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Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Thursday, May 15, 2008
PANA and NRJ at the DisOrient Asian-American Film Festival in Eugene, Oregon
Rev. Israel Alvaran is a minister in the United Methodist Church, and a graduate student at Pacific School of Religion. He writes:I had the honor of representing PANA and NRJ at the DisOrient Asian-American Film Festival in Eugene, Oregon on March 27, 2008. PANA's film In God's House: Asian American Lesbian and Gay Families in the Church was shown together with other LGBTQ short films, dubbed "Arranged Family Secrets." Over 50 people watched the films during this section of the festival, and many were touched and wept after In God's House screened. Many came up to me expressing gratitude for what we do at PANA and NRJ.
Basic Rights Oregon (BRO), a statewide LGBTQ advocacy group sponsored a discussion group meeting after the screening at St. Mary Episcopal Church, and over 20 people came. This question-and-answer session proved to be inspirational as individuals talked about how our film made them connect their faith, Asian heritage, and being queer. Some have shunned religion but now they see the reality of queer spirituality. I even had to give away my copy of the film! Many look forward to another discussion session like this during next year's DisOrient Film Festival, and there is talk of collaboration with BRO on setting with up.
The Spirit was present, and it was an awesome witness!
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
"Educating For Bhinneka Tunggal Ika: Multicultural Christian Religious Education for Youth in Indonesia" by Rev. Linna Gunawan
Abstract:
This thesis explores dimensions of multicultural Christian Religious Education which would educate youth toward critical consciousness and social action, for the purpose of mitigating ethnic tensions in the context of Indonesia. Given the long history of ethnic tension between ethnic Chinese and Indonesia pribumi communities due to complex, intertwining social, political, and economic factors, Indonesian youth of today are still affected by the cultural traumas and social attitudes of prejudice, hatred, and discrimination passed on from generations before them. Education, as apparent in both the curriculum of national education and education provided by the church, does not seem to address adequately the challenges of pluralism in Indonesia. This thesis explores theo-logical, theoretical, and pedagogical foundations for a multicultural Christian religious education curriculum that prepares Indonesia youth to live as agents of peace in a plural-istic society.
James Banks’ multicultural educational approach and John Lederach’s peace-building theory form the basic theoretical frameworks for a proposed multicultural Chris-tian religious educational curriculum for Indonesian youth. Addressing the challenges of identity formation (personal identity, cultural-ethnic identity, and communal identity), the peace-building process by which to alleviate traumas and to transform the community comprises the content of the curriculum. Proposals of a number of pedagogical methods and activities for youth are given in several sections of the curriculum.
Rev. Gunawan is a Presbyterian minister at Indonesian Christian church (Gereja Kristen Indonesia) in Jakarta. She is completing her Doctorate of Ministry at Pacific School of Religion and will be sharing her thesis that addresses multicultural Christian religious education. She will be presentating her paper at the PANA Institute on May 1, 12:30pm.
This thesis explores dimensions of multicultural Christian Religious Education which would educate youth toward critical consciousness and social action, for the purpose of mitigating ethnic tensions in the context of Indonesia. Given the long history of ethnic tension between ethnic Chinese and Indonesia pribumi communities due to complex, intertwining social, political, and economic factors, Indonesian youth of today are still affected by the cultural traumas and social attitudes of prejudice, hatred, and discrimination passed on from generations before them. Education, as apparent in both the curriculum of national education and education provided by the church, does not seem to address adequately the challenges of pluralism in Indonesia. This thesis explores theo-logical, theoretical, and pedagogical foundations for a multicultural Christian religious education curriculum that prepares Indonesia youth to live as agents of peace in a plural-istic society.
James Banks’ multicultural educational approach and John Lederach’s peace-building theory form the basic theoretical frameworks for a proposed multicultural Chris-tian religious educational curriculum for Indonesian youth. Addressing the challenges of identity formation (personal identity, cultural-ethnic identity, and communal identity), the peace-building process by which to alleviate traumas and to transform the community comprises the content of the curriculum. Proposals of a number of pedagogical methods and activities for youth are given in several sections of the curriculum.
Rev. Gunawan is a Presbyterian minister at Indonesian Christian church (Gereja Kristen Indonesia) in Jakarta. She is completing her Doctorate of Ministry at Pacific School of Religion and will be sharing her thesis that addresses multicultural Christian religious education. She will be presentating her paper at the PANA Institute on May 1, 12:30pm.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Gloria Morita recalls Executive Order 9066
On April 7, 2008, PANA hosted "Nisei Stories of Endurance and Survival," an evening event to hear testimonies from members of two historically Japanese American congregations, Sycamore Congregational Church and Berkeley Methodist United Church, in preparation for our Pilgrimage to Manzanar. Sycamore member Gloria Morita offered this testimony.
In December 1941 Papa was 57 years old, Mama 40 years, sister Setsuko 23 years, brother Yoshimitsu 20, I was 17, and Akira Aki 11 years.
There was fear everywhere, especially in the Japanese community, following the bombing on December 7, 1941, of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese military. News circulated that many of our men were being picked up for no logical reason and taken to places unknown. What about Papa? What’s going to happen to us? The worst had come to mind. Will we be executed? Will we be sent to Japan? We could be people without a country. Although Papa was a farmer and had no connection with anything that might be considered subversive, we mustn’t take chances. We must destroy anything and everything that would impart the slightest suggestion of disloyalty.
“What about those guns? Where are they? There’s the 410 shot gun, the 22 rifle, and Aki's BB gun. What about Papa’s camera?” Photography was his hobby and that can’t be considered suspicious, but we must not take chances. Hurriedly, Yoshimitsu, with the help of Aki, dug a deep hole near the walnut tree and buried the precious and harmless camera, together with Aki’s BB gun. The other guns should not be buried. What if they were found by the officials? So, in the evening after dark, Yoshimitsu and Aki packed the two guns in the car and drove to the wooden bridge over a creek about half a mile down 47th Avenue, the main road. They looked about to see that no one was around to see what they were doing and walked to the middle of the bridge, hoisted the guns over the railing, and dropped them into the creek.
That evening the family talked about other material in the house, such as books, magazines, and other items Japanese. We felt anything that had connection with Japan must be destroyed, lest they be considered suspicious. The following day we built a bonfire in the open area at the side of the barn and gathered personal letters from Japan, books, magazines, pictures, burnable art objects Mama brought back from her visit to Japan six years earlier, records—even children’s records. The books were difficult to burn so we tore out pages and made sure every page had disappeared. We watched the pages as they curled, turned black, and become ash. Our favorite, harmless records warped, caught the flame, and disappeared.
At that time we kept the radio tuned in and stayed close by listening intently to any change in the larger world and the immediate world around us. The news was only about the conflicts in Europe and the tense relations with Japan. There was nothing pleasant to listen to—only fear.
Our family was intact and safe for the time being. Papa and Mama continued working on the farm tending the strawberry and raspberry fields, for it wouldn’t be long before the harvest, the major part of the family income. Papa fertilized the plants and we, the children, helped in the fields after school and on weekends pulling weeds and hoeing down the grass that grew in the ditches. As spring approached, we watched the berries form and become full. Papa said it was going to be a good crop.
Then copies of Executive Order 9066, signed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, ordering removal of all Japanese families on the West Coast and into concentration camps were posted on telephone poles along the road. That order was devastating, particularly to Papa and Mama who had toiled all those months since the harvest of the previous year and the berries, both strawberries and raspberries, were just getting ready for harvest. There were no “ifs”, “buts”, or choice. Papa said shikataga ga nai (can’t be helped). There was no other choice but to obey the orders.
We were given seven days to pack and sell or store our household belongings, our car, truck, and everything used to run the farm. In one week we had to leave, ready or not. On evacuation we could take only what we could carry, which was very little. What will we pack our belongings in? We had only two suitcases. Setsuko was requested to go to Sears Roebuck and purchase more suitcases.
What about the berry crop? There would be no one to harvest and water them. Papa was resigned to abandoning all of it. Yoshimitsu wondered if there was some way of selling the upcoming crop. Setsuko said there was a small grocery store not far away run by a family of Portuguese background and wondered if they might like the berries. She went to the store to discuss the matter. They offered to accept, for the sum of $350, the crop, together with all the farm equipment, the large inventory of shook , which is lumber cut to size for making berry crates, small truck, the rabbits, chickens, and everything left in the house, including the stove, refrigerator, and furniture, such as beds, dining table and chairs. Papa and Yoshimitsu didn’t think we could do better on such short notice so Papa accepted the $350. Our piano was sold to another vulture for $5. Aki’s two like-new bicycles were sold for a pittance.
Although every family was frantically making preparations to leave, everyone helped each other as much as possible. Our home consisted of four structures: the house, bath house, barn and housing for the seasonal workers. Yoshimitsu made arrangements with the landlord of the land who lived on the adjacent land to move our workers’ living quarters to their open, unused land so that we could store our belongings for the duration. Our next door neighbor, the Morisakli’s, had a tractor. With the help of the neighbor, our worker housing structure was put on a sled, pulled with the tractor, and moved. We stored our belongings, including the 3-year-old car, in the structure in hopes that we would some day return.
What about Maru, our dog? We weren’t allowed to take pets. Can we find someone who would adopt him? It would have been cruel to leave him behind to fend for himself. Because it was unlikely we would find someone who would take him in, there was no choice but to take him to the pound. I stayed home to help with preparations to leave. Setsuko and Aki put Maru, our faithful companion, especially to Aki, in the car and drove toward the pound which was a few miles from our home. Maru had never ridden in a car. He seemed anxious; but with the loving support of Aki, he stayed calm, looking out the window. With a rope for a lease, Aki guided Maru to the office of the pound where a caretaker took over and led him to a pen. As Aki and Setsuko were leaving, choking back tears, Maru perked up his ears, anxious but confident that Aki would be back to pick him up.
Abandoning our home built on leased property, on May 10, 1942, we walked away, taking with us memories of hard work, supportiveness, and nonverbal love. Each member of the family carried a suitcase except Aki who carried a box and the small radio which was purchased so that we would be able to keep up with events.
