PANA Institute for Leadership Development

April 2008 marks the 39th annual community pilgrimage to the former WWII site of Japanese American incarceration at Manzanar, California. This tradition began in 1945, as an annual ceremony to honor those who died in the "camp," led by a Buddhist priest and Christian minister together. The generation during the late 1960s joined the annual pilgrimage to continue to honor the dead, to reclaim their collective memory and suppressed history, and to listen to the painful stories of their parents evoked by the gathered community in what has become a sacred site, and to listen to the reverberations inside themselves of both inherited trauma and healing. This garnered the emotional energy for the redress and reparations movement, which culminated in the legal victory of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. Yet even after 1988, the pilgrimages continued. Now spiritual reparations, as we revisit our memories and feel compassionate solidarity with other groups suffering similar traumas in contemporary times, enable the continuing process of redress and imagining a different world.

In 2006, PANA began offering an interdisciplinary course entitled "Manzanar: America's Internment." Joanne Doi, a Japanese-American Ph.D. candidate writing her thesis on the history of pilgrimage, taught a half-semester course preparing a diverse group of seminary students to travel together as a group joining the larger community pilgrimage to Manzanar. Most were compelled by the experience of Manzanar and/or the internment period, either because of a personal connection or a gap in understanding its significance; many also discovered such connections along the journey.

In 2007, the Manzanar course left the classroom and went out to the Japanese American faith communities as an immersion course, where seminarians and congregation members engaged together in a process of reflection, listening and re-telling of the stories and experiences of a particular Japanese American church community during internment, and its significance for the generations living in today’s post-9/11 context. The community "classrooms" in 2007 were Buena Vista United Methodist Church (Alameda), Sycamore Congregational Church (El Cerrito), Jodo Shinshu Center (Berkeley) and Channing Way Buddhist Temple (Berkeley).

Dr. Joanne Doi, MM, became Adjunct Assistant Professor of Intercultural Theologies and Ministry at Franciscan School of Theology. In the Spring 2008 semester, PANA offered "Pilgrimage — Manzanar Internment" as a full-semester collaborative course between FST and PANA. The first half took place in the classroom on the PSR campus and examined topics such as:

• pre-internment Japanese American history;
• the historian as curandera or healer;
• the psychology of racial trauma and spirituality of negative emotions;
• the metaphor of refuge and pathway in the Psalms;
• the Manzanar Pilgrimage situated in Asian American movement history in the context of the Civil Rights and Liberation Theology movements;
• critical faith and civil religion;
• post-colonial pilgrimage; and
• pilgrimage practice.

The second half of the course returned to the off-campus "classrooms" where, in the context of shared narratives, body, memory and ritual, we touched upon reparations and reconciliation, wounded resurrections and solidarities, and multi-faith community.

The culmination was the Third Annual PANA Pilgrimage to Manzanar itself, Thursday April 24 - Sunday April 27. En route, we also visited the Cesar Chavez Center near Tehachapi, as we recognize the inspiration that the United Farmworkers march from Delano to Sacramento gave the Manzanar Pilgrimage back in the late 1960s.

2008 course description: "Pilgrimage: Manzanar Internment"

STHR-2816, Spring 2008. 3.0 units

Intructors: Dr. Joanne Doi and Dr. Gordon Lee.
Meets Mondays 6:30–9:00 pm

In preparation for active participation and theological reflection on the 39th annual pilgrimage to the former WWII site of Japanese American internment at Manzanar, CA (National Historic Site and National Park Service Interpretive Center), this interdisciplinary course will examine the practice of pilgrimage and inter-religious nature (Buddhist, Christian, Shinto folk practice with Taoist elements), identity and race in Asian American history through place and memory (social geography, racial formation theory), and intercultural theological framework for interpretation. This course is jointly sponsored with the PANA Institute and will take place in part at East Bay Area Japanese American churches and include community members. Requirements for credit: Participation on the pilgrimage April 24-27, weekly one page critical reflection essay, and final critical 15 page paper. Fulfills FST Multicultural Theology requirement and PSR Contextual Ed requirement. [12 max enrollment; Auditors with permission of Faculty]

Non-students welcome to join tthe 2008 course on Monday evenings March 31, April 7, 14, 21, and on the April 24–27 pilgrimage journey.