PANA Institute Voices

This blog is moving

2009-06-05T14:08:00.000-07:00

PANA Voices can now be found at:

http://www.panainstitute.org/voices

We look forward to seeing you there!

Benediction for GTU Graduates of Color

2008-05-21T00:10:00.000-07:00

This post has been moved to:

http://www.panainstitute.org/fumitaka-matsuoka-blesses-gtu-graduates-color-2008

PANA and NRJ at the DisOrient Asian-American Film Festival in Eugene, Oregon

2008-05-15T13:24:00.000-07:00

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!

Nikkei: Four Generations – One Soul

2008-05-06T15:06:00.000-07:00

This post has been moved to:
http://www.panainstitute.org/manzanar-poem-nikkei-four-generations-one-soul

"Educating For Bhinneka Tunggal Ika: Multicultural Christian Religious Education for Youth in Indonesia" by Rev. Linna Gunawan

2008-04-23T16:56:00.000-07:00

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.

Gloria Morita recalls Executive Order 9066

2008-04-08T20:56:00.000-07:00

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.

"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

Delta Pilgrimage Flower Ritual: Return, Remember, Release

2008-03-29T17:04:00.000-07:00

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.

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.

. . .

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

More fully myself in a different way

2008-03-21T12:57:00.000-07:00

This post has been moved to:

http://www.panainstitute.org/jeanelle-ablola-jan-2008

Understanding the Impact of the Gold Rush on California Native People

2008-03-14T17:52:00.000-07:00

“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.

* * *

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.

(Re)Collection newslettter

2008-03-08T13:40:00.000-08:00

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

Uncovering the silences & trauma of Asian rural labor in California: remembering the wounds of Empire and recovering the soul of Asian America

2008-03-07T18:30:00.000-08:00

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.

PANA Oversight Committee Meets

2008-03-04T16:40:00.000-08:00

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:

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

Terms of these members will expire at the close of 2009.

Welcome, Oversight Committee members! Our gratitude to you for your energy, wisdom, and service.

NRJ-API-LGBT marches in San Francisco Chinese New Year Parade

2008-02-24T15:39:00.000-08:00

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:

Immersion photos from Eleazar Fernandez course: "Asian-Pacific Islander Diasporic Political Theology in the Context of Empire Building"

2008-02-01T18:02:00.000-08:00

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.

More about the course.

The Manzanar Experience: Coming to Terms with the Past & Deepening Our Understanding of the Present

2008-01-30T17:16:00.000-08:00

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.

In God's House trailer

2008-01-25T13:48:00.001-08:00

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.

www.ingodshouse.com

Dr. Boyung Lee gains tenure

2008-01-01T11:03:00.000-08:00

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.

Asian American Christian Theology: paper by Jessica Oya

2007-12-13T14:09:00.000-08:00

This post has been moved to the PANA website, here:

http://www.panainstitute.org/jessica-oya-asian-american-christian-theology-2007

David Kyuman Kim on Tavis Smiley Show

2007-11-27T15:09:00.000-08:00

Dr. David Kyuman Kim, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Connecticut College, Director of the Center for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity, and author of Melancholic Freedom: Agency and the Spirit of Politics (Oxford University Press, 2007), will appear on the PBS Tavis Smiley show on Thursday, December 20 to discuss his recent works.

Dr. Kim is a member of our annual APARRI conference. This year's conference will take place August 7-9, 2008 at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California.

Burma or Myanmar?

2007-11-19T15:34:00.000-08:00

This post has been moved to:

http://www.panainstitute.org/joe-cheah-burma-myanmar

Trangdai Tranguyen on the fires in southern California

2007-11-02T19:14:00.000-07:00

Firing up the Voices
by Trangdai Tranguyen

The air smells of death. The silence tastes morbid. The sky stops breathing. The ocean becomes distant.

On the balcony strewn with crunchy green leaves and inundated with suffocating ash, the plants and flowers let their leaves off, begging for water respite and CPR.

My nose is bleeding. The same way my heart bled on the empty endlessness of New Orleans freeways, in the boundless blankness of Biloxi neighborhoods, at the fathomless frustration in which disadvantaged Louisiana residents swayed. Months after the hurricanes, green trees pushed elbows with half-witted houses and dangling street lights, as if mocking, as if inviting, as if challenging.

Renters returned home – for they had no where else to go, or could not come to part with that piece of their heart. But there was another piece that they needed. A piece of paper.

A piece of paper is everything. Without it, they no longer exist. It is their life – which they no longer have. Elderly men displaced by wars, then displaced by flood, asked for assistance. They stood in line day in day out, only to be sent home empty handed from the relief stations overflowing with donated goods. Immigrant fishermen came for emergency stipends. They were told that their 'number' could not be located. A place of destruction: that was all they had. Nothing more.

Not many others came back. Yet those who took the risk to return home found themselves deprived of the aids that were reserved for the 'legitimate' who had safely relocated else where in their relatives' homes. Safely. Long ago.

Water. Fire. Different? Maybe so from aerial views. On the ground, the pattern repeats. On the ground, real things happen. It is the human life that is at risk, the marginal voices that resonate into thin air, the inequitable distribution of aids that persist, the refusal to acknowledge that certain lives have value, the violence of perpetuating discrimination.

These lives are not irrelevant. They get fish from the sea to the dock. They get food on the table. They clean the sheets. They water the plants. They build the freeways. They drive the trucks. They are the hands that craft tomorrow and the feet that move today in the most organic way.

Though they are treated as replaceable goods, they are not disposable. They are humans.

They are life.

Trangdai Tranguyen is a member of PANA's Civil Liberty and Faith Think Tank.

Introducing Jessica Oya

2007-11-01T11:31:00.000-07:00

Jessica Oya joined the PANA staff in fall of 2007. Welcome, Jessica!

Jessica says...

As a first-year MA student at PSR/GTU, I have found PANA's presence on PSR's campus to be incredibly refreshing. After having spent my undergraduate years at Scripps College, a member of the Claremont Colleges where we lacked any type of five-college resource center, coming to a school that provides support to their API students and members of the greater Berkeley/San Francisco area is a welcome change. In addition to my time at Scripps, I have also spent the last two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Kingdom of Swaziland, doing community HIV/AIDS education in a rural village. Living out in the rural area was a challenging experience, not because of the lack of amenities such as insulated houses, running water and electricity, but because of the feeling of detachment and lack of connection to an API community. Having had the opportunity to spend time with the PANA staff and the participants at the Capturing the Heart conference a few weekends ago, I am beginning to gain a sense of the API community within the Bay Area. Needless to say, it’s great to be in an environment where I feel supported and welcome!

I came to GTU/PSR with an interest in the dialogues surrounding science and religion (I did a double major in biology and religious studies as an undergraduate), about the effects colonization and transnational corporations have had on the developing world, bioethics, and Asian American theology. In my first semester at GTU/PSR I have been given the opportunity to touch on all of these issues and have begun to experiment with ideas and combine them into a theology that is uniquely my own. I am eagerly looking forward to the rest of my time here as I begin to get to know people both within the API community and within the GTU community.

Read a paper on Asian American Christian Theology by Jessica Oya.

Dr. Gordon Lee on Rekindling the Fire in our Hearts

2007-10-23T15:00:00.001-07:00

Capturing the Moment by Rekindling the Movement of the Heart
An API Faith and Justice Gathering
October 20-21, 2007
http://www.psr.edu/pana.cfm?m=302

Reflections by Gordon Lee

On October 20 and 21 a group of folks met at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California. People shared personal stories, anecdotes. Being together we talked, laughed, ate, got to know and to be ourselves with each other. Some were surprised to find so many connections in the room. Some found a new sense of belonging. Many felt validated in an Asian American and Pacific Island space. We found warm hearts, openness, diversity in unity, be-longing with different ages and ethnicities. Meeting people in our communities who shared visions and concerns, we experienced a new culture that brought us closer together.

It was a rich experience. A lot of interesting things happened. But it was not always easy to analyze or to verbalize. Perhaps it was part of the beginning of a beginning – feeling the pain and identifying the needs of a part of our local communities – awakening our longing for communitas, a pueblo unido, a place where justice, faith, and our humanity can meet and be – and getting just a taste of what it might be like to be in such a community.

Saturday was intense. We began by remembering, recognizing that we are standing on the wisdom and suffering of others, past and present, and on the individuals and movements that have come before us through a beautiful visual meditation prepared by Rev. Israel Alvaran. The first session of sharing our deep longings as people of faith and justice was very revealing, and it took a lot for people to expose themselves. People felt a willingness to be open to new experiences, and it was received with compassion and care.

