Who is an apology for?

The answer is more obvious when the person you’re apologizing to is standing in front of you.

You want their forgiveness. Or for them to feel better. Or for you to feel better.

But when the people who were hurt, or those who hurt them, are long gone – what does apologizing actually accomplish?

That’s one of the questions behind a recent essay in the New Yorker. It’s called “The Ritual of Civic Apology,” by Beth Lew-Williams.

Lew-Williams is a Professor of History and Director of the Program in Asian American Studies at Princeton University.

She begins her essay by recounting a talk she gave in Tacoma, a few years ago.

It was about the forced expulsion of Tacoma’s Chinese residents in November 1885. And the city’s attempts to apologize for it, generations later.

Guest:

• Beth Lew-Williams is Professor of History and Director of the Program in Asian American Studies at Princeton University. Her new book “John Doe Chinaman: A Forgotten History of Chinese Life under American Racial Law” published in September of this year

Related stories:

• The Ritual of Civic Apology - The New Yorker

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