"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.
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.
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.”
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 WaianaeCoast
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.
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 ofIn 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; 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.”
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
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.
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.
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
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.
********* 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.
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.
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."
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.
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 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.
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!
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.
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
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 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."
Join us on April 10th, 2007 6:30-9:30for a Community Program on
“Wounded Resurrection: Intersections and Solidarities”
the experience of Japanese American internment during WWII and its ongoing message for the present.
FilmShowing : “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.
CarpoolAvailable: 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 38th 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.
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.
