Sister Song

By Colleen “Coke” Tani Nakamoto, September 15, 2007. Dedicated to the WGS women of the 6th International Gathering, “Women Resisting Militarism and Creating a Culture of Life,” San Francisco, CA.

Sister Song

My Dear Sisters—

Your stories, information, creativity and actions have blessed me in places I didn’t know I could feel blessed.
Where in my body can I hold such fierce love?
How can I possibly respond?

The American in me says, By Stepping Back.
My Okinawan and Japanese blood says, By Stepping Forth.
So I step forward, and I step back.
It’s often an invisible and clumsy dance, but one I am determined to learn.
Inside my body, puzzle pieces collide & repel—
You are this. No, you are this. No, you are this!

Say I have two roots. Say my left foot is rooted in Okinawa. Say my left foot is what I inherited from my mother, and from hers, and hers.

Say my right foot is rooted in Japan. Say my right foot is what I inherited from my father, and from his, and his.

Say from the outset, born in America, my left and my right were planted in hopeful but stolen soil, watered from a poisoned well.
Say the sky-birds came and stole my tongue when I was sleeping.
How I ache to be able to talk with you.

Step forward.
Step back.

Say my left foot became fractured when my Okinawan grandparents became plantation workers in Pu’ukolii, Maui. Say my left leg became weak when Pioneer Sugar Mill displaced Kanaka Maoli and overran the land. Say my left arm became crooked when the plantation paid wages scaled by skin and race, Portuguese and other Europeans at the top, followed by Japanese, then Okinawan, then Filipino then Hawaiian. Say my left arm broke when my grandpa beat my grandma, confused by his own dislocation. Say one day, thirty years later, I was born, simply, “Sansei.” Say “Japanese-American.” Say, What’s missing? Say, “Grandma?” My left side buckles.

Say my right leg became deformed when Pearl Harbor was bombed by Japan, and fed the pre-existing hatred toward Japanese-Americans. Say my right foot grew infected even before this, when Pearl Harbor was claimed as a base. Say my right leg cried, when the fish and flora died. Say my right leg still cries for the baby shark met, saved by Summer & Auntie Terry—the baby shark who can no longer thrive there. Say its wide open mouth is like my own, desperate, derailed and displaced by a desecrated Pearl Harbor, and the bomb that blew up the dreams of my people. Say Poston Internment Camp. Say countless places on earth are shattered, villages burned, men believing they are gods.

Step forward.
Step back.

Step forward—
Now say Shellmound, ancestors, recognition. Say ‘ike.
Say Waikiki, Ala Moana, Mokapu.
Now Say Richmond, Say military-industrial complex. Say oil. Say fenceline.
Say Chevron, Say Hanjin, Say Halleburton.
Say asthma, cancer, Say Down’s Syndrome,
Say my granddaughter has a hole in her heart.
Now Say Bayview. Say it’s safe to eat ¼ of ¼ of ¼ of 1 fish.
Say Parcel B, Say Parcel E1, E2,
Say mercury, asbestos, say arsenic.
Now Say Nicole. Say VFA. Say Subic Bay. Say “Commercial Gateway.” Say Extra-
Judicial Killings. Say Military Sexual Terrorism.
Say poverty, say child labor, say exported labor, say trafficking.
Say, They come back “dead or mentally broken.”
Say Where Is Smith?
Now Say Pyeoungtaek Village. Say 3rd expulsion.
Say National Flag Act. Say Military Culture, and Military Camptowns.
Say with Dohee Lee—I had a dream there was a woman standing still, she was trying
to say something but I couldn’t understand…
Say, “Feminist activism is not based on spectacle.”
Say, “My Sister’s Place.”
Say, “onni.”

Step forward—
Now Say, “DMZ Hawai’i.- Say Aloha ‘Aina.” Say Clean Up, Not Build Up.
Say Land Grab. Say Stryker.
Say 1898. Say Makua. Say Pohakuloa. Say UARC.
Say Kumulipo. Say Sovereignty.
Now Say Baguanamay—Say Doña Maria.
Say Aldonza Angoleña, Luisa Capetillo, Antonia Martinez Lagares
Say Zaida, Say Liza, Say Mitzie.
Say Vieques.
Say non-war toys for Luisito!
Say Centro Mujer y Nueva Familia.
Say ilé! Consciousness-in-Action!

Step forward.

Now Say Guahan. Say matrilineal society!
Say hydrogen and atomic bomb testing.
Say downwind. Say air and water currents. Say radiation off the Geiger counter.
Say decontamination and Marine relocation.
Say Chamorro Self-Determination.
Now Say, Keystone of the Pacific. Say 62 years. Say Henoko Bay, Say Dugong.
Say deployment.
Say sexual violence and supposed readiness for military combat.
Say war crimes.
Say coral.

Step forward.

Say, We must recover what was inside of us.
Say, It must be about Resistance PLUS Healing.
Say, Ancestors, Say Spirit.
Say, Mentor.
Say, Unai Festival, and Unai Method.
Say Use Hawai’i media.
Say Peace Guides.
Say Prayers.
Say Good Luck Charm.
Say We Define and Love Our Own Ways of Resistance.

Step forward.

Say, Sister. No, Sing it.
Sing Sister-Who-Restores-My-Whole-Body
Left to Right, Root to Crown
Puzzle pieces sewn together with the thread of an insistent, awakened Love—
The map is the map of Sisterhood, and the treasures are Restoration, Self-Deterimination
and Peace.
Sing Okinawan Sister, Ohlone Sister! Sing Puerto Rican Sister, African American Sister! Sing Korean Sister, Chamorro Sister, Shoshone Sister, Kanaka Maoli Sister, Filipina Sister, Mexicana Sister, Xicana Sister, Japanese Sister, Vietnamese Sister, Cambodian Sister, Salvadorean Sister, Chinese Sister, Nicaraguan Sister, American Sister.
Sing Infinite Sisters.

Step forward.

Sing I Come From…
Sing The Gift I Bring Is…
Sing The Gift I Am Is…
Sing The Gift We Are Is…
Sing.