Roof Raised, House Rocked, Lives Changed; R2W Summer Institute 2007

Release date: July 6, 2007
Pacific School of Religion
http://www.psr.edu/page.cfm?t=17&id=3242


Roof Raised, House Rocked, Lives Changed; PANA’s Represent 2 Witness Draws to a Close

BERKELEY, CA -- The Pacific School of Religion Chapel was filled with the sounds of rap, drumming, and Samoan harmony on the evening of Thursday, July 5, as the Represent 2 Witness Jam closed out a two-week immersion in social justice and lived faith for 20 youth from diverse ethnic, economic, and social backgrounds. Part poetry slam, part dance performance, concert, and church service, the 2007 installment of the R2W Jam gave family, friends and community members the opportunity to experience what the young participants at this groundbreaking youth leadership development program had learned.

Students performed a “drum dance skit” that looked at historical conflicts created by colonialism still rending societies today. They performed “spoken word” rap poems that attacked the roots of racism, classism, sexism, and homophobia. They performed traditional Samoan dance and song, with many members of the audience joining in spontaneous harmony. They closed with a song/rap called “If I could change the world,” an original composition by R2W participants. Throughout the performance, individual students gave testimony about what they had learned and how they planned to change their communities as a result of their new knowledge.

The program, funded in part by the Lilly Endowment, is a leadership development program for primarily Asian Pacific Islander (API) youth and young adults ages 16-22. The participants, some high school and college students, some working young adults, come from across the Pacific coast states to learn about the intersections of race, class, ethnicity, religion, and culture, and how they can be leaders in their communities navigating these crossroads. Several of the participants have come back in subsequent years as resident assistants and workshop leaders in order to pass their experience on to more young people.

The program involved workshops and exercises in “critical faith,” exploring justice issues from social, political, historic, and economic, and spiritual perspectives. Students learned to tell a “social autobiography,” which mixed personal experiences with awareness of the social and historical contexts of their identities. The group went on field trips to Angel Island, the “Western Ellis Island” where many Asians arrived and were processed when they immigrated to America; the Sunnyvale Housing Project, where students learned about local community improvement and employment initiatives; San Francisco’s Chinatown, where the immigrant experience is still begin lived out every day; and the Richmond, California power plant, where they learned about environmental racism. The program is designed to empower young people to see patterns of oppression and develop justice-seeking solutions as they reflect on their own experiences and those of others.

Lindsey Quock has participated as a “Resource Teacher” for four years following her graduation from the first R2W in 2003. Since then, she has become involved in labor and tenants’ rights movements, and is a global studies major and vice president of the student government at UC Santa Barbara. “This program made me a conscious human being. It began my faith journey,” Quock told the audience during a testimony.

Victor McKamie served as an R.A. in this year’s program, and read a scorching indictment of racism as part of one of the “spoken word” sections of the program, asking questions like, “Is race a unity or a division?” “What’s in a pigment?” and “Who are you to call my people savage?” He concluded, “Me? I see color. I love it.”

McKamie, who is working his way through El Camino College in Los Angeles, said in the year since he first participated in the program, he has, “moved from just seeing things to activity–before, I was just an observer,” on issues of race, class, and social justice. McKamie says he has since been working with his church on poverty outreach programs, and on breaking down racial barriers between African American and Latino communities in L.A.

According to program co-founder Michael James, the project seeks to bring together youth from across culture, race, class, social, and religious backgrounds. Although the program initially focused on API youth, coming from ethnicities as diverse as Samoan, Tongan, Hawaiian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Filipino, James said, “this generation interprets race in a different way,” and has evolved to include African American and Hispanic students. Many of the students came to the program from church and family referrals. The program has strong ties to the United Church of Christ, but has also involved students from Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, Holiness (Pentecostal), Mormon, and Catholic backgrounds. James expressed the hope that the young people leave the program with the intention of spreading awareness and action in their home communities. “We’re trying to teach people that they can educate themselves based on their own experience. This model of learning isn’t just for youth, it’s for everyone.”

For more information on Represent 2 Witness, see: http://www.represent2witness.org/

For photos from the Represent 2 Witness Jam 2007, see:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8732136@N02/sets/72157600686282798/