How we got to Arboga, the Marysville Assembly Center, is cloudy. I seem to have put that part of my life behind me. Recent conversations with Aki concerning the period between home and the assembly center shed little light. He, too, does not remember. However, he said that he remembers riding an army truck. A former neighbor said that we departed from a train station in Florin. It is my understanding that some families had kind non-Japanese neighbors drive them to the train station and some others drove their cars to the assembly center and abandoned their vehicles when we were moved from the assembly center to Tulelake concentration camp.
--Gloria Morita, July 6, 2001
"EO 9066"
In December 1941 Papa was 57 years old, Mama 40 years, sister Setsuko 23 years, brother Yoshimitsu 20, I was 17, and Akira Aki 11 years.
There was fear everywhere, especially in the Japanese community, following the bombing on December 7, 1941, of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese military. News circulated that many of our men were being picked up for no logical reason and taken to places unknown. What about Papa? What’s going to happen to us? The worst had come to mind. Will we be executed? Will we be sent to Japan? We could be people without a country. Although Papa was a farmer and had no connection with anything that might be considered subversive, we mustn’t take chances. We must destroy anything and everything that would impart the slightest suggestion of disloyalty.
“What about those guns? Where are they? There’s the 410 shot gun, the 22 rifle, and Aki's BB gun. What about Papa’s camera?” Photography was his hobby and that can’t be considered suspicious, but we must not take chances. Hurriedly, Yoshimitsu, with the help of Aki, dug a deep hole near the walnut tree and buried the precious and harmless camera, together with Aki’s BB gun. The other guns should not be buried. What if they were found by the officials? So, in the evening after dark, Yoshimitsu and Aki packed the two guns in the car and drove to the wooden bridge over a creek about half a mile down 47th Avenue, the main road. They looked about to see that no one was around to see what they were doing and walked to the middle of the bridge, hoisted the guns over the railing, and dropped them into the creek.
That evening the family talked about other material in the house, such as books, magazines, and other items Japanese. We felt anything that had connection with Japan must be destroyed, lest they be considered suspicious. The following day we built a bonfire in the open area at the side of the barn and gathered personal letters from Japan, books, magazines, pictures, burnable art objects Mama brought back from her visit to Japan six years earlier, records—even children’s records. The books were difficult to burn so we tore out pages and made sure every page had disappeared. We watched the pages as they curled, turned black, and become ash. Our favorite, harmless records warped, caught the flame, and disappeared.
At that time we kept the radio tuned in and stayed close by listening intently to any change in the larger world and the immediate world around us. The news was only about the conflicts in Europe and the tense relations with Japan. There was nothing pleasant to listen to—only fear.
Our family was intact and safe for the time being. Papa and Mama continued working on the farm tending the strawberry and raspberry fields, for it wouldn’t be long before the harvest, the major part of the family income. Papa fertilized the plants and we, the children, helped in the fields after school and on weekends pulling weeds and hoeing down the grass that grew in the ditches. As spring approached, we watched the berries form and become full. Papa said it was going to be a good crop.
Then copies of Executive Order 9066, signed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, ordering removal of all Japanese families on the West Coast and into concentration camps were posted on telephone poles along the road. That order was devastating, particularly to Papa and Mama who had toiled all those months since the harvest of the previous year and the berries, both strawberries and raspberries, were just getting ready for harvest. There were no “ifs”, “buts”, or choice. Papa said shikataga ga nai (can’t be helped). There was no other choice but to obey the orders.
We were given seven days to pack and sell or store our household belongings, our car, truck, and everything used to run the farm. In one week we had to leave, ready or not. On evacuation we could take only what we could carry, which was very little. What will we pack our belongings in? We had only two suitcases. Setsuko was requested to go to Sears Roebuck and purchase more suitcases.
What about the berry crop? There would be no one to harvest and water them. Papa was resigned to abandoning all of it. Yoshimitsu wondered if there was some way of selling the upcoming crop. Setsuko said there was a small grocery store not far away run by a family of Portuguese background and wondered if they might like the berries. She went to the store to discuss the matter. They offered to accept, for the sum of $350, the crop, together with all the farm equipment, the large inventory of shook , which is lumber cut to size for making berry crates, small truck, the rabbits, chickens, and everything left in the house, including the stove, refrigerator, and furniture, such as beds, dining table and chairs. Papa and Yoshimitsu didn’t think we could do better on such short notice so Papa accepted the $350. Our piano was sold to another vulture for $5. Aki’s two like-new bicycles were sold for a pittance.
Although every family was frantically making preparations to leave, everyone helped each other as much as possible. Our home consisted of four structures: the house, bath house, barn and housing for the seasonal workers. Yoshimitsu made arrangements with the landlord of the land who lived on the adjacent land to move our workers’ living quarters to their open, unused land so that we could store our belongings for the duration. Our next door neighbor, the Morisakli’s, had a tractor. With the help of the neighbor, our worker housing structure was put on a sled, pulled with the tractor, and moved. We stored our belongings, including the 3-year-old car, in the structure in hopes that we would some day return.
What about Maru, our dog? We weren’t allowed to take pets. Can we find someone who would adopt him? It would have been cruel to leave him behind to fend for himself. Because it was unlikely we would find someone who would take him in, there was no choice but to take him to the pound. I stayed home to help with preparations to leave. Setsuko and Aki put Maru, our faithful companion, especially to Aki, in the car and drove toward the pound which was a few miles from our home. Maru had never ridden in a car. He seemed anxious; but with the loving support of Aki, he stayed calm, looking out the window. With a rope for a lease, Aki guided Maru to the office of the pound where a caretaker took over and led him to a pen. As Aki and Setsuko were leaving, choking back tears, Maru perked up his ears, anxious but confident that Aki would be back to pick him up.
Abandoning our home built on leased property, on May 10, 1942, we walked away, taking with us memories of hard work, supportiveness, and nonverbal love. Each member of the family carried a suitcase except Aki who carried a box and the small radio which was purchased so that we would be able to keep up with events.
How we got to Arboga, the Marysville Assembly Center, is cloudy. I seem to have put that part of my life behind me. Recent conversations with Aki concerning the period between home and the assembly center shed little light. He, too, does not remember. However, he said that he remembers riding an army truck. A former neighbor said that we departed from a train station in Florin. It is my understanding that some families had kind non-Japanese neighbors drive them to the train station and some others drove their cars to the assembly center and abandoned their vehicles when we were moved from the assembly center to Tulelake concentration camp.
--Gloria Morita, July 6, 2001
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Delta Pilgrimage Flower Ritual: Return, Remember, Release
This page has been moved to www.panainstitute.org.
. . .
The text of a ritual held on the river as part of the PANA Pilgrimage to the Sacramento River Delta (March 29-30, 2008).
. . .
The Hawaiian tradition of giving a lei to the ocean waters as one is leaving is symbolic of a heartfelt return. We offer a lei brought from Hawaii for our ancestors whose suffering and spirit mark the delta waters and levees, and promise our return to remember. We will also offer flowers as the closing of our flower ritual for all of our common ancestors. When possible, the response will also be spoken in the language of the ancestors. We face the back of the boat, watching the waters and leis recede, symbolic of facing future by remembering the past and all it wants to teach us.We are standing here
wanting memories to teach us to see the beauty in the world
listening to the voices above the storms of life
Voices that whisper what we need to hear.
We remember you,
we listen to your whispers in the wind,
we rock you in the cradle of our hearts.
wanting memories to teach us to see the beauty in the world
listening to the voices above the storms of life
Voices that whisper what we need to hear.
We remember you,
we listen to your whispers in the wind,
we rock you in the cradle of our hearts.
To our First ancestors of this land
Coast Miwok, Patwin, Plains Miwok, Bay Miwok, Ohlone (Costanoan), Yokuts and so many more...You suffered under the militarization of California as a Spanish territory, enslaved to build the missions, forbidden to speak your own languages, dying from disease and broken hearts. The Gold rush ravaged the land, your hearts, your bodies. Yet your spirit deep within the land itself beckons us to return, to remember, to repent, to release new life.
RESPONSE:
We remember you, we listen to your whispers in the wind, we rock you in the cradle of our hearts.
To our Native Hawaiian ancestors
You crossed the Pacific, bringing your ocean wisdom to guide the watery journeys through the Delta, bringing earth wisdom to care for the land, bringing aloha spirit to counteract a growing inhospitality to the Other.
RESPONSE:
We remember you, we listen to your whispers in the wind, we rock you in the cradle of our hearts.
(Pause to offer flower lei)
To our Chinese ancestors
You reclaimed land in this delta with innovative levee techniques, started truck farms, developed and harvested asparagus, potatoes, onions, celery, strawberries, salmon, abalone, crab and seaweed. You built temples, constructed miles of solid rock walls for the fencing of cattle and huge underground tunnels for wineries in the north. You laid miles and miles of railroad track where no one dared.
RESPONSE:
We remember you, we listen to your whispers in the wind, we rock you in the cradle of our hearts.
To our Japanese ancestors
You began to fill the labor needs when our Chinese ancestors were excluded from entry in 1882– working sugar beets, grapes, fruits, berries, vegetables and hops, sleeping in fieldsheds on the edge of the orchards, in camps worse than dog and pig pens, unfit for humans, dying premature deaths. Yet you became farmers and tripled the fruitfulness of the land.
RESPONSE:
We remember you, we listen to your whispers in the wind, we rock you in the cradle of our hearts.
(Pause to offer flower lei)
To our Filipino ancestors
You began arriving in the San Joaquin Valley after the Philippines became a U.S. colony in 1902 (after the Philippine-American war) and were brought in to fill the labor needs when our Japanese ancestors were excluded from entry in 1924 – by 1929 you were nearly nine thousand in Walnut Grove alone, expert in the asparagus harvest. Yet you suffered the same living conditions and psychological impact of racism, cultural alienation. You suffered from the shadow of intraethnic competition with Japanese farmers leasing from white landowners. Yet you invoked the spirit of struggle and unity with strikes and a Filipino-Mexican union of fieldworkers, roots of the United Farmworkers today.