Saturday afternoon’s session expressed pain, fear, support, and intimacy. Colleen “Coke” Tani- Nakamoto and Elizabeth Leung carefully led us through a practice of revisiting our bodies as sacred sites, the places where seven generations of wisdom, racial trauma, and resistance are carried. For some, it opened up spaces of connection, yet, at the same time, exposed the alienation and suffering, grieving and pain, that we are often numb to or in denial of (the stuff that gets in the way). It was powerful to have that space and to become one movement, focusing on our similar struggles and stories of suffering. As one person said, it was a privilege and honor to share the raw emotions that came out and to be able to respond to them. Sometimes, you could just feel and didn’t have to say anything. What was important was to know that people heard and understood. To feel that it was real and tangible.

On Saturday afternoon it was important to be able to hear and recognize those among us who are living a working class reality. Seeing and hearing their situations helped others put a mirror to themselves. In response, some of us asked ourselves, can we walk away from our past and live a middle class lifestyle? Or, do we hold onto that core of experience that shaped us and our families? To some extent we still live in a working class reality because it is a part of our core identities, but we sometimes forget. It reminded us about who we are, and it helped us to remember a sense of a common class struggle.

For some Saturday had reaffirmed their sense of “calling” and “grabbing something and taking hold of it.” For others it created an opportunity to look inside. To realize that we don’t often get to do this, even in movement work. For others Saturday made us mad but also sad as we realized how lacking is the soul and the spirit of our common ground. I hear you, I see you, is no longer a part of our vocabulary, our day to day life. That belonging as a part of a family– the sense that you might screw up, but the knowing that we’ll work it through - is hard to find. The feeling that you’re not alone, that there’s something beyond that, a sense of loving and caring.

On Sunday morning, it was as if a new energy had entered the room. There was a sense that the previous days had not just focused on goals, but was a pause that allowed everyone to breathe and reflect. Through the sharing of pain and wisdom our collective spirits had become more tangible. With this spirit we anxiously broke into small groups to share our practices of the heart—practices of integration that sustain us and foster life. After the discussions, we reflected told our stories, about the state of our communities, about the challenges of our times, and about where we want to go.

Eleazar Fernandez pointed out that the causes of our suffering are not just external but within us as well. That’s often why they are so hard to address and get rid of. He also noted that this gathering was part of an emerging movement. Most significantly, he asked us, how do we learn to deal with the “stuff that gets in the way?” How do we deal with our internalized shadows? How do we develop a praxis of the heart. What does this mean for and how does it help organizations and individuals in the social justice, faith, and Asian American and Pacific Island communities?

Lloyd Wake was moved by the weekend, especially of the stories and experiences of younger people. He pointed out that the experience and expressions of spirituality of younger generations are not only meaningful to them but also to older folks. Lloyd felt that he learned a lot from and came to a deeper appreciation of the younger community.

Most of all it was the willingness of the participants to engage in different and sometimes uncomfortable ways that created a liberated zone. As Aurora Morales (1998) wrote: "A stance of opposition creates a liberated territory, a psychological space in which we can act on the belief that we deserve complete freedom and dignity even when achieving such freedom collectively is still out of reach. The refusal to cooperate with our dehumanization even when we may not yet be able to stop it is the most essential ingredient of our liberation."

Dr. Gordon Lee is PANA's 2007-2008 Civil Liberty and Faith Visiting Scholar.

Teruo Kawata Endowment established

2007-09-28T14:51:00.000-07:00

Written Sep 28, 2007
UCC News, http://www.ucc.org/news/ucc-seminary-establishes-new.html

A new endowment fund to honor the Rev. Teruo "Terry" Kawata, former Hawaii Conference Minister, has been established by UCC-related Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, Calif. The primary beneficiaries of the endowment will be Pacific Islander and Asian American communities.

Kawata, who received his Doctor of Ministry degree from PSR in 1981, initiated the development of a theological education program in Hawaii to serve Hawaiian pastors who wanted a formal theological education.

He also helped to launch a similar program at PSR for Samoan pastors from Hawaii and on the U.S. mainland.

Among the program's graduates are the Rev. To'o'o lefua Paogofie of Nuu Lotu Congregational UCC, who was one of the first to complete the degree program.

Kawata also helped to restart the Micronesia Pastors School that had been inactive for 20 years.
As a trustee and adjunct faculty member at PSR, Kawata also served as pastor of Silliman University in the Philippines as well as in churches in Hawaii including Nuuanu Congregational UCC; Waiokeola Congregational UCC; Community Church of Honolulu, UCC; and Iao Congregational UCC on Maui.

PSR's Institute of Leadership Development and Study of Pacific and Asian North American Religion (PANA) will administer the fund.

For more information, contact the Rev. Wallace Fukunaga at sunrisewtf@aol.com.

Akiko Miyake-Stoner on Women's Voices from the Philippines

2007-09-17T17:20:00.000-07:00

"Voices from the Philippines" was a public event of the WGS Sixth Annual International Meeting, "Women Resisting Militarism and Creating a Culture of Life," sponsored by Women for Genuine Security and PANA Institute’s Civil Liberty and Faith Project. This meeting brought together internationally recognized women activists from South Korea, Japan, Okinawa, the Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico, Hawai'i and the US to build and sustain a network of women, and to promote, model, and protect genuine security in the face of militarism.

PSR student Akiko Miyake-Stoner reflects:

Looking back to my journal entry written after the program with the Filipino women against US militarism, I remember how affected I was by the power of these women. The journey through poverty, humiliation, disrespect, and loss that they have experienced was a powerful testament to the resilience of the human spirit for me. To have such spirited dedication and empowered commitment in the looming presence of the US military inspires me.

One thing I was really struck by was the plight of Amerasians in the Philippines. One woman shared her story of falling in love with an US serviceman who led her to believe he was in love with her, too. While he was stationed in the Philippines, they developed a relationship, writing love letters and seeing each other periodically. Soon after she discovered she was pregnant, he confessed to her that he was married.

This woman shared the bittersweet pain she had when she gave birth to a girl, her Amerasian child. She told us how she struggled to provide for her daughter, but her earnings were not enough. Wanting the best for her daughter, her last resort was to send her girl to live with her father, the US serviceman; she hoped that by giving her up that her daughter would be given adequate food, shelter, and education. It turns out that the US serviceman’s wife was verbally and psychologically abusive to the girl and would not allow her to be in touch with her mother. Ultimately, this Amerasian daughter did not have a home in either the United States or the Philippines because of the stigma attached to her situation. This struck a personal chord for me, coming from a Japanese and German American background. Although I have experienced the bewilderment and confusion of not fitting in with either the Japanese or Euro-American communities, I cannot imagine the pain and self-identity crises of the children of Asian women working in prostitution and US servicemen.

When I left that evening, I felt both very disheartened and complacent, but also so uplifted by the open spirits of the women. There was a powerful gift in the embrace that happened with the sharing of stories; we engaged each others’ humanity as we were present in telling and receiving tales of our pain and empowerment. They implanted in me a subtle sense of freedom: freedom to see beyond my limited ideas of what I think is possible (for me and for the world) as well as a freedom to grow and learn as a fellow world citizen. Ultimately, the memory of this strong group of educators and leaders I encountered that night continues to invite me to be more human as I keep learning about US militarism and other issues that affect people around the world, as well as grow into the potential with which God has created me.

I was struck by the women’s willingness to share their stories, inviting me to be more human as I learned about their stories. To make a change where they can. To meet people one at a time and build relationships with people.

Akiko Miyake-Stoner began her Master of Divinity studies at Pacific School of Religion in the fall of 2007.

Sister Song

2007-09-15T11:45:00.000-07:00

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

Sister Song

My Dear Sisters—

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

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

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

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

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

Step forward.
Step back.

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

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

Step forward.
Step back.

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

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

Step forward.

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

Step forward.

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

Step forward.

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

Step forward.

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

PANA Takes on Human Rights Abuses in the Philippines

2007-09-01T12:33:00.000-07:00

By Richard Lindsay. Article first appeared in PSR Bulletin, Fall 2007.

PSR’s Institute for Leadership Development and Study of Pacific and Asian North American Religion (PANA Institute) has taken an international role in raising awareness about recent human rights abuses in the Philippines.

In the last five years, Philippines human rights groups have reported that hundreds of unarmed citizens have been killed or have disappeared under the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. This level of killing and kidnapping of political enemies is higher than at any point during the Marcos era. Twenty-seven Christian clergy and church workers of the United Church of Christ Philippines, United Methodist Church, and Philippine Independent Church (IFI) have been killed. Most notably, IFI Bishop Alberto Ramento was stabbed to death in his rectory in October 2006. Human Rights Watch has issued a report accusing Philippines armed forces of carrying out some of the killings in response to left-wing challenges to the Arroyo government’s authority. A U.N. investigator has echoed this conclusion.

Numerous American church bodies, including the General Synod of the United Church of Christ, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., the Northern California- Nevada Conference of the United Methodist Church, and the National Council of Churches USA, have issued resolutions or statements condemning the killings and calling for investigations.

