other health challenges ahead. Through it all, he continued to research, write, and edit – even in the last week of his life.

Dr. Art Hansen will be truly missed by all who knew him, including the Orange County historical community. His good work, however, will continue, through the oral history programs he started, through the interviews he conducted, through a library’s-worth of articles and books he wrote, and through the organizations he helped create and build. He will also live on through his students and their work, and through those who in turn, learned from his students. Art will always be with us.

Thanks to Tracy Smith Falk, Stephanie George and Debra Gold Hansen for their help with this article.


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Posted by Chris Jepsen at 11/08/2025

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