RESPONSE:
We remember you, we listen to your whispers in the wind, we rock you in the cradle of our hearts.
To our Sikh ancestors
You labored in logging, railroad, mines, road construction and all type of agricultural work, bringing expertise in irrigation methods of developing rice fields and fruit and nut orchards. You built a Gurdwara, providing spiritual home and welcome to all.
RESPONSE:
We remember you, we listen to your whispers in the wind, we rock you in the cradle of our hearts.
(Pause to offer flower lei)
To our Latino ancestors
You labored in fields that by 1930 had excluded Asian workers ... and labor in those same fields today, enduring welcome and unwelcome, perceived as threat and peril. Yet you continue to offer the spirit of la lucha for the fulfillment of life for all.
RESPONSE:
We remember you, we listen to your whispers in the wind, we rock you in the cradle of our hearts.
To our Cambodian ancestors
You suffered in the killing fields and sought refuge across the Pacific, laboring in agricultural fields... and continue to labor in the slow process of healing from the traumas of war... sharing with us your vulnerability and strength, your deep humanity.
RESPONSE:
We remember you, we listen to your whispers in the wind, we rock you in the cradle of our hearts.
To our European ancestors
At times, some of us really don’t know quite what to say to you but we know you are there and that your many of your own stories have been silenced. And we know you were suffering. We reach out to you and remember.
RESPONSE:
We remember you, we listen to your whispers in the wind, we rock you in the cradle of our hearts.
(Pause to offer flower lei)
To all our ancestors to come
ALL:
Remember, Listen to the whispers in the wind, Let us rock each other in the cradle of our hearts.
(Pause for everyone to offer flowers)
Life persists and 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 we draw life
We encounter the voices of our common ancestors
May we learn to see with their eyes
Hear with their ears
Touch with their hearts
And so hope as deeply.
We remember
and we are blessed again and over again.
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 we draw life
We encounter the voices of our common ancestors
May we learn to see with their eyes
Hear with their ears
Touch with their hearts
And so hope as deeply.
We remember
and we are blessed again and over again.
. . .
Prepared by Joanne Doi with inspiration from Mike Campos, Corinna Gould, Zoe Holder, Gordon Lee, Keali’i Reichel,. Special mahalo to Gordon Lee for bringing leis and gathering plumeria blossoms in Hawai’i to bless our journey with the ancestors with their beauty and fragrance, evoking also the remembrance of double plumeria leis brought by pastors from Hawai’i for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other key civil rights leaders during the second march in Selma, Alabama, March 1965.
3/29/2008
Friday, March 21, 2008
Friday, March 14, 2008
Understanding the Impact of the Gold Rush on California Native People
“I am a guest of whoever’s land it is…One must know who the people are, and show respect.”
On March 14, in preparation for PANA’s Sacramento Delta Pilgrimage, we were honored to have members of the local Native community speak with us about the impact of the Gold Rush on the Native peoples of California. Corinna Gould (Muwekma Ohlone), Zoe Holder (Omaha), and Elder Eileen Baustian (Tlingit) were our teachers, guiding us to see the longer historical pattern and present day issues. We also watched the film Gold, Greed, & Genocide: The Untold Tragedy of the California Gold Rush. Following are some brief notes from the evening, recorded by Rev. Deborah Lee.
Pre-Gold Rush:
The devastating impact on Native peoples of Californian had already begun with the Spanish Mission System. The Spanish came up from Mexico using ancient Native roads, such as Highway 101, and set up 21 missions from1769-1823. Their larger goal was not religious conversion, but the militarization of California as a Spanish territory through establishment of forts and presidios alongside the Missions. These Missions were built by Native slave labor. (This aspect is often left out of California grade school study of the Missions.)
The Missions supported the military occupation by providing food, supplies and manufacturing for the soldiers. Soldiers guarded the missions.
Native peoples came to missions because they were rounded up, or their villages had been destroyed so they had no choice but to go to the missions for survival. There they were forced to convert to Christianity and not allowed to speak their own language.
There were many runaways and organized Native slave rebellions at the missions. Mission Dolores and Mission San Jose were sites of guerilla slave rebellions. Some missions were burned down.
There were 60,000 recorded deaths in the Missions of disease, post-traumatic stress syndrome and broken hearts. In 1821, following Mexico’s independence from Spain, Mexico took over and in 1836 ended the mission system. By Mexican law mission Indians were supposed to get parcels of mission land, but they did not.
After the end of the mission system, many became agricultural laborers and went to rancherias. Because it was dangerous to be Native, many survived by becoming “Mexican.” The traditions and ceremonies that have survived till today were practiced in secret.
California as part of the U.S.:
In 1850, California became part of the United States. The U.S. government had already learned from its extermination practice of Native peoples across the continent and applied it to violently gain control of resource-rich California.
During the Gold Rush years, the Native population declined from 150,000 to 31,000 due to starvation, forced removal, deliberate killings by white townspeople or private militia paid by state of California. The State of California was paying $5 per head and $.25 per scalp to anyone who could show such proof of having killed a Native. As a result, there were many massacres. For example, in Eureka 1860, women and children of the Wiyot tribe were massacred. Other examples were Kelseyville and Mt. Shasta.
Though California entered the Union as a non-slave state, the 1852 Enslavement Laws made it legal to enslave Native peoples. If you were found loitering, a white person could take you to court and you would become their indentured servant. Native people could not represent themselves in court. Survivors of the massacres and genocidal policy were enslaved. 4,000 Native children were bought and sold as slaves, serving as laborers in mines or ranches, and as sex slaves. Others were moved onto concentration camps or reservations.
The Gold Rush brought on terrible devastation of the land: clear-cut logging, excavation of the earth in the mining process, tons of waste flowed down into streams dropping 12 billion tons of silt. Mercury was used to extract fold from ore. To this day we live with the impact of mercury contaminated rivers and bays. Many elders and fishermen died of mercury poisoning, their livelihood and their diet destroyed.
Today:
Many tribes still to this day are denied legal recognition. Ohlone tribes are currently seeking federal recognition. Without federal recognition, they have no rights to their ancestors' remains and bones, for example those that have been dug up in constructing the Bay Street Emeryville shopping mall in Emeryville, or in housing developments. UC Berkeley and SFSU hold thousands of Native remains in boxes.
Corinna Gould is one of the founders of the Shellmound Walk, a pilgrimage which takes place annually in the weeks before Thanksgiving, bringing public awareness to the more than 475 sacred Native Shellmounds where native peoples were buried around the Bay area which have been paved over, and built upon. She says, “We believe that the land was given to us to take care of. The Shellmound Walk connects us to the land. We must know who are ancestors were and be the voice of the ancestors so we can move forward. Even if that means praying in the parking lot. Those who have come here since have no connection to the land.”
Some facts about Native Americans:
On March 14, in preparation for PANA’s Sacramento Delta Pilgrimage, we were honored to have members of the local Native community speak with us about the impact of the Gold Rush on the Native peoples of California. Corinna Gould (Muwekma Ohlone), Zoe Holder (Omaha), and Elder Eileen Baustian (Tlingit) were our teachers, guiding us to see the longer historical pattern and present day issues. We also watched the film Gold, Greed, & Genocide: The Untold Tragedy of the California Gold Rush. Following are some brief notes from the evening, recorded by Rev. Deborah Lee.
* * *
For Asian Americans, the Gold Rush marks the early beginning of Asian immigration in America, with the migration of Chinese miners and laborers. But for the Native peoples of California, the Gold Rush marks a government policy of extermination of the Native population, the destruction of their environment and the loss of their land. We must acknowledge that no matter under what circumstances our Asian ancestors came here, they were still visitors on this land. It is so important to hear this history, to strive to make connections in a deeper way, and to understand the relationship between this Native history and the history of the early immigrant laborers from China and the Philippines.Pre-Gold Rush:
The devastating impact on Native peoples of Californian had already begun with the Spanish Mission System. The Spanish came up from Mexico using ancient Native roads, such as Highway 101, and set up 21 missions from1769-1823. Their larger goal was not religious conversion, but the militarization of California as a Spanish territory through establishment of forts and presidios alongside the Missions. These Missions were built by Native slave labor. (This aspect is often left out of California grade school study of the Missions.)
The Missions supported the military occupation by providing food, supplies and manufacturing for the soldiers. Soldiers guarded the missions.
Native peoples came to missions because they were rounded up, or their villages had been destroyed so they had no choice but to go to the missions for survival. There they were forced to convert to Christianity and not allowed to speak their own language.
There were many runaways and organized Native slave rebellions at the missions. Mission Dolores and Mission San Jose were sites of guerilla slave rebellions. Some missions were burned down.
There were 60,000 recorded deaths in the Missions of disease, post-traumatic stress syndrome and broken hearts. In 1821, following Mexico’s independence from Spain, Mexico took over and in 1836 ended the mission system. By Mexican law mission Indians were supposed to get parcels of mission land, but they did not.
After the end of the mission system, many became agricultural laborers and went to rancherias. Because it was dangerous to be Native, many survived by becoming “Mexican.” The traditions and ceremonies that have survived till today were practiced in secret.
California as part of the U.S.:
In 1850, California became part of the United States. The U.S. government had already learned from its extermination practice of Native peoples across the continent and applied it to violently gain control of resource-rich California.
During the Gold Rush years, the Native population declined from 150,000 to 31,000 due to starvation, forced removal, deliberate killings by white townspeople or private militia paid by state of California. The State of California was paying $5 per head and $.25 per scalp to anyone who could show such proof of having killed a Native. As a result, there were many massacres. For example, in Eureka 1860, women and children of the Wiyot tribe were massacred. Other examples were Kelseyville and Mt. Shasta.
Though California entered the Union as a non-slave state, the 1852 Enslavement Laws made it legal to enslave Native peoples. If you were found loitering, a white person could take you to court and you would become their indentured servant. Native people could not represent themselves in court. Survivors of the massacres and genocidal policy were enslaved. 4,000 Native children were bought and sold as slaves, serving as laborers in mines or ranches, and as sex slaves. Others were moved onto concentration camps or reservations.
