Edgar Wickberg (1927-2008)
I received an e-mail today from my mom about Dr. Wickberg's death, and while I only knew him for a few years, I would consider him a close mentor of mine. In 2005 I applied and got a job with Ed as his Research Assistant even though I was only an undergrad ad he really encouraged me to pursue my Masters degree (which I ended up doing and actually, I just graduated on Monday). Moreover, he would spend a lot of time with me in his office telling me about 'how things used to be' in academia as a scholar in Asian diaspora, a topic I'm still very interested in. Even though he told me to bill him for those work hours (literally he talked for hours) I don't think I ever did because it was just such so awesome to listen to his stories. Even in the last year or so, whenever I came back to Vancouver from Montreal I made it a point to get in contact with him.
As well, when I started the New Voices Project he was really, really supportive and he was even at our gallery exhibit on opening day at the Vancouver Museum. Ed was really just a stand up guy and its going to be weird this time going back to Vancouver and not getting a chance to have coffee with him. I'm not going to talk about his past, there are much more suited people to do that, specifically the blog that Henry Yu created here. His memorial is today, and since I'm not in Vancouver I figured I could at least do something here to remember him.
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