PANA’s involvement in speaking out against these acts of violence and repression began with co-sponsorship of a Pagsambang Bayan, or “People's Worship,” a “Service and Candlelight Vigil for the Disappeared and Killed Religious and Community Leaders in the Philippines.” The service was held at Daly City United Methodist Church on December 10, 2006 in conjunction with International Human Rights Day. (Daly City is home to the largest concentration of Filipinos in the United States.)

The effort is part of PANA Institute’s Civil Liberty and Faith Project, now in its second year, sponsored by the Luce Foundation. The goal of the project is to amplify the voices of progressive Asian American and Pacific Islander (API) religious leaders and communities engaged in the work of increasing civil liberties and bringing about greater inter-ethnic and inter-religious understanding. According to PANA Program Director Deborah Lee, “One of the important objectives of this project has been to experiment and create authentic forms of API public witness and model a new way of doing faith-based political expression that is rooted in API culture and spirituality.” Speaking of the People’s Worship, Lee said, “These and other liturgical forms have created sacred containers for people to gather, to advocate and to be spiritually renewed.”

On February 13, 2007, PANA Institute hosted an event at PSR with Bishop Eliezer Pascua, General Secretary of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP), who reported on political killings of clergy, journalists, human rights workers, and activists. The UCCP has been the hardest hit denomination in the purge; Bishop Pascua told personal stories of 16 clergy and religious workers killed as a consequence of their ministries.

On March 2, 2007, PANA co-sponsored ecumenical vigils on World Day of Prayer, in Sacramento and at the Philippine Consulate in Washington, D.C., focusing on the human rights abuses in the Philippines.

Efforts of PANA and other organizations led California Senator Barbara Boxer to hold a Senate hearing on human rights and “extrajudicial killings” in the Philippines, which took place on March 14th, 2007. Moved by the testimony of human rights organizations about the murdered and “disappeared” individuals, Senator Boxer stated the need for the U.S. government to act. “We don’t want another El Salvador here,” Boxer said. “We don’t want blood on our hands.”
On June 10th, 2007, PANA co-sponsored another Pagsambang Bayan at Pinole United Methodist Church in commemoration of Philippines Independence Day called, “Narratives of Betrayal, Suffering, Faith and Voice.” The service featured testimony by a 17 member fact-finding team from the California-Nevada Conference of the United Methodist Church, which investigated the current rash of killings and abductions in the Philippines.

“This repression and abuse dates back to the Marcos era, and when the Philippines were dominated by U.S. colonial and military rule,” Lee said. “Today the U.S. war on terror is having a chilling effect on our Christian counterparts in the Philippines.” (The U.S. State Department has resisted efforts to hold the Arroyo administration accountable because it is considered an ally in the “war on terror.”)

PANA’s prophetic voice on this issue has received international attention, with mention in several Asian language newspapers in the United States and abroad, including the Manila-based Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Lee said the work of organizations like PANA has made a critical difference. “Our efforts to raise awareness have shown the Philippine military and government that the international community is watching them,” Lee said. “Since March, two pastors have been arrested and are being held on false charges; a year ago, they might have been killed outright.”

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For more information, visit PANA's Focus on the Philippines website.

Notes From An R2W Pilgrimage to Hawai’i: Reconsidering Aloha

2007-08-30T12:57:00.000-07:00

Essay by Michael James, PANA R2W Youth Programs Director

PANA perceives Hawai'i as a location of two social realities that have profound implications for both church and society: the struggle of Native Hawai'ians and Pacific Islanders (particularly young people) struggling in the post colonial conditions of Hawai'ian society; and the indigenous Hawai'ian social movement as part of the global struggle for democracy and environmental sustainability.

PHOTO: R2W returned to Hawai’i in August 2007 to honor nine Honolulu-based R2W alumni, recruit new young leaders, and continue PANA’s exploration of Hawai’i’s significance to API spirituality. Mark Hamamoto and band is performing “Ohio” and anthems of the social movements at R2Ws Le Afi Ua Mu (Sa'amoan: The fire is burning) at Church of the Crossroads, HonoluluLe Afi Ua Mu a new R2W program to assist working class leaders of faith, and PANA’s endowment campaign in Hawai’i, spearheaded by Rev. Wally Fukunaga.

The history and experience of the Polynesian archipelago offers insight to our collective theological and spiritual journey. Asian Pacific Islander Christians of color are compelled to reconcile the dark history of the church and Western imperialism in this region with the demands of our faith for love and justice. This visit challenged PANA to explore more deeply a principle of Hawai'ian culture that is easy to take for granted: the meaning of aloha.

The Prophetic Dimension of Aloha

PHOTO: Rev. Kaleo Patterson explaining the meaning of the heiau (sacred site) on the Waianea Coast to Rev Deborah Lee, Michael James, Crystal Talitonu and some keiki.

The Waianae Coast on the leeward side of the island of O'ahu is analogous to land ceded for Indian reservations in the US. Rocky, drier, and less economically lucrative for development than the windward side of O'ahu, US settlers created “homelands” for Native Hawai’ians who have been removed from their original homes on the island. And like reservations, the social and economic infrastructure of the Coast is underdeveloped. Unemployment, violence, drug traffic, houselessness, and youth alienation are pervasive among the predominantly Native and Polynesian working class population.

On the Waianae Coast is Makua Beach, a site militarized by the U.S. for combat and landing exercises. A non-violent resistance action against U.S. military training activities took place at Makua several years ago. Also along the coast are several encampments of houseless native Hawai'ians.

Yet the Waianae Coast is also the location of some of the most profound expressions of Hawai'ian spirituality, innovation, political activity and cultural coherence. There is an organic farm operated by local youth; a grassroots aquaculture project; and a cultural center with a terraced kalo garden. It has also been the location of dramatic and heroic resistance to US militarism and US government violation of Hawai'ian sovereignty.

Rev. Kaleo Patterson (UCC) took us to ancestral sites along the coast reclaimed by Native Hawai'ians. While other activist hosts have instructed us about the impact colonization and globalization, Rev Patterson focused more on expressions of the sacred that are indigenous to the aina. He explained the significance of a heiau, an ancestral sacred shrine, one which contained an altar constructed of volcanic rock and a wood tower. A heiau is a place through which the spirit of lives present and past converge, where the ocean and land mass and its inhabitants meet.

The Power of Aloha

There is indeed a welcoming and compassion that meets the visitor to Hawai'i, a disposition unique to the islands that transcends the industrial, military and commercial development. But the concept of aloha took on a deeper, and perhaps more profound significance for us at the heiau near the site of military landing exercises. It represents integration and harmony, worship of the spirit and substance of life. The contrast between force represented by the helicopter landing at Makua Beach and the power represented by the heiau seems to suggest that aloha is present and eternal, life-giving and forgiving. It is a way to transcend even the most aggressive transgression. It precedes us so that it can enable us. When the military and all other development is gone from the Waianae Cosast, the heiau will continue. This sacred site seemed to embody the eternal nature of aloha.

PHOTO: Public Housing Project in Waihewa, O'ahu

Rev. Patterson does not seem particularly preoccupied with the aggressive behavior of the U.S. Rather, he seems saddened and alarmed at its suicidal, nihilistic tendencies. His ministry, beyond the uplifting of Hawai'ian culture, also involves enabling colonizers to decolonize themselves, to discover and embrace their own humanity. He is clear that the humanization of indigenous peoples is intertwined with the humanization of their oppressors. But he also instructs that humanization is merely one dimension of malama aina (love of the land), that human beings are an expression of and not superior to nature. Aloha is expressed within the harmony that already exists for us, despite our aggression.

PHOTO: Houseless encampment on Waianae Coast

Stumbling into Aloha

There is a new awareness of Hawai'i’s Asian Pacific Islander spirituality by the West, expressed sometimes in clumsy appropriation of language and values. Non-native Hawai'ians learn about Queen Liliokalani; Hawai'ian words are common in the ‘local’ syntax; and schools and the tourism industry actually teach about U.S. aggression against Hawai'i and the apology of the U.S. government for its role in the overthrow of the monarchy in 1898.

Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindis, and agnostics in Hawai'i seem to be profoundly influenced by the power of aloha ( I can’t say “aloha spirit” because it seems to diminish the depth of the principle). The sacred seems to transcend the rudeness and ruthlessness of human activity that has occurred over the centuries. The spirit of aloha is predominant, even as it is trivialized in its commercial mass-culture manifestation. It is invoked, though sometimes superficially, by nearly everyone. In Hawai'i churches it is affirmed and expressed in most liturgies. Ministers, rabbis, imams and secular leaders acknowledge that the principle of aloha precedes the arrival of Abrahamic religions to the South Pacific. That they embrace it underscores the possibility that each of our religions have limitations and can be complimented or further articulated by a pre-existing principle. This embrace suggests that aloha is neither a theological idea nor cultural value but an overarching principle that precedes and transcends theology and culture.

