Reflections from the 2007 PANA Pilgrimage to Manzanar

On the eastern side of the Sierras of California, Mt. Williamson, the second highest peak after Mt. Whitney on the continental United States, is the summit that stands tall behind the cemetery obelisk of Manzanar, the war relocation center of World War II, where 10,000 people of Japanese descent were displaced from Los Angeles. From April 26-29, 2007, on the annual pilgrimage to Manzanar, our community pilgrimage class, co-sponsored by the Pacific School of Religion and the PANA Institute, joined with over 700 other pilgrims who were from a diversity of cultural and religious backgrounds. There, in the hot desert sun by the cemetery obelisk with its inscription “This is the place of consolation for all humanity,” we gathered to remember, to mourn, to listen, to pray, to dance with hope and gratitude for the imprints of compassion on our hearts. We literally encountered imprints of hope in the stone and waterfall gardens created by the internees for the contemplation of restorative beauty amidst the unjust desert incarceration - the unfailing stream of integrity, the flowing waters towards justice. Imprints of hope: Birdsong on barbed wire. Dawn and dusk at Manzanar, communion with the living and the dead. Echoes of children’s voices, both past and present. Youth reaching out across the barbed wire realities of today. Elders and ancestors passing on wisdom and strength for the journey.

Community Poem written by 2007 PANA Pilgrims to Manzanar 4/29/07

Empty desert, intense sun, lonely stars, snowy mountains.
Silence.
Racist bullies calling us names, Dirty Japs they yell, assaulting immigrants.
Nanay.
Betrayed, Disrespected, We live in cold fear, Shamed by acts of injustice.
Silence.
Sorrowful eyes climbing onto departing buses, arriving at foreign barracks.
Silence.
Not understanding a child. A baby left behind, a baby’s grave...
The loss of loved ones.
Silence.
Huge lands, unrelenting Desolation.

Consolation

Prayer flags.
Chikara. Love. Family.
Stories.
Black crow on obelisk.
Forgive.

Remembrance.

Interpretive Center.
Gardens and pond.
Reclaim
Revolt
Remain
Re-emergence
Remembrance.

Supportive community.
Interfaith ceremony
Together in pain.
Obelisk
Small resistance
Adaptation.
Reparation.

Remembrance.

Taiko drums
Young voices
Living
Quakers
Singing a hymn with Toru
Singing freely in Japanese.

Remembrance.
Satisfaction.
Remembrance.


巡礼の詩　(Junrei no uta)　4/29/07

何もない砂漠、厳しい日差し、寂しい星空、雪を頂く山々。
沈黙。
差別者たちは我々を罵り、「汚いジャップ」と叫び、移民を攻撃する。
ナナイ（母よ）。
裏切られ、見下され、我らは凍てつく怖れに生きる、不正な行いによる辱めを受けながら。
沈黙。
悲しみの眼をもって旅立つバスに乗り込み、見慣れないバラックに降り立つ。
沈黙。
子どもたちへの思いやりはなく、置き去りにされた赤ん坊もいる、その子の墓はそこに残された…。
沈黙。
愛する人々は亡くなった。
沈黙
広大なる大地、過酷なる荒廃。


慰めは、

祈りの旗。
力。愛。家族。
物語。
慰霊塔にとまるカラス。
赦し。

忘れないこと。

学習センター。
庭と池。
再生。
抵抗。
消え去らないこと。
また姿を現すこと。

忘れないこと。

共同体の助け。
様々な宗教による慰霊祭。
共に痛みを覚えること。
慰霊塔。
暴力による反抗は小さかったこと。
社会復帰。
補償。

忘れないこと。

太鼓の響き。
若い声。
躍動。
クエーカーたちの助け。
トオルさんと共に賛美歌を歌えること。
日本語で伸び伸びと歌を歌えること。

忘れないこと。

贖罪。

忘れないこと。

*********
KIZUNA
by Tomo Nishiyama, translated by Tomo Nishiyama

We have many expression of Love.
We have many expression of Hope.
We have many expression of faith.
These are important things in our life.
We keep expressing.

Now, let us focus on anther thing.

We are here, now.
We are here beyond race, language, country, origin, and religion…
We are share time and place.
It is truth. Nobody question it.

There is a special relationship in here.
We call it “ KIZUNA”

Let’s just feel “KIZUNA”
We don’t need special pray, chant, action…

Just feel “KIZUNA”.


“絆”(KIZUNA)

たくさんの愛がある (takusan no ai ga aru)
たくさんの希望がある (takusan no kibou ga aru)
たくさんの信じることがある (takusan no shinzirukoto ga aru)
そのすべては私たちにとって大切なこと
(sonosubete ha watassitatinitotte taisetunakoto)
そして続いていくこと (sosite tuduitteikukoto)

そして今、もう一つのことに目を向けてみよう
(sosite ima mouhitotunokotoni mewo muketemiyou)

今、ここにいること(ima kokoni irukoto)
人種、言葉、国、宗教、祖先の違いを超えて、私たちはここにいる
(zinsyu kotoba kuni syuukyou sosen no tigaiwokoete watasitatiha kokoni iru)
時間と空間をともにしている(zikan to kuukan wo tomonisiteiru)
それは誰も疑えないこと(soreha daremo utagaenaikoto)

特別なつながりがここにはある(tokubetuna tunagari ga kokoniha aru)
それを“絆”と呼ぼう( sorewo KIZUNA to yobou)

“絆”ただそれを感じよう (KIZUNA tada sorewo kanziyou)
特別な祈りやことばはいらない (tokubetuna inori ya kotoba ha iranai)

