PANA Update - January 31, 2007

Wednesday, January 31, 7:00 pm
Film screening:
“Divided We Fall: Americans in the Aftermath”
Written and produced by Valerie Kaur.
Directed and produced by Sharat Raju.
UC Berkeley campus - 2040 Life Sciences Building (LSB)
$5.00; or free with any valid student ID
(Every dollar raised will go back into film production.)

PANA Institute’s project on Civil Liberties and Faith presents the screening of Divided We Fall, a film about the untold American story in the aftermath of 9/11. It is a moving story that brings us to the intersections of violence, identity, and power in America, and forces us to confront where we stand as a people. Valarie Kaur was twenty years old when she got in her car and began driving across the country. A man from her community had just been murdered. An elderly man nearly beaten to death. A woman stabbed in the head. Fragments of these stories sent across e-mail lists were not making the nightly news, only the towers falling over and over again between headshots of turbaned and bearded Osama bin Laden. As a Sikh American college student, Valarie wanted to reconcile the two faces of America— the unity of a grieving nation and the fear dividing her country. At the end of September 2001, she left behind her junior year and began a journey across the country, looking for the heart of America. Award-winning director Sharat Raju and his team joined Valarie Kaur in 2004 to create the footage into a feature-length (110 min) documentary. The crew retraced Valarie's steps in summer 2005 in a second phase of production on 16mm film and interviewed again the people Valarie first met in 2001. The team has created a film that explores what it means to be American five years in the aftermath.

For more information about the film:
http://www.dwf-film.com/

Sponsored by:
PANA Institute, UC Berkeley Sikh Students Association, Gurdwara Sahib, El Sobrante, and the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF).

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Upcoming events of interest to friends of PANA:

Sunday, January 28, 1:15-3:15pm
Community Reception for Carolyn Ho, mother of Lt. Ehren Watada
Cameron House, 920 Sacramento St., San Francisco, CA
Carolyn Ho will speak at Presbyterian Church in Chinatown at 12 noon, and a public community reception will follow at Cameron House, one block away. Hosted by APIs Resist! and the Lt. Ehren Watada Support Committee.


Wednesday, January 31, 7:00 pm
Film screening: “Divided We Fall: Americans in the Aftermath”
Written and produced by Valerie Kaur. Directed and produced by Sharat Raju.
UC Berkeley campus - 2040 Life Sciences Building (LSB)
$5.00; or free with any valid student ID


Friday, February 9, 12:00 pm
A Brown Bag Luncheon with Dr. Rachel Bundang
“The Challenge of Asian/Pacific American Feminist Theology”
PANA Offices, 2357 LeConte Ave., Berkeley, CA

This presentation draws from an ongoing project to articulate an ethics of method for constructive feminist theologies that address Asian/Pacific American (APA) women’s cultural realities and religious experiences. It challenges assumptions about the liberative intent and capacity of feminist theologies and ethnic studies both. This work has been deemed “groundbreaking” and “foundational” scholarship in feminist religious studies, addressing questions of religious pluralism, theological understanding of the self, and the formation of a moral community.

Rachel A.R. Bundang received her Ph.D. from Union Theological Seminary in 2006, and is now the Bannan Fellow at Santa Clara University’s Bannan Institute for Jesuit Educational Mission and the Department of Religious Studies. Trained in Christian ethics, she teaches and writes on feminist ethics and theologies, Catholic moral theology, and Asian Pacific American (APA) religiosity. Her recent work has appeared in Semeia, the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, and the collection Pinay Power: “Peminist Critical Theory.” She is also a consultant on issues such as race and religion, religious pluralism, and liturgy. Her current project proposes disruptive personhood as a corrective to the erased self in APA feminist theoethics.


Tuesday, February 13, 5:00-6:30 pm
“Faith under Fire”
Bishop Eli Pascua: General Secretary of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP)
Pacific School of Religion Chapel, 1798 Scenic Ave, Berkeley, CA 94709

Pacific School of Religion President William McKinney and the PANA Institute invite you to a presentation by, and reception for, Bishop Eli Pascua General Secretary of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP). Bishop Pascua will address the human rights violations and political killings of clergy, journalists, human rights workers and activists in the Philippines.

Human rights monitoring groups report 787 unarmed citizens killed and 187 disappeared in the last five years under incumbent President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, numbers higher than during the Marcos era. Twenty-seven Christian clergy and church workers belonging to the United Church of Christ Philippines, United Methodist Church, Philippine Independent Church, and Roman Catholic Church have been killed, most notably Supreme Bishop Alberto Ramento who was assassinated in October, 2006.