Le Afi within Aloha

Some of our young Honolulu-based R2W participants reside in the "KPT" or other dangerous, police-patrolled housing projects. They are Polynesian by birth, lower-income/working class by economic stratification. They have lived on the social fringes of a society which has imposed itself upon their ancestral lands. The local jails are populated mostly by Sa'amoans, Tongans, Marshallese, and Native Hawai'ians who struggle to survive against discrimination and economic marginalization.

Where is aloha for them?

PHOTO: Siou Paogofie (right) of Honolulu and R2Ws Congregational Leaders Internship at the Arizona-Mexico border with Native American leaders discussing globalization, immigration, and indigenous values (CLI Immersion, August 2007)

Angelina Tuioti (R2W 2006) and Siou Paogofie (R2W 2004) are young leaders who have emerged from Honolulu housing projects to embrace a prophetic pilgrimage for justice, sustainability, and love. Both are concerned with women’s rights, social justice for Pacific Islanders and other peoples of color, and peace. Ms. Paogofie is active in UCC national committees and recently participated in PANA’s conference on Women For Genuine Security. R2W and PANA have become a ‘dojo’ for their continuing theological/political development. Over and against the legacy of colonial oppression, aloha is within them, expressed in their street wisdom, an unexplainable magnanimity and compassion, and gentle but relentless determination toward social change. We were blessed to celebrate their lives at Le Afi Ua Mu.

The walk with Kaleo Patterson in the pacific beauty of the Waianae Coast, contrasted with a stop at the rough, inner-Honolulu "KPT" housing project of R2W leader Angel Tuioti provided an insight into the resonance of Asian Pacific Islander spirituality with our larger sojourn as progressive people of faith.

Aloha is not something that can be taken away or given, a sentiment, an award. It is something present and powerful.

The political and cultural activities of the social movement in Hawai'i, from sovereignty to sustainable agriculture to anti-militarism, are indeed critical actions of resistance to globalization and militarization.

But the overarching nature of this activity is not reactive, but generative. The principle of aloha seems to guide it. This might make it distinct from social movement activity here in the mainland. Aloha is an aspect of an ancient culture, an acknowledgement and affirmation of all creation, including humanity. It precedes the birth of Christ and persists in the continuity of life in the Pacific. In Hawai'i, the prophetic work of Kaleo Patterson, the sustainable agriculture projects of Mark Hamamoto and the M'ao Youth Organic Farm cooperative, the sovereignty movement, and the peace and anti-militarism efforts of folks such as Kyle Kajihiro of AFSC, and the new energy of young leaders such as Siou Paogofie embody much more than the rejection of economic imperialism and environmental degradation and a desire for social equity.

They celebrate in the malama aina, made obvious by the power and beauty of the land and sea. They celebrate God’s love made obvious in the power of compassion, unity, and redemption. This celebration seems to proclaim aloha as a principle, perhaps a soulforce, for humankind.

Michael Sepidoza Campos: Learning and Teaching at the Frontiers of Faith Communities

2007-07-30T12:02:00.000-07:00

by Michael Sepidoza Campos, PSR GTU Ph.D. Student, Interdisciplinary Studies
Honolulu, Hawai’i • 12-20 June 2007

During the early summer, I had the opportunity to return to Hawai’i and minister with various church communities. The visit was prompted in part by an invitation of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Honolulu to teach at the O’ahu Catechetical and Pastoral Enrichment Conference. The gathering brought together 60+ religious workers for fellowship and theological enrichment. Configured after the Pastoral Plan for Adult Formation of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the conference addressed six dimensions of adult catechesis: “knowledge of faith, liturgical life, moral formation, prayer, communal life and missionary spirit.”

Given the catechetical thrust of the conference, I offered a course that fostered a “conversational pedagogy” on Christology, incorporating issues of diversity, economic justice and political self-determination that were pertinent to the life of the local church. The purpose of the class was simple: to discover the roots of our Christological assumptions and so locate the specificity of local voices within these broader faith narratives. Image and music bridged Jesus’ incarnations through shifting historical, political and theological paradigms. The interactions considered and critiqued the relevance of theological language; we affirmed contemporary efforts to discern the Christian narrative within prevailing economic, gender, and ecological inequities. My encounter with fellow ministers gently encouraged fellowship, reinvigorating our vocation, hope and vision for the islands’ Catholic community.

Beyond the conference, my trip opened conversations with church leaders who comprise the PANA Institute’s broader Network on Religion and Justice. Through the hospitality of Rev. Jonipher Kwong of the Ohana Metropolitan Community Church, we premiered and hosted a discussion of In God’s House, a documentary highlighting the lives of Asian/Pacific Island people of faith who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. The event drew nearly 20 people from various Honolulu churches. Mrs. Susan Roth of the National Association of Catholic Diocesan Lesbian and Gay Ministries offered an articulate observation of the tenuous spaces occupied by LGBT faithful within churches that struggle to affirm their inclusion. Several attendees further remarked how tensions surrounding gender, faith and ethnicity among API faithful in the Bay Area stood in contrast from their experience in Hawai’i. While API-LGBT people of faith have had to assert spaces of inclusion in church, these spaces were not implicitly tied to questions of ethnicity. As an attendee maintained, the mixed—or hapa—cultures of the islands saw difference not as a stumbling block but a necessary ingredient to ecclesial integration. Indeed, the evening’s gathering brought together faithful people from a diversity of perspectives and religious traditions; truly an encounter of difference that allowed for abundance and learning.

Political concerns bled onto our faith conversations towards the end of the week as I learned that efforts were underway in the U.S. Senate to pressure President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to account for the extra-judicial killings of church and labor leaders in the Philippines. Having worked closely with local Filipino activists on the issue, PANA’s Deborah Lee encouraged us to seek Senator Daniel K. Inouye’s support of the initiative. With the deft leadership of PSR alumnus, Rev. Wally Fukunaga, we brought these concerns before Ms. Barbara Sakamoto, staff representative of the senator. Ms. Sakamoto affirmed the tenuous involvement of U.S. aid in the extra-judicial killings of faith workers in the Philippines and so promised to personally express our concerns to Sen. Inouye who served in the Senate Appropriations Committee. The encounter intensified our resolve to pressure for accountability and transparency.

Though inundated with work, my brief return to Hawai’i opened forth opportunities to engage old and new friends in ministry. I traveled to teach, realizing later that learning assumed a committed engagement with denominational, gender, ethnic and political considerations. Teaching assumed a mutually transformative dynamic as I took stock of the various relationships that grounded my life. This broadened not only my understanding of “religious education,” but reconfigured the frontiers of my ministerial commitment. Rev. Fukunaga wisely observed that faith formation is never limited within the contours of church structures alone. The exigencies of the “real world” constitute the fiber of our faith. Relationships ground the loftiness of one’s ideals and so move one to action. Ministry thus enlivens a baptismal imperative to the broader faith community with whom we claim accountability. As a student, it is easy for me to forget the simplicity—and privilege—of this commitment. For thus having renewed these life-giving encounters, I am deeply grateful to the PSR community for having shared its financial resources [via a CAPSR scholarship] to open forth such spaces of conversation. Mahalo for your generosity.

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

2007-07-06T14:48:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Manzanar Poem by Michael Sepidoza Campos

2007-06-24T10:51:00.000-07:00

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

...
Circles.
And more circles.
Words woven among stories.
Anger. Despair. Doubt. Hope.
How does one foster life
In a place of desolation?
In the context of paranoia?

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

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

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

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

How does one live?

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

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

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

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

--
Michael Sepidoza Campos
Interdisciplinary Studies
Graduate Theological Union
Berkeley, CA

---
Read more reflections by the pilgrimage participants.

Podcast: Manzanar reflections by seminarian Shelley Page

2007-06-04T12:18:00.000-07:00

Podcast of Starr King student Shelley Page as she reads the poems she wrote in response to her pilgrimage to Manzanar, a California relocation camp where the U.S. government held 10,000 persons of Japanese ancestry for three years during World War II.

Read more reflections by the pilgrimage participants.

Asian Faith Leaders To Speak Out in Support of Lesbian and Gay Families and Equality

2007-05-29T11:35:00.000-07:00

PRESS CONFERENCE:

ASIAN FAITH LEADERS TO SPEAK OUT IN SUPPORT OF

LESBIAN AND GAY FAMILIES AND EQUALITY

Announcement of Support is a Historic First

SAN FRANCISCO, THURSDAY, MAY 31, 2007 - Several prominent Asian American faithleaders in the Bay Area will announce their public support of lesbian and gay families and equality at a press conference in San Francisco Chinatown onThursday, May 31, 2007, from 10:30-11:30 am, at Chinese for Affirmative Action(17 Walter Lum Place, nearby Portsmouth Square), to coincide with end of APIHeritage Month and the start of LGBT Pride Month.