The Gold Rush brought on terrible devastation of the land: clear-cut logging, excavation of the earth in the mining process, tons of waste flowed down into streams dropping 12 billion tons of silt. Mercury was used to extract fold from ore. To this day we live with the impact of mercury contaminated rivers and bays. Many elders and fishermen died of mercury poisoning, their livelihood and their diet destroyed.
Today:
Many tribes still to this day are denied legal recognition. Ohlone tribes are currently seeking federal recognition. Without federal recognition, they have no rights to their ancestors' remains and bones, for example those that have been dug up in constructing the Bay Street Emeryville shopping mall in Emeryville, or in housing developments. UC Berkeley and SFSU hold thousands of Native remains in boxes.
Corinna Gould is one of the founders of the Shellmound Walk, a pilgrimage which takes place annually in the weeks before Thanksgiving, bringing public awareness to the more than 475 sacred Native Shellmounds where native peoples were buried around the Bay area which have been paved over, and built upon. She says, “We believe that the land was given to us to take care of. The Shellmound Walk connects us to the land. We must know who are ancestors were and be the voice of the ancestors so we can move forward. Even if that means praying in the parking lot. Those who have come here since have no connection to the land.”
Some facts about Native Americans:
- 95% of native population was killed since the arrival of Europeans.
- There are 18 treaties between the U.S. and California Native tribes which were never ratified in California. These treaties were "lost" until 1905; the U.S. Government eventually paid California Natives 41 cents per acre for some of their land.
- It was not until 1924 that Native peoples could become citizens.
- And only in 1978 could they practice their freedom of religion under the American Indian Religious Freedom Act.
- They have the highest per capita to join armed forces.
- 70% live in the cities.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
(Re)Collection newslettter
One project arising from the September 2007 conference "Women Resisting Militarism and Creating a Culture of Life," sponsored by Women for Genuine Security and PANA Institute Civil Liberty and Faith Project.
(Re)Collection: March 2008 Newsletter
Visit genuinesecurity.org/recollection.htm to learn about the editors and the newsletter, or email recollection@genuinesecurity.org
Mission Statement:
(RE)Collection is a newsletter that illuminates the work of those committed to a culture of peace. (RE)Collection developed from the collaboration of U.S. based activists who are part of the WGS connection. WGS envisions a world of genuine security based on justice, respect for others across national boundaries, and economic planning that meets people's needs, especially women and children. WGS work toward the creation of a society free of militarism, violence, and all forms of sexual exploitation, and for the safety, well-being, and long-term sustainability of our communities.
March 2008 Newsletter:
Comprehensive version of newsletter at http://genuinesecurity.org/march2008newsletter.htm
Country Reports Mar '08
Compiled by Ellen-Rae Cachola
http://genuinesecurity.org/reportsmarch2008.htm
Country Highlight – Hawaii
10,459 Miles From the Hot War: How Hawaii Is Impacted During Militarized "Peace"
By Annie Fukushima
"A mini-survey of different Hawaii residents and their perceptions of how militarism impacts Hawaii students/people resulted in a diversity of definitions of what militarism means: it is the exploitation of one nation-state over another that includes the exploitation of the indigenous/locals, it is a part of the everyday, it impacts families, it depends on notions of "protecting" the dominant nation and occupied territories, it is an expression of imperialism, and it is an institution". Read more and special highlight of Myla's story. http://genuinesecurity.org/countryhighlightmarch2008.htm
Insight Interview: Gwyn Kirk
Interview with Maikiko James
What do you think it would take to get the general public to be aware of the effects the US military has on countries where it continues to maintain bases? What do you think it would take to get it to care? "Information, a massive public education campaign. By itself, though, information doesn't change people. Meeting people and coming to care about them does; being challenged by people who matter to us. It's important to think about yourself as a person who has every right to know what's happening on the other side of the fence. Individualism is terrible in that we think we're only responsible for our own survival. And then there are all the distractions. There's something people are hungry for, and right now, in the US, it's "satisfied" by shopping or getting thin, or whatever. Relationships, creativity, those matter."
What are the most important aspects of a genuinely secure society or world?
Everyone having access to the necessities of life; being able to develop our full human potential, using our creativity, imagination. We're hindered so much in the current system that I don't think we know what full human potential is. More than basic human security it's really about thriving.
Read more: http://genuinesecurity.org/insightmarch2008.htm
Calendar of Events Mar '08
Compiled by Aileen Suzara
Get involved, connect and build awareness with events and actions held through the WGS network and other organizations. Upcoming event highlights are UC Berkeley's annual Empowering Women of Color Conference, PANA's API Sacred Sites Pilgrimage to the Sacramento River Delta, and more.
http://genuinesecurity.org/calendarmarch2008.htm
(Re)Collection: March 2008 Newsletter
Visit genuinesecurity.org/recollection.htm to learn about the editors and the newsletter, or email recollection@genuinesecurity.org
Mission Statement:
(RE)Collection is a newsletter that illuminates the work of those committed to a culture of peace. (RE)Collection developed from the collaboration of U.S. based activists who are part of the WGS connection. WGS envisions a world of genuine security based on justice, respect for others across national boundaries, and economic planning that meets people's needs, especially women and children. WGS work toward the creation of a society free of militarism, violence, and all forms of sexual exploitation, and for the safety, well-being, and long-term sustainability of our communities.
March 2008 Newsletter:
Comprehensive version of newsletter at http://genuinesecurity.org/march2008newsletter.htm
Country Reports Mar '08
Compiled by Ellen-Rae Cachola
http://genuinesecurity.org/reportsmarch2008.htm
Country Highlight – Hawaii
10,459 Miles From the Hot War: How Hawaii Is Impacted During Militarized "Peace"
By Annie Fukushima
"A mini-survey of different Hawaii residents and their perceptions of how militarism impacts Hawaii students/people resulted in a diversity of definitions of what militarism means: it is the exploitation of one nation-state over another that includes the exploitation of the indigenous/locals, it is a part of the everyday, it impacts families, it depends on notions of "protecting" the dominant nation and occupied territories, it is an expression of imperialism, and it is an institution". Read more and special highlight of Myla's story. http://genuinesecurity.org/countryhighlightmarch2008.htm
Insight Interview: Gwyn Kirk
Interview with Maikiko James
What do you think it would take to get the general public to be aware of the effects the US military has on countries where it continues to maintain bases? What do you think it would take to get it to care? "Information, a massive public education campaign. By itself, though, information doesn't change people. Meeting people and coming to care about them does; being challenged by people who matter to us. It's important to think about yourself as a person who has every right to know what's happening on the other side of the fence. Individualism is terrible in that we think we're only responsible for our own survival. And then there are all the distractions. There's something people are hungry for, and right now, in the US, it's "satisfied" by shopping or getting thin, or whatever. Relationships, creativity, those matter."
What are the most important aspects of a genuinely secure society or world?
Everyone having access to the necessities of life; being able to develop our full human potential, using our creativity, imagination. We're hindered so much in the current system that I don't think we know what full human potential is. More than basic human security it's really about thriving.
Read more: http://genuinesecurity.org/insightmarch2008.htm
Calendar of Events Mar '08
Compiled by Aileen Suzara
Get involved, connect and build awareness with events and actions held through the WGS network and other organizations. Upcoming event highlights are UC Berkeley's annual Empowering Women of Color Conference, PANA's API Sacred Sites Pilgrimage to the Sacramento River Delta, and more.
http://genuinesecurity.org/calendarmarch2008.htm
Friday, March 7, 2008
Uncovering the silences & trauma of Asian rural labor in California: remembering the wounds of Empire and recovering the soul of Asian America
This page has been moved to www.panainstitute.org
_________________________________________
Gordon Lee copyright 2008 All Rights Reserved
Based on a presentation made by Civil Liberty and Faith Visiting Scholar Dr. Gordon Lee at the PANA Institute on March 7, 2008, in preparation for the PANA Pilgrimage to the Sacramento River Delta.
I. Who are we, and what is our relationship to the past?
Loss of memory is a symptom of colonization and its negation of our experiences.
“I was Tunisian, therefore colonized. I discovered few aspects of my life and my personality that were untouched by this fact. The colonial reality was all encompassing. One was affected even if one was not aware of it. Defensive attitudes arose out of this reality and became in-grained as a part of our personality. However, colonialism was not merely satisfied with altering our brain. It turned to the past of our people and distorted, disfigured, and destroyed it.” (Memmi, 1965.)
“The maps I have learned are dangerously incomplete, the histories I have studied absurdly one-sided. In my schooling I have been taught that imperialism is natural, that the technologies required to further such development express evolution’s highest offering, that people living sustainably are laughably anachronistic. Via corporate science and advertising, I have been told that the human organism is nothing more than a shave of DNA, my yearning for community can be answered by a laptop computer, eating a burger at the airport is culture, corporate domination is free trade and democracy.” (Glendinning, 1999.)
“For the subjugated and colonized, the presentation of such a story as one of admirable accomplishments is an added injury, a second trauma, much like the first. For each generation thereafter the conquest is repeated, the wounds are buried deeper, hidden in-between the lines of contemporary narratives and in the complex silences of the unspoken and the forgotten.
"My entire education has been shaped by projections of conquest. The task now is to expand beyond the identity and experience of the Empire world. It is to learn the stories so long squelched and denied: of native peoples, the vanquished, losers in war, survivors of conquest, the other side of the story. The task is to realize the culture and communities that have been erased. The task is to remember. My people. Our history. The good and the horrendous, nothing left out, colonizer and colonized indelibly intermingled, indelibly embraced.” (Glendinning, 1999.)
II. How did we get here?
Migration and diaspora have been products of industrialization and colonization.
In the second half of the 19th century Western European and American economies transformed global realities, initiating the first wave of the modern diaspora. The industrial revolution with its new technologies of production drastically altered the world, elevating some nations into global empires, and, at the same time, plunging others into subservient colonial territories.
