How did you discover Women for Genuine Security?
What brought you to the network?
I have worked with some of the founding members of WGS and their allied groups
participating in various national and international activities (intermittently)
since 1996. After living in NY for 4 years, I returned to Bay Area in 2006
and reconnected with some individuals from WGS and participated in the planning
of the 2007 Int’l Women’s conference in Bay Area.
Do you feel that women play a unique role in the
struggle against militarism?
Yes. I think all marginalized people, women included,
play a critical role in the struggle, especially against
militarism since it is the agency of oppression, colonialism,
and imperialism. Women are particularly at risk in
terms of gender and the objectification and the fetishization
of women that is already established in the male-dominant
hegemonic system.The military is the epitome of that hegemonic
system and it has caused unmentionable and damaging human
costs to women all over Asia and other countries where the
military presence has been established.
Do you think women have a different responsibility
to global politics or relationships?
If one understood the risk and implication of the military
over women’s bodies, one has the responsibility to
protect and build alliances globally from her own body to
the bodies of other women, transnationally. The body that
I speak of is the body one claims, proclaims, and reclaims
in the name of the empowerment of the self, linking the empowerment
of transformation. I am not sure if the responsibility becomes
critical because one is a woman or one becomes aware of the
responsibility through self-realization. Perhaps both.
What is your perspective on transnational organizing
as mixed race person of African American and Okinawan descent?
I think that before I respond to this question, I want to
make sure that the question is framed correctly and the inquirer
and the reader of my response understand the whole picture. By
naming someone as something, one has already accepted the
term and conditions of that name: in this case, a mixed-race
person of African American and Okinawan descent.” Personally,
I have accepted the term Black-Okinawan Amerasian of African
American and Okinawan descent. Why is this necessary? It
is necessary because it nuances something other than a mixed
race person of African American and Okinawan descent. It
is necessary because the subject here poses many questions
and contest to the categorical naming of race, identity,
culture, nationality, etc…
Because I want to respond to the question that has been
asked, I will stop here and return to the order of things. My
perspective on transnational organizing is one that is exciting
and hopeful and one that is also challenging. It is
exciting and hopeful because I do believe that connection/relationship/building
of networks from the micro to macro is imperative to the
work we are imagining and pursuing. My body is trans-racial,
trans-national, trans-cultural, and moves in trans-space. I
think and feel from the place of transitioning, transporting,
transmitting, transforming, trans-… In a sense,
my body dances in the space.
This type of organizing is also challenging, however, because
of what I had began with in answering this question. When
a body does not fit into a recognizable form, as in my case,
I am faced with a decision of utterance or silence. (Utterance:
to take a stand; Silence: this is not the battle.) When
I take up a cause for Okinawa, I am keenly aware that, in
general, the Amerasian issue does not come up. This
puts me in that utterance vs. silence dilemma. This
is not to judge but to be mindful of the work I have to do. This
challenge I am speaking of is a challenge which I am willing
and eager to take on towards my work in the Black-Amerasian
ontological exploration and historiographic mapping.
You use movement in your life work and as part of
your activism. When/how/where did that start for you in
your life? How do you see movement, art, and bodywork as
part of your politics and activism?
For me, movement is a life force, an art form that co-exists
with life itself. I “discovered” the power of
movement through a break up from my boyfriend, a high school
sweetheart. When nothing else could heal my wounded
heart, the day I stepped into a dance class (by pure accident),
I felt my body dance – not only the actual body dancing,
but also the spirit dancing. From this moment forward,
I began my relationship with my body in a different way. As
a graduate student at SFSU, I studied Interdisciplinary Arts
focusing on Performance Art (performing the body). Theorizing
and performing provided me with the in-depth analyses, understanding
and application of art to both personal and political work. As
one discovers one’s calling for what and how, I think
my calling on what and how is performing the body – at
least for now. Again, the performing the body is not
limited to the body actually performing, but a way in which
one moves in the world.
How/Do you bring activism and your politics into
your daily life?
Activism and politics should come from passion. To
bring them to one’s daily life is to have accepted
and be clear on your passion or to engage in the process
of achieving clarity and acceptance on one’s thoughts
and actions mindfully. From that standpoint (i.e.,
art as life), I am trying to incorporate activism and politics
as not a separate experience but a way of life. Here,
the effort counts more than the achievement.
How do you practice self-care in the midst of your
work and struggles?
To pursue and be surrounded by people, things like good food
that takes care of me. To be engaged in personal, political
and intellectual activities that answer some of my questions
about the meaning of life. To be connected to people and
to continue learning life through experience. I also do yoga
and pilates to keep me aligned…and laughter, any means
necessary!
Okinawan delegates singing traditional Okinawan
song in the opening ceremony and vigil at the Pentagon, Security
Without Empire: National Organizing Conference on Foreign
Military Bases, February 27, 2009. Photo by Lindsey Kerr |