ただ感じる(tada kannziru)
ただ此処にいる(tada kokoniiru)


*******

By Maikiko James

Remember always
A life in a storm of dust
Four years of gray
and, if you listen closely,
Subtle whispers of laughter
I went back to be reminded
And instead found what I did not expect
Painful hope
And proof that we rise stronger
From the ash
Bonded in this one life we are given
We sustain from our place
in the palms of our ancestors
Carried through the day
By kizuna
May we find more each moment
We remember

*****

By Lauren Quock

Day 1
Motivation:
Method
Everyone has a story
We can teach from our stories
We can learn from each others' stories
We are all teachers and students
We don't need to have degrees to have knowledge
Some people go up to a mountain
far away from civilization
to find the sacred
Others go into the community
to find the sacred
among the people

Once I got to the class
I knew I had to come on the pilgrimage
for the content
Anti-Asian hate
written into law
silence from fear
that would last generations

What do I bring?
Sketchbook and pencil
film and 2 cameras
To document
Write ourselves into the textbooks
where they left us out
Mark by mural my witness
that we are active participants in history

My grandparents --
we are standing
on the shoulders
of giants

On the six hour bus ride
We pass by a state prison
In the middle of empty rolling hills
Rows of farm crops
A Wal-mart
They are still incarcerating us
Shipping us out
into the middle of nowhere
So no one has to see us
They are still separating us
from our families
Stripping us of our freedom and privacy
from guard towers
guns pointed inward
Barbed wire cuts us offfrom the rest of the world

Day 2

I laid my hand
on your grave
Cesar Estrada Chavez
1922-1993
images of sweat beading and dripping
from brown foreheads
hands in fertile soil
picking fruit you can't afford to buy
espaldas sore from crouching
and bending all day
I feel your strength in the rock
I will keep on
fighting
believing
Si se puede!
Yes we can.

Signs of resistance
Pleasure gardens
in the middle of the desert camp
No tears
Resistance

Day 3

Today
The tears came
Three remaining living members of the 442nd
rose to lead the pledge of allegiance
Red White and Blue sailor's hat
War patches
In the midst of the camps
These men volunteered to fight for their country
The country that was interning them!
To prove their loyalty
Todaythe tears came
they were so loyal
I think I would have spit in the faces of the recruiters
shouted an angry "Fuck you!"
But they volunteered

They were sent to Italy
to take a position that nobody else had been able to
Landed in the middle of the night
Ordered to scale a cliff
"If you fall"
they were told
"Don't cry out
It will give away our position"
And some of them fell
And they did not cry out
And the 442nd took the cliff

Today
the tears came
A headstone in the cemetery
Baby Jerry Ogawa
How painful the memory must have been
For your family to leave you

A dusty piece of broken porcelain
a plate
a rusty tin can
barbed wire wrapped up and tossed aside
I feel your spirits here
You were here
How could they do this to you?

Today
the tears came
Today
we came
To visit the graves
To remember the dead
and the living
Today
the tears came

Return

It's been 10 days since I got back
little time to reflect
since then
so now
before the memory fades
before my hope dissipates:

Running free
on land
with barbed wire boundaries
real not remembered
but 60 years ago

Singing
Dancing
Playing the guitar
saxophone
freely
expressing rage
sadness
survival
life
'til all hours of the night
no searchlights
from guard towers
roaming

Toru says he's not a Christian anymore
But if he can forgive
And hope
And live
singing
serenading
So can I.

*******



*******

Article in the Sacramento Bee that included a picture of our prayer flags!:
http://www.sacbee.com/history/story/172579.html

*******

Podcast of Starr King student Shelley Page as she reads the poems she wrote in response to her pilgrimage to Manzanar.

*******

i wrote this on the bus,
on the our return home.
-- Michael Sepidoza Campos

Interdisciplinary Studies
Graduate Theological Union
Berkeley, CA
...
Circles.
And more circles.
Words woven among stories.
Anger. Despair. Doubt. Hope.
How does one foster life
In a place of desolation?
In the context of paranoia?

I think of Marjorie.
I think of the many prayers.
Silences offered. Quiet tears shed.
Attempts to hide years of feelings.
Shame still persists.
Shame of what?

Vulnerability. Weakness.
Stoicism in the face of dehumanization.
Stoicism as a response to shame.
I will be as a rock, unmoved.
Even as I am stripped.
Even as I am shamed.

I think of the gardens.
Fruits of one's anger. Spaces of defiance.
Dispelling the paralysis of fate.
Stoicism bearing life.
Where one chooses not to be unmoved.
Where one effects life upon land.
Upon barrenness. Lifelessness.

How does one breathe
While suffocating beneath fear?
How does one see
Beyond the veil of dust storms?
How does one hear
Bereft of community?
Families that foster love?

How does one live?

But life persists. Is relentless.
Where terrain, though desolate
Channel a people's spirit to hope deeply.
To see beneath the veneer of discomfort.
To claim life upon a land that has both
Spat and embraced them.

There is stunning hope here.
There is gratitude from which I draw life.

I the foreigner. The stranger.
Encounter the voices of our common ancestors.
And I learn to see with their eyes.
Hear with their ears.
And so hope as deeply.

I am grateful.
I stand in paths of circles.
Enveloped by voices of intersecting stories.
And so, I am ennobled by a humanity
That stands fundamentally the same,
A common grounding upon life.
Of circles. Of cyclical immersions
In life and death.
Between hope and despair.
Circles. Circles. Circles.

--