Confirmed speakers for theevent include: Rev. Calvin Chinn, Rev. Jeffrey Kuan, Rev. John Oda, Rev. DeborahLee, Rev. Michael Yoshii, and Rev. Elizabeth Leung. The event will mark the first time a coalition of Asian American faith leaders speaks out in support oflesbian and gay families and equality.

Photos of the press conference by Andy Wong.

R2W Summer Youth Leadership Institute - Now Accepting Applications! Priority Deadline May 30th!

2007-05-22T14:15:00.000-07:00

imagine us
Represent 2 Witness Summer Youth Leadership Institute
for Asian Pacific Islanders and other youth of color ages 16-19
lower income and LGBT persons encouraged to apply

June 23 - July 7, 2007
Pacific School of Religion
Berkeley, CA

IMAGINE US

DOING
theology (the study and action of God in the world)
dynamic Bible study martial arts community action

MEETING WITH
poets professors community leaders DJs muralists

DEVELOPING LEADERSHIP
through a soul-stretching process called critical faith

CELEBRATING AND WORSHIPPING WITH
young leaders age 16-19
of Asian, Pacific Islander, African American, Latino, and other ethnic background

IMAGINE US
creating a just and blessed future
being the future
the future is
now

Get your discipleship on

R2W is an institute in which you live, study, and celebrate living the collegiate lifestyle for 14 days with other high school-aged students in the beautiful Pacific School of Religion/UC Berkeley community. R2W uses the Asian Pacific Islander experience as a lense to see and act on problems and solutions as new Christian leaders. Participants receive a full scholarship covering transportation to and from Berkeley, room, board, and activities. Enrollees pay a registration fee of $150. We encourage your church to support you by covering this fee. (A fee waiver is available to all with financial hardship.)

See what's up at: www.represent2witness.org and www.myspace.com/represent2witness
or contact Michael, Lauren, or Crystal at mjames@psr.edu or (510) 849-8202

Priority application deadline May 30, 2007

Reflections from the 2007 PANA Pilgrimage to Manzanar

2007-05-11T13:51:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

Consolation

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

Remembrance.

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

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

Remembrance.

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

Remembrance.
Satisfaction.
Remembrance.

巡礼の詩　(Junrei no uta)　4/29/07

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

慰めは、

祈りの旗。
力。愛。家族。
物語。
慰霊塔にとまるカラス。
赦し。

忘れないこと。

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

忘れないこと。

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

忘れないこと。

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

忘れないこと。

贖罪。

忘れないこと。

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

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

Now, let us focus on anther thing.

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

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

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

Just feel “KIZUNA”.

“絆”(KIZUNA)

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

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

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

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

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

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

*******

By Maikiko James

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

*****

By Lauren Quock

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

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

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

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

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

Day 2

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

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

Day 3

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

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

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

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

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

Return

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

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

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

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

*******

*******

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

*******

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

*******

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

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

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

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

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

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

How does one live?

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

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

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

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

--

May 8: Brown Bag with Dr. Gordon Lee

2007-05-07T09:31:00.000-07:00

PANA Invites You to a Brown Bag Conversation with

Dr. Gordon Lee:

Understanding Racial Trauma
as a Practice to Discover and Liberate Oneself and Community
Implications for Asians in the Americas

Tuesday, May 8
4:00pm

PANA Offices, 2357 LeConte Ave, Berkeley, CA 94709

Gordon Lee was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. In the fall of 1967 he went to Columbia University to study Economics. He became involved in the Asian-American movement in the spring of 1970 when students at Columbia took over Kent Hall demanding an ethnic studies program. He was active in an uptown Asian American organization fighting for squatters' rights. He was one of the original members of the Asian Media Collective, and soon thereafter moved to New York Chinatown. After leaving New York he joined Third Arm, a community organization in Honolulu, Chinatown and spent many years there assisting residents to fight urban renewal. Subsequently, he became an attorney. In addition to his legal work, he has developed a health insurance counseling and assistance program for seniors. He wrote, directed and produced a video on Japanese internment in Hawaii during World War II. He holds a Masters in Public Health that focused on the Anti-eviction struggle in Oakland, Chinatown. He has recently completed a Ph.D. in depth psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa barbara, California. The title of his dissertation is: "Excavating Memory, Reconstructing Narrative: The Nikkei Diaspora and the Transnational Experience from 1868-1941."

Apr 24: Vigil for VA Tech - photos, flowers, and prayers

2007-04-27T13:57:00.000-07:00

Community Vigil for the Virginia Tech Tragedy
April 24, 2007
Pacific School of Religion, chapel steps

Sponsored by the PANA Institute and the PSR Office of Community Life

Prayer

Dear Holy One,

We, as ones who have received Your grace and ones who are enabled to call upon you, are before You.
We thank You. Thank You for Your grace to know You and be known by You. Thank you for our new identify as Your children and to be a part of Your reality of community.
We thank You for allowing the community of PANA, with the office of Community of Life at PSR, to have a space for this gathering.
As brothers and sisters, we are here to dedicate our hearts and minds in remembrance of those souls affected by the recent tragedy at Virginia Tech.
Here, we call You to Your presence. Here, we call You for Your guidance and Your comfort, because we are sad, and sorrow for those who are not here any longer and for those who suffered through the loss.
Let our spirits be touched by Yours, for only You can read and know our inner state of hearts and minds.
And only You can create our new space to initiate our comfort and peace and to guide and sustain that condition for our blessings and for Your glory.
Therefore, open Your ears to hear our inner voices and open Your eyes to see our devotions.
We pray that through this time of gathering, You grant us Your strength and comfort so that we can have our peace.
Thank you and pray in the name of Your Son Jesus. Amen

-- prayer led by Kyung-Min Daniel Lee

About the Centerpiece

The centerpiece of today’s vigil was designed by PSR student Yi Rang Lim.
The center collage features those who lost their lives in the tragedy at Virginia Tech.

Surrounding their images are those of persons who mourn and grieve over the tragedy—while they may have no direct connection to those who perished, they feel connected to them and have been affected by their lives and by their deaths.

Surrounding the images are stones representing our own organic connectedness to the earth.

In many Asian cultures, water symbolizes the cleansing of pain and grief. Symbolically, the tragedy at Virginia Tech rests under the cleansing power of clear water.

Also, in many Asian cultures, white chrysanthemums symbolize grief and mourning—by placing the flowers into the pond, we share in another’s pain.

In addition, there are 33 candles, one for each of those who died in the tragedy.

Today, we encircle these images and symbols as a way of standing in solidarity with those who are in pain, those who mourn, and those who grieve at Virginia Tech and around the globe—we do so knowing that whatever affects one, affects us all.

Related post:

PANA Executive Director Fumitaka Matsuoka's letter about the tragedy.

Apr 13: R2W's intergenarational event with Samoan Community

2007-04-26T01:07:00.000-07:00

April 13, 2007, R2W Staff, Michael James, Lauren Quock and Crystal Talitonu headed out to Calvary United Methodist Church in San Jose to present the R2W Summer Program to Samoan youth and their families from Daly City and San Jose. The evening started off with culture circle introductions by all who were present along with a sentence answer to the following question “What do you think is the biggest struggle facing youth in your community”. It was an intense moment of sharing that was made real through the next phase where we were able to act out “the dramas of our lives” through Popular Theatre. Following a wonderful dinner that was catered by L&L Hawaiian BBQ people got to watch a slideshow from past program attendees as well as statistical facts about the Samoan community. Overall the evening was a blessed event that captured the beauty of the R2W program and the people in the community across generations who maintain hope for the next generation of leaders.

Community Vigil for VA Tech

2007-04-23T12:00:00.000-07:00

Community Vigil
In remembrance of all those affected by the recent tragedy at Virginia Tech
(Please bring a flower)

Tuesday, April 24th, 2007
1:00-1:30pm

Steps of the Chapel at the Pacific School of Religion
1798 Scenic Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94709

Sponsored by the Institute for Leadership Development and Study of Pacific Asian North American Religion (PANA Institute) and the Office of Community Life at the Pacific School of Religion.

For more information, contact Rev. Deborah Lee at
(510)849-8260 or dlee@psr.edu.

Related posts:

PANA Executive Director Fumitaka Matsuoka's letter about the tragedy.
Photos and text of prayer and sacred-art offerings at the event.

In God's House accepted at multiple film festivals!

2007-04-23T09:52:00.000-07:00

Since its release in October 2006, In God's House: Asian American Lesbian and Gay Families in the Church has been screened in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Taiwan, Samoa, and Japan. We have received rave reviews and held captivating discussions for seminary students, API churches and communities, educators, and film festival audiences.

The film has recently been accepted in the Asian Pacific Film Festival in Los Angeles, the Frameline LGBT Film Festival in San Francisco, and the Aomori International LGBT Film Festival in Japan! We have a community screening coming up in Chinatown, San Francisco at the beginning of Pride month and we will be screening the film and conducting workshops at faith-based conferences in Asilomar, CA and Nashville, Tennessee this summer. Check out our screenings page for a screening near you and help us spread the word!

