Dear (Re)Collection: A WGS Newsletter Readers:
June 2008 is a significant time of the year for
U.S. citizens and the global community. As the hot war in Iraq
continues with oil prices rising and the U.S. dollar, to put it simply,
deflating, how are women mobilizing and redefining their experiences
from the ground? (Re)Collection, founded by Ellen-Rae Cachola, Annie
Fukushima, Maikiko James, and Aileen Suzara, was imagined and enacted
as a space of possibility, of change, of peace, through quarterly
publications on militarism from women’s perspectives. This newsletter
is an important collecting point for the narratives that the women of
the peace movement paint through their lives, as delineated in a
previously featured Insight Interview with Gwyn Kirk and the current
Insight Interview with Deborah Lee. In collecting these narratives we
realize that it isn’t just about the individual voices, but that of the
collective and how the individual lives of women interface with that of
the dominant society and the global community through transnational
feminisms. This newsletter is a space for articulating what is going on
in the world today in regards to U.S. global militarism that is
normalized in the everyday, but redefined in everyday acts of
resistance where it is the community of women that “speaks”. This
newsletter features two aspects that bring the global to the local
U.S.: continued feature of the Country Reports on sister countries in
the Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Middle-East, and a Country
Highlight that illuminates specifically the local community concerns in
another country surrounding U.S. militarisms. In our first newsletter
we featured Hawai`i and militarism, “10,459 Miles From the Hot War: How
Hawai`i Is Impacted During Militarized ‘Peace’” by Fukushima. This June
2008 publication, we are honored and privileged to say that
(Re)Collection will feature as a Country Highlight, Guam, “Ladrones de
la Isla/Thieves of the Island “ by Sabina Perez. And, we are happy to
announce a new component to our newsletter: International Diaries, “My
First Tour – Civilian Reflections on Visiting Militarized Lands” by
Maikiko James, that which explores James’ travels to Guam, Hawai`i, and
the Philippines. Our editorial staff has also grown since our first
publication, and we have now added on board Taeva Shefler. We hope you
enjoy traversing the text of these pages to learn more about women
whose lives are impacted by militarism globally and whose words and
lives embody women making changes, women working towards peace. Thank
you for your support as readers and critical thinkers.
Ellen-Rae Cachola, Annie Fukushima, Maikiko
James, Aileen Suzara, and Taeva Shefler
Editorial Staff
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