In 1839, England’s emerging Empire attacked China in the first of the Opium Wars. In 1853, Commodore Perry steamed in Tokyo Bay with his infamous Black ships. In 1898, in the aftermath of the Spanish American War, the U.S. acquired the Philippines, Hawaii, Cuba and Puerto Rico. During this era colonies were created and maintained through military force; local and national economies were destroyed and altered to fit the needs of the industrializing nations. In this context rural economies in these countries collapsed, thousands, hundreds of thousands of peasants and farmers were displaced, thrown off their lands.
During the same period, on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, demand for labor, particularly agricultural labor, increased due to industrialization and expansion of the economy in the U.S. The end of legal slavery in 1864 intensified the need for labor. In the 1880s in California, a shift from wheat to fruit production along with new agricultural technologies caused a major transformation in the regional economy. It increased the total area of cultivated land as well as the labor needed to work it. The completion of the transcontinental railroad incorporated California into the national economy, providing it with access to Midwest and East Coast markets. The refrigerated railroad car, introduced in 1888, allowed fresh fruit to be sent over long distances. Accelerated urbanization throughout the United States, arising out of the growth and explosion of manufacturing and industrial production, increased the demand for fresh produce. For the first time in U.S. history, one state, California, became the principal supplier of fresh fruit and produce for cities throughout the entire country.
In this context, displacement of farmers globally and demands for labor in the Americas, our predecessors crossed previously impassable national boundaries, joining what was becoming a growing colonial diaspora and some were drawn to San Francisco, Stockton, Sacramento and the San Joaquin Valley in central California (as well as to many other places in the Americas).
III. What happened when we got here?
Anti-Asian narratives and practices were not based on ignorance, but were a way of justifying treating Asians as sub-human and second-class, and maintaining power over other working class Americans.
The Chinese reclaimed land in the Sacramento Delta, ran canneries, started truck farms, developed asparagus, potatoes, onions, celery, strawberries, salmon, abalone, crab, and seaweed harvesting. We built temples in Weaverville, Fiddletown, and other parts of California. We constructed miles of solid rock walls for the fencing of cattle and huge underground tunnels for wineries in the north. We laid miles and miles of railroad track where no one dared.
After the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, the Nikkei began to fill the labor needs and demands of the growing economies in the western United States. We worked primarily in the agricultural, railroad, mining, lumber and fishing industries that extended from the Pacific Coast into adjacent western states and Alaska. By 1908, we had become the dominant labor force in agriculture. Issei farm workers were concentrated in labor-intensive crops, including sugar beets, grapes, fruits, berries, vegetables and hops. However, we were not hired for higher paying jobs in the cigar, shoe and garment industries.
For workers it was not uncommon for “twenty to thirty [to] sleep alongside each other in fieldsheds on the edge of fruit orchards. These sheds were called camps ... The camps are worse than dog and pig pens. They are totally unfit for human beings to sleep in. Rain and moisture seep down from the roofs. Winds blow nightly through all four walls. It’s like seeing beggars living beneath bridges. No one, not even dirt-poor peasants, wants to live in such unpleasant and filthy surroundings. These camps are the reason why so many robust workers become ill and die” (Ichioka, 1988, p.83).
The intensity and duration of the workday and the psychological impact of cultural alienation, racism and powerlessness sometimes resulted in death. Between 1898 and 1907, a hundred and eighty-two Nikkei laborers died in Fresno County, California, alone. Between 1900 and 1902, ninety-nine persons died in the Sacramento area. For many others psychological retreat became a way of life.
After the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924, Japanese were permanently excluded from entry into the U.S. and Filipinos were brought in to replace them. We found ourselves in the same situation as the Chinese and Japanese before us.
Our role as coolie and semi-slave labor along with intensified oppression against “white” workers gave rise to the construction of the “Oriental.” Upper classes and growing industries wanted us as respectful servants and cheap labor. But the working classes vigorously opposed us because we were perceived as a threat to their standard of living, family unit, and way of life. Anti-Oriental campaigns became a major factor in California politics from the 1850s.
The narrative of Manifest Destiny proudly proclaimed the inherent right of Anglo-Saxons to inherit all of the riches of the U.S. as God-given and viewed all other “races,” including non-Anglo-Saxon Europeans, to be culturally, mentally and physically inferior. The Chinese and other “Orientals” were portrayed as sub-human, animal-like, inferior, physically grotesque, morally depraved and carriers of deadly diseases (Choy, 1994). Orientals or Yellows were ranked as undesirable along with Indians or Reds and Niggers or Blacks.
Yellow journalists and exclusionists warned that if the Asian invasion were not stopped, the result would be the destruction of the American family and the end of the American way of life. In 1885, in an illustration entitled “Consequences of Coolieism” an American family was portrayed with the father lying dead on the floor after committing suicide because he loses his job as a result of cheap immigrant labor, the mother in despair at the loss of her husband, and the daughter smoking opium from the evil influences of Chinese culture (Choy, 1994, p.125).
In the 1850s we were seen and identified as a part of its immoral excesses of the Gold Rush and representatives of industrial wage slavery. The Oriental representation came to embody all of the negative dislocations, effects and symptoms of industrial capitalism. The principally working class, formerly small producer, settlers in California experienced our presence as a psychological as well as economic crisis. Because of our presence their vision of California as a place for the restoration of a white republic was revealed instead as a center of capitalist production. From their perspective, in order for society to be renewed, restored, it must be cleansed. In order for this cleansing, we must be expelled.
In this context it is not that surprising that Denis Kearney, an Irish American politician, organized the Workingmen’s Party of California in 1877 with the slogan, “The Chinese Must Go!”
The Marin Journal wrote:
"That he [the Chinese] is a slave, reduced to the lowest terms of beggarly economy, and is no fit competitor for an American freeman.
"That he herds in scores, in small dens, where a white man and wife could hardly breathe and has none of the wants of a civilized white man.
"That he has neither wife nor child, nor expects to have any.
"That his sister is a prostitute from instinct, religion, education, and interest and degrading to all around her.
"That American men, women and children cannot be what free people should be, and compete with such degraded creatures in the labor market.
"That wherever they are numerous, as in San Francisco, by a secret machinery of their own, they defy the law, keep up the manners and customs of China, and utterly disregard all the laws of health, decency and morality.
"That they are driving the white population from the state, reducing laboring men to despair, laboring women to prostitution, and boys and girls to hoodlums and convicts.
"That the health, wealth, prosperity and happiness of our State demand their expulsion from our shores."
(Lee, 1999, p.62).
The Party accused the Chinese of stealing jobs from whites and advocated for the exclusion of Chinese. They held mass meetings, incited riots and perpetrated violence against the Chinese community.
IV. The effects on us?
Affidavit of Lum May, June 3rd, 1886. (Pfaelzer, 2007.)
"I was born in Canton, China, and am a subject of the Chinese Empire. I am 51 years old. Have been in America about eleven years and have been doing business in Tacoma for ten years. My business there was that of keeping dry goods, provisions, medicines and general merchandise store.
"I resided with my family in Tacoma on the corner of Railroad Street some little distance from Chinatown. At that time I would say there were eight or nine hundred Chinese persons in and about Tacoma who were forcibly expelled by the white people of Tacoma. Twenty days previously to the 3rd of November, 1885, a committee of white persons waited upon the Chinese at their residences and ordered them to leave the city.
"I asked General Sprague and other citizens for protection for myself and the Chinese people. The General said he would see and do what he could. About half past 9 o clock in the morning, a large crowd of citizens of Tacoma marched down to Chinatown and told all the Chinese that the whole Chinese population of Tacoma must leave town by half past one o clock in the afternoon of that day. There must have been in the neighborhood of 1000 people in the crowd of white people though I cannot tell how many. They went to all the Chinese houses and establishments and notified the Chinese to leave. Where the doors were locked they broke forcibly into the houses smashing in doors and breaking in windows. Some of the crowd was armed with pistols, some with clubs. They acted in a rude boisterous and threatening manner, dragging and kicking the Chinese out of their houses.
"My wife refused to go and some of the white persons dragged her out of the house. From the excitement, the fright and the losses we sustained through the riot she lost her reason, and has ever since been hopelessly insane. She threatens to kill people with a hatchet or any other weapon she can get hold of. The outrages I and my family suffered at the hands of the mob has utterly ruined me. I make no claim, however, for my wife’s insanity or the anguish I have suffered. My wife was perfectly sane before the riot.
"I saw my countrymen marched out of Tacoma. They presented a sad spectacle. Some had lost their trunks, some their blankets, some were crying for their things. Armed white men were behind the Chinese, on horseback sternly urging them on. It was raining and blowing hard. On the 5th of November all the Chinese houses situated on the wharf were burnt down by incendiaries."
This were not an isolated incident. From Eureka and Arcata to Seattle and Tacoma violent and well publicized purges sparked similar actions in small towns and cities up and down the West Coast. Riverside, Santa Cruz, Stockton, Napa, San Buenaventura, Tulare, Antioch, Wheatland, Bloomfield, Sonora, Sumner, Washington Territory, and East Portland, Oregon to name a few.
V. What did we do?
Despite the obvious unequal power relationship we were not merely passive objects or victims. We did not accept conditions as they found them. We vigorously defended ourselves and contested the limits imposed on us. We purchased arms, created organizations to protect our jobs, refused to abandon our homes, and despite overwhelming barriers, asserted our rights through the U.S. legal system. For example, the Chinese in Tacoma, assisted by the Chinese Consul in San Francisco, compelled the U.S. attorney to arrest the mayor of Tacoma, the chief of police, two councilmen, a probate court judge, and the president of the YMCA. They filed seventeen civil claims against the U.S. government for a total of $103,365. Despite all efforts against us we survived.
VI. How were we affected?
For those who lived in this period, there was intensive and continuous trauma, psychological and physical, individual and collective. For those who endured and resisted, it hardened them. For those who fell, there was little time to mourn. It was written:
* * * * *
The futile sweat
Our many years in America are wasted.
* * * * *
Our immigrant history in its last pages
In confinement we are in hibernation.
* * * * *
(Ichioka, 1988)
VII. Silencing and our Shadows
Our memories of agricultural labor have been silenced by the "better opportunity" and the "good immigrant" narratives.
The shadow of intra-ethnic conflict.