Notes on Race, Representation, and the Expression of Marginalized Views in the Wake of Virginia Tech

2007-04-21T14:41:00.000-07:00

Elaine H. Kim, Professor, Asian American Studies, University of California, Berkeley

I often feel that there is a subterranean current in our society that erupts in moments of crisis, bringing into view some things that are ordinarily hidden. For instance, some Americans, accustomed to images of Denzel Washington as savior of the nation, Will Smith as President of the U.S., and Morgan Freeman as God and to the feeling that they have an African American friend because they watch the Oprah Winfrey Show every afternoon, might have been shocked by the images of real African Americans stranded for days on end after Hurricane Katrina. During crises, a bright spotlight often illuminates dark corners for a brief moment, giving us the chance to see things differently.

I would like to open a space for a few additional or alternative viewpoints about the mass killings at Virginia Tech, soon after which I began receiving email messages from Asian American and especially Korean American students and friends. Forgetting for a moment that most people in the U.S. don't differentiate among Asian ethnicities, Chinese and Vietnamese American students admitted that they were relieved to hear that Cho was Korean. Korean American students reported that their parents called them, asking them to come home or telling them not to go out. Were the parents over-reacting? Perhaps they remembered the backlash against South Asians, Arabs, Muslims, and even Latinos who "looked Middle Eastern" in the U.S. after 9-11 or were thinking of what happened to Korean and other Asian shop-keepers in the wake of the L.A. riots. Some of them might have known the internment of Japanese Americans as enemy aliens" during World War II or even about the long history of racial exclusion and violence against Asian immigration and labor.

Many students wrote that when the news first broke, they had imagined the killer as a white male, like Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Colorado, Timothy McVeigh of the Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people in 1995, Jeffrey Dahmer of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who murdered and ate 17 boys and men, many of whom were Asian Americans, between 1978 and 1991, and numerous other mass murderers in U.S. history. They knew that news stories never identify white mass murderers or serial killers by race. "I really envy white people," wrote one student, "because when white people do something so brutally and horribly wrong, nobody says,' Do you think it was because he's white?' There are no headlines calling him 'the white shooter.' No one mentions race, because no one thinks his race has anything to do with his crime."

After the Columbine massacre, one television news story after another conjectured to an assumed white middle class viewership about what had made these boys "go wrong." Though angry and alienated like Seung-hui Cho, Harris and Klebold were represented as part of the community, not outside it. In contrast, the Virginia Tech stories invariably described the shooter at first as foreign and later as a lone lunatic. Even though he came to the U.S. at the age of 7 or 8 and spent 2/3 of his life here, attending primary school, middle school, high school, and college in the U.S., Cho was described as Asian, South Korean, Korean, of Korean descent, an immigrant from South Korea, or a Korean "alien resident," Like many other Americans, although he had a green card, he spoke fluent English and was, in fact, much more "American" than "South Korean." One student thought that the news media tried to designate what he did as a "Korean" - as opposed to a crime that was "made in the U.S.A." Another thought that the media stories about the tragedy not only reinforced stereotypes of Asians as "eternal foreigners" rather than as Americans or even as individual human beings but also exploited old racial stereotypes of Asians as inscrutable robotic nerds - cold, robotic, friendless, and weird.

Since the media never let them forget their race and ethnicity, some students remarked that they could not help feeling connected to Seung-hui Cho, even though they if don't want to be. Unpopular as their viewpoint might be, some, without excusing or condoning Cho's actions, did not ascribe to the media portrayals of him as "alien" and "non-human." His face reminded them of friends and relatives.

"I couldn't help but feel like this man deserved…sympathy…. delusional or not, he felt like he was standing up for himself and for others like him, people who were tormented and traumatized for not being able to speak English at first, for the way they look, for being who they are. There's no possible justification for his actions, but it's sad to think about what he must've gone through to finally reach this brink. It's a shame and a pity that there are probably many people who can relate to him because they feel as alone and angry as he did."

Clarity of vision can come in a moment of crisis. In the wake of the Virginia Tech slayings, students wondered how poverty and unfamiliarity with mental health resources might inhibit a family's ability to deal with mental illness. They thought about what would have happened if there had been better gun control and about the insanity of the gun lobby's suggestion that all students be armed. The crisis also exposed the power of the mass media. Of course everyone is horrified and saddened by the murder of innocent people, regardless of race or nationality, several students said, but the South Korean government's condolences are not extended to Iraq, even though more than 200 people were killed and 150 wounded in the four days immediately before and after Virginia Tech. We don't know what those people's faces looked like or what their stories were, not just because they aren't Americans but also because American stories dominate world news 24/7, as Iraqi - and South Korean stories do not. The sudden and massive national attention on a Korean American made them think about how invisible Korean Americans usually are in U.S. national culture.

I am hoping that this crisis will give us all new insights that will stay with us, giving us new courage to express otherwise marginalized views so that we can all participate in dialogues that will strengthen multiracial democracy.

PANA Letter on VA Tech Tragedy

2007-04-19T00:23:00.000-07:00

April 18, 2007

We, the members of the Institute for Leadership Development & the Study of Pacific and Asian North American Religion (PANA Institute) of Pacific School of Religion, are deeply struck by the recent tragedy that took place at Virginia Tech University. We extend our heartfelt condolences to all the people of the university. Our prayers are particularly for the victims, their families, and friends. The horrifying tragedy affects us all like an abrupt rupture of a thread in the web of humanity that sets the whole web trembling.

We at the PANA Institute are also deeply concerned about the fear and anxiety that are fast surfacing in Asian and Oceanic American communities about a possible backlash and retaliation against these communities and their members because of the suspected gunman’s racial and ethnic identity widely reported in the media. Such reporting can subject Asian and Oceanic American communities to unfair portrayals in the current tolerant climate for racial slurs and jokes against people of color.

We at PANA stand with those who are afraid of possible negative repercussions from the tragic incident. We stand with those who may be subjected to all kinds of evil against them because of the racial twist in the reading of the tragedy. We stand with those who hunger and thirst for racial justice. You are not alone. Blessings are particularly yours.

We at PANA appeal to news media of all forms to refrain from referencing and emphasizing the race and ethnicity of the suspected perpetrator of the tragedy. Such an accent does not serve any useful purpose. It only fuels the current climate in this society that demeans people, particularly those who are most vulnerable.

Too many tragic incidents like Virginia Tech have happened in recent years. We at PANA urge faith communities of America to work toward ending violence as a means to settle grievances, may they be personal, communal, or international. It is easy to blame the perpetrators of violence for each of the series of incidents. These individuals and the victims of their violent acts may well be the “canary in the coalmine shaft” of the toxic societal environment in which we all live.

---Fumitaka Matsuoka,
Executive Director, The Institute for Leadership Development & the Study of Pacific and Asian North American Religion, Pacific School of Religion

Related posts:
Response by Professor Elaine Kim
Community Vigil at Pacific School of Religion

KPFA broadcast - Apex Express - Sikh Gurdwara

2007-04-12T12:02:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, March 7, 5:30- 8:30 pm
Community Visit: Gurdwara Sahib El Sobrante
Led by Jaideep Singh, Visiting Scholar-in-Residence for the PANA Institute's Civil Liberty and Faith Project, and instructor of PSR course RSHR-1070: "Presumed Guilty: Race, Religion, and the Post-9/11 Racialized State"
PANA organized a community visit to the gurdwara (Sikh house of worship) in El Sobrante, one of the oldest and most beautiful in the state. One of the founders of the gurdwara will gave us a tour and describe the struggles the local Sikh American community encountered in the early days, as well as more contemporary social issues facing the community. Other speakers addressed the role of women in Sikh communities and the sacred text of the Sikhs, and the rash of murders of Sikh American cab drivers in the Bay Area since September 11, 2001. We participated in the Sikh prayer service and vegetarian meal.

Apex Express producer Gina Hotta came along too...

Apex Express April 12 show archive on KPFA radio. "Hear about a Samoan Warrior, Clement Brown Kelemeke currently held in the "Adjustment Center" at San Quentin State Prison. Apex's Wayie talks with his wife Berta about why this Samoan Warrior, who helped unify Samoans, Tongans and Polynesians is held without due process. Also Racial profiling, religion: hear how these come together on tour of a special Sikh community gathering place. We also talk about the shooting of taxi drivers and the targeting of this South Asian community in the Richmond area."

4/10 Manzanar Class: Wounded Resurrection

2007-04-09T14:31:00.001-07:00

Join us on April 10^th, 2007 6:30-9:30 for a Community Program on

“Wounded Resurrection: Intersections and Solidarities”

the experience of Japanese American internment during WWII and its ongoing message for the present.

Film Showing : “Caught in Between: What to Call home in times of war” video documented by Lina Hoshino, 2004

Reflections:

Grace Shimizu, Japanese Latin American Oral History Project

Chizu Iiyama, Lt. Ehren Watada Support Committee

Rev. Sharon MacArthur, pastor of Sycamore Congregational Church

Sycamore Church members

Location: Sycamore Congregational church

1111 Navelier Street El Cerrito, CA 94530

Free, Open to the Public and Wheelchair accessible.

Carpool Available : Leaving Pacific School of Religion at 6:00 pm ( Meet in the PANA driveway, 2357 Le Conte Ave.)

*This is part one of five sessions in preparation for the 38^th annual pilgrimage to the former WWII site of Japanese American internment at Manzanar. For more information or to sign up for the pilgrimage, contact Shinya at pana2@psr.edu; 510-849-8226 or go to the PANA website: pana.psr.edu.

Report on International Women’s Day talk by Rev. Tess Vertucio from the United Church of Christ Philippines

2007-03-26T10:26:00.000-07:00

This year's International Women's day event at PANA gathered 20 women and men to listen and discuss the ongoing challenges facing women in church leadership around the globe. Rev. Tess Vertucio, a conference minister in the United Church of Christ Philippines (UCCP), was our special guest to share about the Philippines context. This was followed by a rich sharing of experiences among the culturally, religiously and nationally diverse group that was gathered. Participants shared about the similar struggles of women leaders in the church in Indonesia, Africa, and here in the United States in Euro-American, Polynesian, African-American and Buddhist contexts.

Rev. Vertucio presented research she conducted with the ordained women ministers in the UCCP Southern Luzon Jurisdiction Area. Her study found that although women are conferred the status of ordination in the UCCP, (the first woman was ordained pastor in 1936, and bishop in 1998), women are in the vast minority and do not have a fair representation or equal status in the church leadership, especially at regional and national church levels. Many women church workers in the Philippines tend to be steered towards being Deaconesses rather than ordained as clergy who exert more authority in the decision-making and executive functions of the church.

The historical ordination of a few women, has failed to address the issue of women's subordination and the inclusion of a women's agenda (the valuing of women's lives and natural gifts) in church ministry. Vertucio mentioned a myriad of structural, cultural and social obstacles facing women pastors and warned that the church must be careful not to be content with the mere ordination of women. Such contentment, she warned, leaves the plight of women still unattended. True change will only be addressed when ministry is redefined as partnership among women and men. The UCCP as a church is committed to the transformation of society and involved in the struggles for democracy and justice in the Philippines. Vertucio commented that these movements have often asked women to put the "women's issue" on the back burner. But true liberation, she said, cannot happen unless it also includes justice, liberation and equality for women.

Rev. Vertucio hopes to create a program of empowerment that will address the isolation and marginalization of Filipino women pastors.

Spiritual Reflections on the March 14, 2007 Senate Hearing on the Extra-Judicial Killings in the Philippines

2007-03-21T13:01:00.000-07:00

Washington D.C.

The feeling was euphoric, almost elation. The hearing had come to a close- there was almost a collective exhale- a sigh and gasp of joy. As the crowd began to breath and chatter to break the silence, smiles broke out. Claps on the back, sighs of relief. "I started to cry during the hearing," said one friend, then another. “Me too,” I echoed, and we had to pause as the emotion of that moment was still powerfully present.

Something holy happened there in that moment. Tears are the language of God praying, they say. God’s prayers. Signs of holy presence. Hearings happen all the time; they are part of the bureaucratic political structure. It’s hard to measure exactly what will come out of it, or how immediately we will see any results in terms of an end to the political assassinations and accountability of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and U.S. military. There is much more follow up work to be done. We cannot yet say what the impact of it all is. But we can say that something holy happened there.

Rev. Mike Yoshii (who also attended this hearing) once mentioned at a retreat that his experience of the Congressional Hearings on Redress for Japanese Americans interned in WWII hearing was a pivotal spiritual experience for him. I think maybe I caught a glimpse of that. We always say that the spiritual is political, the political is spiritual. But still I didn’t expect a Senate hearing in the Nation’s Capitol with people dressed in suits and ties to be an experience of divine connection.

So what were those tears about? Perhaps they were tears of being heard. Not just by anyone - but tears that truth had been spoken and heard by the mighty and powerful. That somehow some "light had shined on the truth," as Senator Boxer said, as she commended the witnesses from the Philippines for doing the hard job of truth-telling when truth-telling can cost you your life.

Tears that some accountability was being administered. Hard questions were being asked of a State Department that dances around and hides, speaking in euphemisms about the U.S. war machine and the false democracy of our allies. Tears that the lies were being exposed. Tears that the story of the seven poor farmers massacred at dawn while working in their rice fields would be told here in the halls of the most powerful country in the world. That the senseless taking of their lives and the livelihoods of their surviving families would be lifted up at the same table where the State Department representative spun his web of half-truths. Life and truth would be spoken here. Just this act was so powerful.

Perhaps the tears were for of all those stories and individual lives lost and affected. We had heard testimony after testimony, report after report for a full day in the conference prior, yet somehow, the lives and spirits of the hundreds and their thousands of kin seeking justice filled the hall that day. Our tears were also for the delegation from the Philippines who have become our friends – and our fear and love as we say goodbye to them and they return to unknown conditions in the Philippines- where their protection is not guaranteed.

Towards the end of the hearing, Senator Boxer asked the witnesses testifying on the reality of the extrajudicial killings if they could ever recall a time in the past, a particular case, when the Philippine’s government was held accountable for its actions. First Marie from KARAPATAN, in her fragile voice, shook her head and said “No.” Followed by “No”, “No”, No” down the panel. Little more needed to be said.

A friend in attendance at the hearing, an immigrant from the Philippines said, “This is how the system is supposed to work," referring to the democratic process we had just witnessed. I am an ABC (American Born Chinese) so I take a lot of this for granted. I vote, but I am also more used to being on the outside of the political process – or at least the outside of the government buildings with signs, protesting and chanting. Maybe I thought that was where I felt most comfortable - because of my race, gender, political beliefs. I suppose that is where I assumed I would see and experience God- on the outside, not on the inside, engaging in the political process.

I have always been a critic of our so-called U.S. democracy that is so over-run by big-money and big business, cynical in thinking that all those letters and petitions that I sign do not really make a difference and that politicians don’t really care. Democracy and accountability in this country is a far cry from ideal, and even feels like a crapshoot sometimes, but it has been a powerful experience to see it at work, to see that it is possible, that we could have some access and recognition by our government leaders, and that justice did stand a chance.

There was something about that hearing process that reminded me of the New Testament story in Luke 5:17-21, the healing of the paralytic. Jesus is teaching and healing in a house, and a large crowd has gather, including the Pharisees and doctors of the Law who had come from every village in Galilee, from Judaea and Jerusalem. These were the powers-that-be, the top officials, the government leaders. A man who was paralyzed wanted to go to Jesus, to get close- perhaps he wanted to hear the teachings, to be healed, to be seen and touched by Jesus. But because of the crowds it was impossible. So with the help of his friends carrying him on his bed, they climb up on the roof and make a hole in the tiles and lower him down into the middle of the gathering in front of Jesus. Jesus is moved by their faith and the man is healed.

That’s a little of what it was like. There seemed to be no way to get in, to be heard by the powerful and mighty. So many issues and concerns, so many officials crowding the space and the airtime. Somehow we found a way to get into the halls of Congress. Like the healing story, it requires many, many hands and even unconventional measures. But as friends we will find a way to create a place inside. Just the getting there is holy in itself. Even if nothing more happened. But Jesus recognizes that faith, the man is recognized for what he is, not a paralytic, but as one who is faithful. How powerful, spiritually it is to be “recognized,” to be truly seen and known and understood- to be taken as one who can give witness and testament to the truth. How touching and healing it is for one to say, “Yes, of course, I see your pain and your suffering and your great faith. I recognize what is going on here. Come, welcome here into this place.” That happened in that hearing. When Senator Boxer understood what was being done in the Philippines, she said- “We don’t want another El Salvador here…we don’t want blood on our hands.”

To be heard and recognized by my government is part of that healing and holy moment. Isn’t that what our friends in the Philippines are asking of their government as well? That their cry for justice and the sanctity and worth of all people’s lives be recognized, that the ongoing economic and political suffering of the people be seen, acknowledged and truly addressed.

The hearing took place on the last day of the conference which was called, “A day of truth, reckoning and hope.” Indeed it was.

-Rev. Deborah Lee

March 14, 2007: Philippines Human Rights Senate Hearing. Reportback and video link.