As a result, the racial violence and cultural trauma many of our predecessors endured as coolies and pollutants have been silenced. These experiences have been erased, deleted from our memories, and replaced (like find and replace) with narratives and recollections of “better opportunity” and the “good immigrant”. These stories go something like. “Suffering is good, normal, and temporary. It’s a way of proving yourself. If you work hard enough, eventually you’ll make it. It’s what everybody has to go through and ultimately has a happy ending. Things weren’t really that bad.”
In response, Ben Tong (1971) wrote: “Chinese America moves and expresses its being in terms of a psychology wrought from the crucible of a historical experience now barely discernible on the surface of the collective consciousness. This was the experience of total repression by a white racist society.” We were seen and treated not only not as “Americans,” but as yellow periled “aliens.” In today’s Asian American narratives the intensity and depth of these stories are rarely heard. Instead, we hear and continuously re-tell stories of “successful” potato kings.
The effect of this shadow is the disconnection from our agricultural labor history and from our connection to the land. As in the films Life is Beautiful and Pan’s Labyrinth, these experiences have been deleted and reimagined as our communities were urgently defending themselves from racial exclusionism and cultural negation. For example, some of the Issei (first generation Nikkei) proclaimed the Japanese community as heroic American pioneers and overseas colonists. Their heroes became embodiments of Horatio Alger, not Thomas Paine. As a result we bestowed historical significance on the entrepreneurial class and erased experiences of exploitation and poverty. Post World War II model minority narratives have reinforced these notions and buried the memories even deeper.
During these earlier times ethnic nationalism was constructed in part as racial pride and ethnic solidarity in response and as a defense to institutionalized white supremacy. However, it sometimes rationalized and perpetuated doctrines of racial supremacy over other Asians and other people of color. While it is important to place this in the context of the international colonization and the larger racial hierarchy in the U.S., this does not explain or justify why these negative aspects of ethnic nationalism are often not recognized or discussed within our own communities today.
This can be seen in the fields of the San Joaquin Valley. When a Nisei woman married a Filipino man, an article in a local Japanese newspaper wrote: “The Japanese race, possessing superior racial traits unparalleled in the world, are destined for ceaseless development and prosperity. On the other hand, those people, whose homeland contents itself with being a third class nation would see nothing but poverty and misery in their lives. If their lazy blood becomes part of the Japanese race through interracial marriage, it would eventually offset the racial superiority of the Japanese. Racial purity is a precondition for the welfare of the second generation.”
This form of ethnic nationalism defined the interests of the Nikkei community with that of its predominantly male farmers, merchants, and professionals. It denied and silenced the common interests and experiences of Nikkei, Filipino, Chinese, Mexican, Native and African Americans. Instead, it reproduced and internalized notions of white supremacy.
VIII. Recovering Memory and the Praxis of Post-Colonial Pilgrimage
Recovering memory is a practice of decolonization and the restoration of our deeper selves (souls). The soul of Asian America lies buried in the fields of the central valley of California as well as in the back alleys and basements of Chinatown, Manilatown, Nihonmachi, Little Saigon, et. al.
"To transform the traumatic we must re-enter it fully, and allow the full weight of grief to pass through our hearts. It is not possible to digest atrocity without tasting it first, without assessing on our tongues the full bitterness of it. Only through mourning everything we have lost can we discover that we have in fact survived; that our spirits are indestructible." (Morales, 1998.)
"The scapegoat is one of many images that suggest moving between remembering and forgetting. Along with artists, priests, shamans, clowns and witches, the scapegoat crosses the boundary of the collective and deals with material too fraught with danger and chaos for ordinary hands. Along with these others the scapegoat serves to redeem the old modalities, by having to confront and struggle with the material repressed by the culture." (Perera, 1986.)
"Just as the individual recovering from abuse must reconstruct the story of her undeserved suffering in a way that gives it new meaning, and herself a rebuilt and invulnerable sense of worth, the victims of collective abuse and their progeny need ways to reconstruct history in a way that restores a sense of our inherent value as human beings, not simply in our usefulness to the goals of the elites." (Morales, 1998.)
This is shadow work, and this is the praxis of post-colonial pilgrimages.
References:
Choy, P. Dong, L. & Hom, M. (Eds.). (1994). Coming man: 19th century American perceptions of the Chinese. Hong Kong, Peoples Republic of China: University of Washington Press.
Glendinning, C. (1999). Off the map (an expedition deep into imperialism, the global economy, and other earthly whereabouts). Boston: Shambhala.
Ichioka, Yuji. (1988). The Issei: The world of the first generation Japanese immigrants, 1885-1924. New York: the Free Press.
Lee, R. (1999). Orientals: Asian Americans in popular culture. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Memmi, A. (1965). The colonizer and the colonized. Boston: Beacon Press.
Morales, A. (1998). Medicine stories: history, culture, and the politics of integrity. Cambridge, MA: South End Press.
Perera, S. (1986). The scapegoat complex: toward a mythology of shadow and guilt. Toronto, Canada: Inner City Books.
Pfaelzer, J. (2007). Driven out: the forgotten war against Chinese Americans. New York: Random House.
Tong, B. (1971). The ghetto of the mind: notes on the historical psychology of Chinese America. Amerasia Journal 1(3), 1-31.
_________________________________________
Gordon Lee copyright 2008 All Rights Reserved
Based on a presentation made by Civil Liberty and Faith Visiting Scholar Dr. Gordon Lee at the PANA Institute on March 7, 2008, in preparation for the PANA Pilgrimage to the Sacramento River Delta.
I. Who are we, and what is our relationship to the past?
Loss of memory is a symptom of colonization and its negation of our experiences.
“I was Tunisian, therefore colonized. I discovered few aspects of my life and my personality that were untouched by this fact. The colonial reality was all encompassing. One was affected even if one was not aware of it. Defensive attitudes arose out of this reality and became in-grained as a part of our personality. However, colonialism was not merely satisfied with altering our brain. It turned to the past of our people and distorted, disfigured, and destroyed it.” (Memmi, 1965.)
“The maps I have learned are dangerously incomplete, the histories I have studied absurdly one-sided. In my schooling I have been taught that imperialism is natural, that the technologies required to further such development express evolution’s highest offering, that people living sustainably are laughably anachronistic. Via corporate science and advertising, I have been told that the human organism is nothing more than a shave of DNA, my yearning for community can be answered by a laptop computer, eating a burger at the airport is culture, corporate domination is free trade and democracy.” (Glendinning, 1999.)
“For the subjugated and colonized, the presentation of such a story as one of admirable accomplishments is an added injury, a second trauma, much like the first. For each generation thereafter the conquest is repeated, the wounds are buried deeper, hidden in-between the lines of contemporary narratives and in the complex silences of the unspoken and the forgotten.
"My entire education has been shaped by projections of conquest. The task now is to expand beyond the identity and experience of the Empire world. It is to learn the stories so long squelched and denied: of native peoples, the vanquished, losers in war, survivors of conquest, the other side of the story. The task is to realize the culture and communities that have been erased. The task is to remember. My people. Our history. The good and the horrendous, nothing left out, colonizer and colonized indelibly intermingled, indelibly embraced.” (Glendinning, 1999.)
II. How did we get here?
Migration and diaspora have been products of industrialization and colonization.
In the second half of the 19th century Western European and American economies transformed global realities, initiating the first wave of the modern diaspora. The industrial revolution with its new technologies of production drastically altered the world, elevating some nations into global empires, and, at the same time, plunging others into subservient colonial territories.
In 1839, England’s emerging Empire attacked China in the first of the Opium Wars. In 1853, Commodore Perry steamed in Tokyo Bay with his infamous Black ships. In 1898, in the aftermath of the Spanish American War, the U.S. acquired the Philippines, Hawaii, Cuba and Puerto Rico. During this era colonies were created and maintained through military force; local and national economies were destroyed and altered to fit the needs of the industrializing nations. In this context rural economies in these countries collapsed, thousands, hundreds of thousands of peasants and farmers were displaced, thrown off their lands.
During the same period, on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, demand for labor, particularly agricultural labor, increased due to industrialization and expansion of the economy in the U.S. The end of legal slavery in 1864 intensified the need for labor. In the 1880s in California, a shift from wheat to fruit production along with new agricultural technologies caused a major transformation in the regional economy. It increased the total area of cultivated land as well as the labor needed to work it. The completion of the transcontinental railroad incorporated California into the national economy, providing it with access to Midwest and East Coast markets. The refrigerated railroad car, introduced in 1888, allowed fresh fruit to be sent over long distances. Accelerated urbanization throughout the United States, arising out of the growth and explosion of manufacturing and industrial production, increased the demand for fresh produce. For the first time in U.S. history, one state, California, became the principal supplier of fresh fruit and produce for cities throughout the entire country.
In this context, displacement of farmers globally and demands for labor in the Americas, our predecessors crossed previously impassable national boundaries, joining what was becoming a growing colonial diaspora and some were drawn to San Francisco, Stockton, Sacramento and the San Joaquin Valley in central California (as well as to many other places in the Americas).
III. What happened when we got here?
Anti-Asian narratives and practices were not based on ignorance, but were a way of justifying treating Asians as sub-human and second-class, and maintaining power over other working class Americans.
The Chinese reclaimed land in the Sacramento Delta, ran canneries, started truck farms, developed asparagus, potatoes, onions, celery, strawberries, salmon, abalone, crab, and seaweed harvesting. We built temples in Weaverville, Fiddletown, and other parts of California. We constructed miles of solid rock walls for the fencing of cattle and huge underground tunnels for wineries in the north. We laid miles and miles of railroad track where no one dared.
After the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, the Nikkei began to fill the labor needs and demands of the growing economies in the western United States. We worked primarily in the agricultural, railroad, mining, lumber and fishing industries that extended from the Pacific Coast into adjacent western states and Alaska. By 1908, we had become the dominant labor force in agriculture. Issei farm workers were concentrated in labor-intensive crops, including sugar beets, grapes, fruits, berries, vegetables and hops. However, we were not hired for higher paying jobs in the cigar, shoe and garment industries.