2007-03-21T10:34:00.000-07:00

I just returned from Washington D.C. where I attended the International Ecumenical Conference on Human Rights in the Philippines and the Senate Hearing on Extrajudicial Killings in the Philippines. Many of you have attended some of our educational forums on this subject, received our emails, helped us to write letters, publicized and spread the word. Thank you! It has been such an exciting time since PANA has gotten involved with this issue at the Human Rights Day “ People’s Worship” or “Pagsambang Bayan” in Daly City on Dec. 10, 2006. Little did we realize that there was a powerful convergence of forces and Spirit about to take place. Bishop Eli Pascua and Rev. Tess Vertucio from the United Church of Christ Philippines spent one month in Northern California speaking at numerous venues about the issue; 17 members of the United Methodist Cal-Nevada conference were sent on a fact-finding trip to the Philippines in mid-February; during this trip, the U.N. Rapporteur, Philip Alston, issued his report on the Extra-judicial killings implicating the military, and then the Philippine's government finally released the conclusions of their own Melo Commission report which also pointed to the military as responsible for the killings.

In February, we began a flurry of legislative visits in Northern California with the strong participation of several Filipino-American pastors and community leaders; Our target had been Senator Boxer with the request of an official on-the-congressional-record Senate hearing in her new post as chair of the Asia Pacific subcommitee of the International Relations Committee. We had wanted this hearing to be March 12-14 when the delegation of religious and NGO leaders from the Philippines would be in DC to offer firsthand testimony. It was a bold request on a tight deadline and so we were not totally surprised despite our flurry of efforts when her office said “No.” But the activity did not cease, and on Thursday, March 8, 2007, just 4 days before the beginning of the Philippine’s Human Rights conference they changed their mind and said “Yes!” All those letters, the newspaper articles, the hundred of people with whom Bishop Pascua and Rev. Vertucio talked and met all over Northern California and Nevada, a significant letter by Rev. Bob Edgars, Pres. of the National Council of Churches, the work of many staff and lawyers working in the ecumenical denominational offices and D.C. law offices lobbying the aides and staffers- all put together worked! All of these activities and voices across the country and internationally converged. Every connection counted! I can remember a form letter to Barbara Boxer signed by a PSR alum who attended one of the educational forums. He wrote at the bottom in his own handwriting: "I met you at a wedding I officiated, please look into this serious matter."

So the official Hearing on Extrajudicial Killings in the Philippines was “ON” for March 14th- a victory in itself. But that was just the beginning of a dramatic few days leading up to the hearing. Within a span of less then a week, the Philippine government raided the home and sought to arrest leftist Philippine Senator Satur Ocampo as part of their political crackdown. He in turn announced that he was on his way to travel to D.C. to testify at the Hearing creating quite a stir. It was not really true, but a tactic to seek protection for himself- and it in turn put a lot of attention on the Hearings. Then, a day later, the Philippine's government and newspaper headlines read that the top two Military Generals and two Chief of Police were on their way to Washington D.C. to attend the hearings to “observe” and clarify "truth from propaganda." This audacity of the Philippine government significantly raised the tension and level of concern for the Philippine delegates at the conference, particularly, because during the span of the 3 day conference, 2 more activists were killed in the Philippines.

Fortunately, Senator Boxer’s office made it clear that there would be no intimidation or fear at the hearing and that Philippine Military and Police were not allowed to be at the hearing. (Whew!) Instead, the Philippine embassy attended and submitted a written report to represent the government’s views- a much more appropriate diplomatic response than sending the military!

During the hearing itself- Senator Boxer was brilliant and tenacious in challenging the State Department’s claims that the Philippines was a vibrant democracy, taking adequate measure to address the killings, painting a rosy picture of the situation. The others who testified were T. Kumar from Amnesty International, G. Eugene Martin from the Philippine Facilitation Project/U.S. Peace Institute, Bishop Eliezer Pascua from the United Church of Christ Philippines and Marie Hilao-Enriquez from KARAPATAN, a human rights group in the Philippines.

You can see the live footage of the hearing at the following link: http://foreign.senate.gov/hearings/2007/hrg070314p.html. (You may need to skip ahead 20 minutes for the actual start of the hearing.)
-Rev. Deborah Lee

Apr 3: "Redress, Reparations and Reconciliation" - Japanese American internment

2007-03-20T15:38:00.001-07:00

Join us on April 3^rd, 2007 6:30-9:30 for a Community Program on

“Redress, Reparations and Reconciliation”

the experience of Japanese American internment during WWII and its ongoing message for the present.

Film Showing : “Remembering Manzanar”

Speakers:

Dr. Joanne Doi, M . M . is a pilgrimage guide and teacher of the course "Manzanar: America's Internment," sponsored by the PANA Institute.

Rev. Michael Yoshii , long-time pastor of Buena Vista United Methodist Church, will share about his experience in the redress movement and its spiritual implications.

Members of Buena Vista United Methodist Church will share their personal testimonies of internment and the story of their church during and after the internment period.

Location: Buena Vista United Methodist Church (Sanctuary)

2311 Buena Vista Ave. Alameda, CA 94501

Free, Open to the Public and Wheelchair accessible.

Carpool Available : Leaving Pacific School of Religion at 5:45 pm ( Meet in the PANA driveway, 2357 Le Conte Ave.)

March 24 guided visit to Masjid Al-Noor in Santa Clara

2007-03-20T15:22:00.000-07:00

Today is the last day to register for our March 24 guided visit to Masjid Al-Noor in Santa Clara, the largest mosque in California. We will learn about Muslim religious life, as well as social issues that concern Muslim Americans. In particular, we will discuss the effects of domestic terrorism directed at Muslims in the wake of 9/11.

Coordinated by Jaideep Singh, Visiting Scholar-in-Residence for the PANA Institute's Civil Liberty and Faith Project, and instructor of PSR course RSHR-1070: "Presumed Guilty: Race, Religion, and the Post-9/11 Racialized State"

Contact pana@psr.edu, 510-849-8244, to register.

March 7: Rev. Teresita B. Vertucio, United Church of Christ Philippines

2007-03-19T16:03:00.002-07:00

You are invited to an International Women's Day Luncheon:

Join us at PANA for a lunch, presentation and discussion

Wednesday, March 7^th

12:00 noon

Please RSVP

International Speaker:

Rev. Teresita B. Vertucio,

elected Conference Minister (Pastoral/Executive Position) of the

United Church of Christ Philippines

Northeast Southern Tagalog Conference

“Leaders yet Subordinate: The Place of Women Ministers in the Church”

This paper draws from Rev. Teresita B. Vertucio’s experience and research of the UCCP South Luzon Jurisdiction Area where women are ordained yet hardly stand on equal footing with male counterparts in terms of policy making and program initiatives of the church. The very low percentage of women who are having access to empowerment programs, and being yet unorganized, contribute to this status of subordination in a church that is patriarchal.

REV. TERESITA B. VERTUCIO was ordained minister of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines in 1987 after already serving as a Lay Pastor since 1980. She has a Bachelor of Theology from Union Theological Seminary Philippines (1978-1982), and Master of Arts in Religious Studies--Women & Religion (Thesis Writing) from 2002-2004. She had some involvement in GABRIELA Southern Tagalog (early 90's) and DIAKONIA, a women church workers’ organization (also in Southern Tagalog), which has both national and ecumenical character.

Please RSVP for the luncheon: contact Deborah Lee at dlee@psr.edu or 510-829-8260.

World Day of Prayer - "Faith, Justice and Human Rights in the Philippines"

2007-03-02T14:48:00.000-08:00

Friday, March 2, 12:00-1:00pm
"Faith, Justice and Human Rights in the Philippines"
Ecumenical Vigil at State Capitol
Westminster Presbyterian Church, 1300 N St., Sacramento, California

This year, for World Day of Prayer, join us for ecumenical witness, prayer and action for Faith, Justice and Human Rights in the Philippines.

Prayer will begin at Westminster Presbyterian Church, 1300 N Street (at 13th Street), Sacramento, CA 95814, and conclude with a short procession to the steps of the State Capitol.

Prayer and procession will include:

Bishop Eli Pascua, General Secretary of the United Church of Christ Philippines;
Bishop Beverly Shamana, United Methodist Church, California Nevada Conference; and members of the
United Methodist Fact-Finding Team, recently returned from the Philippines.

Please bring a flower for the procession to remember the 800 killed and 200 disappeared unarmed civilians (since 2001) which include pastors, farmers, students, human rights lawyers, journalists, labor leaders, and others working for economic and social justice in the Philippines. Clergy are asked to please wear clerical attire.

Sponsored by:
Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. (Sacramento Presbytery); Interfaith Service Bureau; and the Institute for Leadership Development and Study of Pacific Asian North American Religion (PANA Institute).

For more information, contact:
Rev. Larry Emery at (916) 776-6986 or wgcpc@hotmail.com, or
Rev. Deborah Lee at (510) 849-8260 or dlee@psr.edu.

Read this article reporting on the vigil (from the United Methodist Church Global Ministries website.)