For workers it was not uncommon for “twenty to thirty [to] sleep alongside each other in fieldsheds on the edge of fruit orchards. These sheds were called camps ... The camps are worse than dog and pig pens. They are totally unfit for human beings to sleep in. Rain and moisture seep down from the roofs. Winds blow nightly through all four walls. It’s like seeing beggars living beneath bridges. No one, not even dirt-poor peasants, wants to live in such unpleasant and filthy surroundings. These camps are the reason why so many robust workers become ill and die” (Ichioka, 1988, p.83).
The intensity and duration of the workday and the psychological impact of cultural alienation, racism and powerlessness sometimes resulted in death. Between 1898 and 1907, a hundred and eighty-two Nikkei laborers died in Fresno County, California, alone. Between 1900 and 1902, ninety-nine persons died in the Sacramento area. For many others psychological retreat became a way of life.
After the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924, Japanese were permanently excluded from entry into the U.S. and Filipinos were brought in to replace them. We found ourselves in the same situation as the Chinese and Japanese before us.
Our role as coolie and semi-slave labor along with intensified oppression against “white” workers gave rise to the construction of the “Oriental.” Upper classes and growing industries wanted us as respectful servants and cheap labor. But the working classes vigorously opposed us because we were perceived as a threat to their standard of living, family unit, and way of life. Anti-Oriental campaigns became a major factor in California politics from the 1850s.
The narrative of Manifest Destiny proudly proclaimed the inherent right of Anglo-Saxons to inherit all of the riches of the U.S. as God-given and viewed all other “races,” including non-Anglo-Saxon Europeans, to be culturally, mentally and physically inferior. The Chinese and other “Orientals” were portrayed as sub-human, animal-like, inferior, physically grotesque, morally depraved and carriers of deadly diseases (Choy, 1994). Orientals or Yellows were ranked as undesirable along with Indians or Reds and Niggers or Blacks.
Yellow journalists and exclusionists warned that if the Asian invasion were not stopped, the result would be the destruction of the American family and the end of the American way of life. In 1885, in an illustration entitled “Consequences of Coolieism” an American family was portrayed with the father lying dead on the floor after committing suicide because he loses his job as a result of cheap immigrant labor, the mother in despair at the loss of her husband, and the daughter smoking opium from the evil influences of Chinese culture (Choy, 1994, p.125).
In the 1850s we were seen and identified as a part of its immoral excesses of the Gold Rush and representatives of industrial wage slavery. The Oriental representation came to embody all of the negative dislocations, effects and symptoms of industrial capitalism. The principally working class, formerly small producer, settlers in California experienced our presence as a psychological as well as economic crisis. Because of our presence their vision of California as a place for the restoration of a white republic was revealed instead as a center of capitalist production. From their perspective, in order for society to be renewed, restored, it must be cleansed. In order for this cleansing, we must be expelled.
In this context it is not that surprising that Denis Kearney, an Irish American politician, organized the Workingmen’s Party of California in 1877 with the slogan, “The Chinese Must Go!”
The Marin Journal wrote:
"That he [the Chinese] is a slave, reduced to the lowest terms of beggarly economy, and is no fit competitor for an American freeman.
"That he herds in scores, in small dens, where a white man and wife could hardly breathe and has none of the wants of a civilized white man.
"That he has neither wife nor child, nor expects to have any.
"That his sister is a prostitute from instinct, religion, education, and interest and degrading to all around her.
"That American men, women and children cannot be what free people should be, and compete with such degraded creatures in the labor market.
"That wherever they are numerous, as in San Francisco, by a secret machinery of their own, they defy the law, keep up the manners and customs of China, and utterly disregard all the laws of health, decency and morality.
"That they are driving the white population from the state, reducing laboring men to despair, laboring women to prostitution, and boys and girls to hoodlums and convicts.
"That the health, wealth, prosperity and happiness of our State demand their expulsion from our shores."
(Lee, 1999, p.62).
The Party accused the Chinese of stealing jobs from whites and advocated for the exclusion of Chinese. They held mass meetings, incited riots and perpetrated violence against the Chinese community.
IV. The effects on us?
Affidavit of Lum May, June 3rd, 1886. (Pfaelzer, 2007.)
"I was born in Canton, China, and am a subject of the Chinese Empire. I am 51 years old. Have been in America about eleven years and have been doing business in Tacoma for ten years. My business there was that of keeping dry goods, provisions, medicines and general merchandise store.
"I resided with my family in Tacoma on the corner of Railroad Street some little distance from Chinatown. At that time I would say there were eight or nine hundred Chinese persons in and about Tacoma who were forcibly expelled by the white people of Tacoma. Twenty days previously to the 3rd of November, 1885, a committee of white persons waited upon the Chinese at their residences and ordered them to leave the city.
"I asked General Sprague and other citizens for protection for myself and the Chinese people. The General said he would see and do what he could. About half past 9 o clock in the morning, a large crowd of citizens of Tacoma marched down to Chinatown and told all the Chinese that the whole Chinese population of Tacoma must leave town by half past one o clock in the afternoon of that day. There must have been in the neighborhood of 1000 people in the crowd of white people though I cannot tell how many. They went to all the Chinese houses and establishments and notified the Chinese to leave. Where the doors were locked they broke forcibly into the houses smashing in doors and breaking in windows. Some of the crowd was armed with pistols, some with clubs. They acted in a rude boisterous and threatening manner, dragging and kicking the Chinese out of their houses.
"My wife refused to go and some of the white persons dragged her out of the house. From the excitement, the fright and the losses we sustained through the riot she lost her reason, and has ever since been hopelessly insane. She threatens to kill people with a hatchet or any other weapon she can get hold of. The outrages I and my family suffered at the hands of the mob has utterly ruined me. I make no claim, however, for my wife’s insanity or the anguish I have suffered. My wife was perfectly sane before the riot.
"I saw my countrymen marched out of Tacoma. They presented a sad spectacle. Some had lost their trunks, some their blankets, some were crying for their things. Armed white men were behind the Chinese, on horseback sternly urging them on. It was raining and blowing hard. On the 5th of November all the Chinese houses situated on the wharf were burnt down by incendiaries."
This were not an isolated incident. From Eureka and Arcata to Seattle and Tacoma violent and well publicized purges sparked similar actions in small towns and cities up and down the West Coast. Riverside, Santa Cruz, Stockton, Napa, San Buenaventura, Tulare, Antioch, Wheatland, Bloomfield, Sonora, Sumner, Washington Territory, and East Portland, Oregon to name a few.
V. What did we do?
Despite the obvious unequal power relationship we were not merely passive objects or victims. We did not accept conditions as they found them. We vigorously defended ourselves and contested the limits imposed on us. We purchased arms, created organizations to protect our jobs, refused to abandon our homes, and despite overwhelming barriers, asserted our rights through the U.S. legal system. For example, the Chinese in Tacoma, assisted by the Chinese Consul in San Francisco, compelled the U.S. attorney to arrest the mayor of Tacoma, the chief of police, two councilmen, a probate court judge, and the president of the YMCA. They filed seventeen civil claims against the U.S. government for a total of $103,365. Despite all efforts against us we survived.
VI. How were we affected?
For those who lived in this period, there was intensive and continuous trauma, psychological and physical, individual and collective. For those who endured and resisted, it hardened them. For those who fell, there was little time to mourn. It was written:
* * * * *
The futile sweat
Our many years in America are wasted.
* * * * *
Our immigrant history in its last pages
In confinement we are in hibernation.
* * * * *
(Ichioka, 1988)
VII. Silencing and our Shadows
Our memories of agricultural labor have been silenced by the "better opportunity" and the "good immigrant" narratives.
The shadow of intra-ethnic conflict.
As a result, the racial violence and cultural trauma many of our predecessors endured as coolies and pollutants have been silenced. These experiences have been erased, deleted from our memories, and replaced (like find and replace) with narratives and recollections of “better opportunity” and the “good immigrant”. These stories go something like. “Suffering is good, normal, and temporary. It’s a way of proving yourself. If you work hard enough, eventually you’ll make it. It’s what everybody has to go through and ultimately has a happy ending. Things weren’t really that bad.”
In response, Ben Tong (1971) wrote: “Chinese America moves and expresses its being in terms of a psychology wrought from the crucible of a historical experience now barely discernible on the surface of the collective consciousness. This was the experience of total repression by a white racist society.” We were seen and treated not only not as “Americans,” but as yellow periled “aliens.” In today’s Asian American narratives the intensity and depth of these stories are rarely heard. Instead, we hear and continuously re-tell stories of “successful” potato kings.
The effect of this shadow is the disconnection from our agricultural labor history and from our connection to the land. As in the films Life is Beautiful and Pan’s Labyrinth, these experiences have been deleted and reimagined as our communities were urgently defending themselves from racial exclusionism and cultural negation. For example, some of the Issei (first generation Nikkei) proclaimed the Japanese community as heroic American pioneers and overseas colonists. Their heroes became embodiments of Horatio Alger, not Thomas Paine. As a result we bestowed historical significance on the entrepreneurial class and erased experiences of exploitation and poverty. Post World War II model minority narratives have reinforced these notions and buried the memories even deeper.
During these earlier times ethnic nationalism was constructed in part as racial pride and ethnic solidarity in response and as a defense to institutionalized white supremacy. However, it sometimes rationalized and perpetuated doctrines of racial supremacy over other Asians and other people of color. While it is important to place this in the context of the international colonization and the larger racial hierarchy in the U.S., this does not explain or justify why these negative aspects of ethnic nationalism are often not recognized or discussed within our own communities today.
This can be seen in the fields of the San Joaquin Valley. When a Nisei woman married a Filipino man, an article in a local Japanese newspaper wrote: “The Japanese race, possessing superior racial traits unparalleled in the world, are destined for ceaseless development and prosperity. On the other hand, those people, whose homeland contents itself with being a third class nation would see nothing but poverty and misery in their lives. If their lazy blood becomes part of the Japanese race through interracial marriage, it would eventually offset the racial superiority of the Japanese. Racial purity is a precondition for the welfare of the second generation.”
This form of ethnic nationalism defined the interests of the Nikkei community with that of its predominantly male farmers, merchants, and professionals. It denied and silenced the common interests and experiences of Nikkei, Filipino, Chinese, Mexican, Native and African Americans. Instead, it reproduced and internalized notions of white supremacy.
VIII. Recovering Memory and the Praxis of Post-Colonial Pilgrimage
Recovering memory is a practice of decolonization and the restoration of our deeper selves (souls). The soul of Asian America lies buried in the fields of the central valley of California as well as in the back alleys and basements of Chinatown, Manilatown, Nihonmachi, Little Saigon, et. al.
"To transform the traumatic we must re-enter it fully, and allow the full weight of grief to pass through our hearts. It is not possible to digest atrocity without tasting it first, without assessing on our tongues the full bitterness of it. Only through mourning everything we have lost can we discover that we have in fact survived; that our spirits are indestructible." (Morales, 1998.)
"The scapegoat is one of many images that suggest moving between remembering and forgetting. Along with artists, priests, shamans, clowns and witches, the scapegoat crosses the boundary of the collective and deals with material too fraught with danger and chaos for ordinary hands. Along with these others the scapegoat serves to redeem the old modalities, by having to confront and struggle with the material repressed by the culture." (Perera, 1986.)
"Just as the individual recovering from abuse must reconstruct the story of her undeserved suffering in a way that gives it new meaning, and herself a rebuilt and invulnerable sense of worth, the victims of collective abuse and their progeny need ways to reconstruct history in a way that restores a sense of our inherent value as human beings, not simply in our usefulness to the goals of the elites." (Morales, 1998.)
This is shadow work, and this is the praxis of post-colonial pilgrimages.
References:
Choy, P. Dong, L. & Hom, M. (Eds.). (1994). Coming man: 19th century American perceptions of the Chinese. Hong Kong, Peoples Republic of China: University of Washington Press.
Glendinning, C. (1999). Off the map (an expedition deep into imperialism, the global economy, and other earthly whereabouts). Boston: Shambhala.
Ichioka, Yuji. (1988). The Issei: The world of the first generation Japanese immigrants, 1885-1924. New York: the Free Press.
Lee, R. (1999). Orientals: Asian Americans in popular culture. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Memmi, A. (1965). The colonizer and the colonized. Boston: Beacon Press.
Morales, A. (1998). Medicine stories: history, culture, and the politics of integrity. Cambridge, MA: South End Press.
Perera, S. (1986). The scapegoat complex: toward a mythology of shadow and guilt. Toronto, Canada: Inner City Books.
Pfaelzer, J. (2007). Driven out: the forgotten war against Chinese Americans. New York: Random House.
Tong, B. (1971). The ghetto of the mind: notes on the historical psychology of Chinese America. Amerasia Journal 1(3), 1-31.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
PANA Oversight Committee Meets
PANA is pleased to announce the establishment of our new Oversight Committee, which held it first meeting on March 4, 2008. Tasks of the committee will include reviewing PANA’s staff and programs; supporting PANA through the retirement of Dr. Matsuoka (Dec. 2009) and the process of bringing on board our next Executive Director; and establishing a structure of governance for a growing and maturing PANA. Current members are:
Welcome, Oversight Committee members! Our gratitude to you for your energy, wisdom, and service.
- Dr. Benny Liew (chair), Associate Professor of New Testament at PSR
- Dr. Fumitaka Matsuoka (ex officio), PANA Executive Director and Robert Gordon Sproul Professor of Theology at PSR
- Dr. Russell Jeung, Associate Professor at San Francisco State University
- Dr. Boyung Lee, Associate Professor of Educational Ministries at PSR
- Mr. Russell Kaupu, PSR Board member and Attorney at Goodsill, Anderson Quinn & Stifel, Honolulu, HI
- Rev. Michael Yoshii, pastor of Buena Vista United Methodist Church, Alameda, CA
- Rev. Sharon MacArthur, pastor of Sycamore Congregational Church, El Cerrito, CA
Welcome, Oversight Committee members! Our gratitude to you for your energy, wisdom, and service.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
NRJ-API-LGBT marches in San Francisco Chinese New Year Parade
On February 23, 2008, Network on Religion and Justice (NRJ-API-LGBT) participants marched with GAPA and APIQWTC members in the San Francisco Chinese New Year Parade! Despite cold, rain, and dire storm warnings, we had 40 energetic marchers in our contingent this year. We ushered in the New Year with flair -- rainbow stoles, rainbow streamers, and bright red bilingual Marriage Equality ponchos! The theme of the float this year was "Three Generations of LGBT Family Love and Acceptance" -- featured on it were API LGBT grandparents, couples, and children taking a family portrait under a giant glittery rainbow.
Interviews from NRJ marchers are available via YouTube:
Interviews from NRJ marchers are available via YouTube:
Friday, February 1, 2008
Immersion photos from Eleazar Fernandez course: "Asian-Pacific Islander Diasporic Political Theology in the Context of Empire Building"
During the January 2008 intersession, PANA sponsored a course, "Asian-Pacific Islander Diasporic Political Theology in the Context of Empire Building" taught by our guest scholar Dr. Eleazar Fernandez, Professor of Constructive Theology at the United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities in Minnesota.
This course continued the PANA tradition of including "immersion" journeys out of the classroom and into sites of the API community.
One of the course participants, Rev. Jay Sapaen Watan (Youth Minister & Chaplain, St. Ambrose Episcopal Church, Foster City, CA) has posted his photos from the experience on Flickr.
- Photos from the Spiritual Walk to Filipino American Sacred Sites in San Francisco, guided by Christina Leaño, social justice activist and contemplative spiritual practitioner.
- More photos, from visits to Daly City (Pilipino Bayanihan Resource Center) and San Francisco (Filipino Community Center) with the Rev. Wilson de Ocera of Daly City UMC; also at PSR with Pastor Wilson and The Rev. Michael Yoshii of Buena Vista UMC.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
The Manzanar Experience: Coming to Terms with the Past & Deepening Our Understanding of the Present
PSR student Kathy Seibert writes:
The Manzanar Experience taught at San Leandro (CA) Community Church was the culmination of a class taken at Pacific School of Religion in affiliation with the Pacific and Asian North American (PANA) Institute. PANA offers a class entitled America's Internment: Theological Pilgrimage to Manzanar, in which students spend several weeks learning about the Japanese American internment before journeying to one of the actual sites of the incarceration of American citizens during WW II. For my final project, I chose to create a four-week long class to share what I had learned with my church family. We started by looking at the events that occurred immediately after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, moved on to a look at the camps themselves, then studied the legal ramifications of imprisoning one's own innocent citizens, and concluded with the work done by the children and grandchildren of the original internees to achieve redress and reparations.
The participants were surprised at the information I shared with them. Even today, one of the men in my class tells me that when he went to work and shared what he was learning, those people had no idea that the US government went down to places like Peru and kidnapped men, women, and children there to use in prisoner exchanges. I met the descendants of some of those illegally imprisoned Japanese Peruvians during my PANA class, and they are working very hard to get this information out, especially after the World Trade Center tragedy. All in all, everyone walked away with a bit more knowledge about a painful experience in American history, and they recognized that the same thing has happened to Muslim Americans and Arab Americans in the years after 9/11.
For more information, contact Kathy Seibert at kathy@seibert.net.
Kathy Seibert, a student at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, CA, taught a class on the Japanese American internment camps of WW II for San Leandro Community Church. The church experience was both a much clearer understanding of past atrocities as well as a deeper understanding of the present experiences of misunderstood and maligned groups. The article above was published in the January 2008 Model Ministries for Peace Rooted in Justice: a Newsletter for Partner Congregations of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America.
The Manzanar Experience taught at San Leandro (CA) Community Church was the culmination of a class taken at Pacific School of Religion in affiliation with the Pacific and Asian North American (PANA) Institute. PANA offers a class entitled America's Internment: Theological Pilgrimage to Manzanar, in which students spend several weeks learning about the Japanese American internment before journeying to one of the actual sites of the incarceration of American citizens during WW II. For my final project, I chose to create a four-week long class to share what I had learned with my church family. We started by looking at the events that occurred immediately after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, moved on to a look at the camps themselves, then studied the legal ramifications of imprisoning one's own innocent citizens, and concluded with the work done by the children and grandchildren of the original internees to achieve redress and reparations.
The participants were surprised at the information I shared with them. Even today, one of the men in my class tells me that when he went to work and shared what he was learning, those people had no idea that the US government went down to places like Peru and kidnapped men, women, and children there to use in prisoner exchanges. I met the descendants of some of those illegally imprisoned Japanese Peruvians during my PANA class, and they are working very hard to get this information out, especially after the World Trade Center tragedy. All in all, everyone walked away with a bit more knowledge about a painful experience in American history, and they recognized that the same thing has happened to Muslim Americans and Arab Americans in the years after 9/11.
For more information, contact Kathy Seibert at kathy@seibert.net.
Kathy Seibert, a student at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, CA, taught a class on the Japanese American internment camps of WW II for San Leandro Community Church. The church experience was both a much clearer understanding of past atrocities as well as a deeper understanding of the present experiences of misunderstood and maligned groups. The article above was published in the January 2008 Model Ministries for Peace Rooted in Justice: a Newsletter for Partner Congregations of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America.
Friday, January 25, 2008
In God's House trailer
A YouTube video trailer is now available for the groundbreaking PANA film In God's House: Asian American Lesbian and Gay Families in the Church.
"It’s time for us to have a conversation."
Asian American lesbians and gays have been largely invisible in Christian churches. Some Asian American churches silence the issue for fear of division and conflict. Other Asian American church leaders have condemned homosexuality and publicly protested against same-sex marriage. Yet lesbian and gay Asian Americans and their families worship and serve in churches every day. Where are their voices? This honest and thought-provoking film tells a story that the church needs to hear: that of Asian American Christian lesbian and gay people, their pastors, and their parents.
Watch this film.
It’s a place to begin.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Dr. Boyung Lee gains tenure
Dr. Boyung Lee has been promoted to associate professor of educational ministries, and become the first woman of color to receive tenure at PSR.Congratulations, Professor Lee!!!
Read the PSR press release.
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