Numerous church bodies, including the General Synod of the United Church of Christ, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., and the Northern-California- Nevada Conference of the United Methodist Church, have already issued resolutions or statements condemning the killings and calling for investigations. Come find out why this is happening and what you can do for justice.

Parking is available in the PSR lot, on Scenic Ave. near the corner of Virginia St.


Friday, March 2, 12:00-1:00 pm
World Day of Prayer – Ecumenical Vigil at State Capitol for Human Rights in the Philippines
Westminster Presbyterian Church, 1300 N St., Sacramento, California.


Saturday, March 3, 4:00-8:00 pm
Network on Religion and Justice for API LGBTs – Chinese New Year Parade contingent
San Francisco, CA

The Network on Religion and Justice for Asian American and Pacific Islander Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender People (NRJ-API-LGBT), of which PANA is a coordinating member, is sponsoring a contingent of APIs to march in public religious support of the Gay Asian Pacific Alliance float in the San Francisco Chinese New Year parade. API clergy in robe and stole are especially encouraged to march with us. Contact PANA to register.
For more information about NRJ-API-LGBT:
http://www.clgs.org/api
For more about the San Francisco Chinese New Year Parade:
http://www.chineseparade.com


Wednesday, March 7, 5:30- 8:30 pm
Community Visit—El Sobrante Gurdwara
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”

Join us for a visit to the gurdwara in El Sobrante, one of the oldest and most beautiful in the state. (www.mygurdwara.com) One of the founders of the gurdwara will give 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 will address 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. Contact PANA to register.
For more information about the gurdwara:
http://www.mygurdwara.com/


Saturday, March 24, 3:00-8:00pm
Community Visit—Masjid Al-Noor in Santa Clara
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”

Join us for a glimpse into the lives of our Muslim American neighbors, with a visit to 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.
Jaideep Singh is the 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”


April 26-29
Pilgrimage to Manzanar
Led by Joanne Doi, M.M., instructor of PSR course STHR-1395: “America’s Internment: Manzanar”

Join us for active participation in and theological reflection on the 38th annual pilgrimage to the former WWII site of Japanese American internment at Manzanar, California (now a National Historic Site and National Park Service Interpretive Center). Contact PANA to register.

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Spring 2007 PSR courses sponsored by PANA:

“Presumed Guilty: Race, Religion, and the Post-9/11 Racialized State”
(RSHR-1070, 3.0 units)
Instructor: Jaideep Singh, Visiting Scholar-in-Residence for the PANA Institute’s Civil Liberty and Faith Project.
Weds 2:10-5:00pm, plus contextual immersion events and day-long conference.

This course examines the daily racialized realities of life for Asian Americans in the post-9/11 United States, with specific emphasis on the newly-articulated relationship between the state and various Asian American communities, especially Arab, Muslim, and South Asian Americans. Of particular interest in our analysis will be the role of religion in marking targeted Asian Americans as “other,” and the Christian-centric national discourses which continually marginalize and suppress the voices of non-Christians of color. Over the course of the semester, we will utilize lectures, textual resources, videos and films, media analysis, guest speakers and site visits to engage the complex, serious issues raised by the experiences of these communities in the wake of the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

Among the issues explored in the course will be the ominously clandestine mass detentions, disappearances and deportations in Muslim American communities; the renewedly aggressive reassertion of racial profiling in law enforcement; and the numerous errors enacted by the state and news media which exacerbated the national hate crime epidemic of historic proportions which followed the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Students will begin the seminar by working in groups to analyze mainstream news reports in the weeks immediately following the terrorist attacks. We will then move to other primary source documents, many from community organizations working to deal with the horrors of domestic terrorism visited upon their communities in the wake of the attacks on New York City and Washington, DC. We will examine news reports, press releases by community level organizations, as well as scholarly work dealing with the hate crimes and the newly circumscribed civil liberties resulting from the passage of ostensibly anti-terrorist legislation. Students will then spend the last portion of the quarter researching a term paper on a topic of their choosing, ideally on a subject that piqued their interest during their studies during the semester.

“America’s Internment: Manzanar”
(STHR-1395, 1.5 units)
Instructor: Joanne Doi, M.M.

In preparation for the active participation and theological reflection on the 38th annual pilgrimage to the former WWII site of Japanese American internment at Manzanar, California (now a National Historic Site and National Park Service Interpretive Center), this interdisciplinary course will examine the practice of pilgrimage and its 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 a framework for theological interpretation. This PANA-sponsored course will take place in East Bay Area Japanese American churches and include community members. First meeting is April 3, 2007 from 6:30-9:30pm at Buena Vista UMC, Alameda and will meet 4/3, 4/10, 4/17, 4/27 and 5/8/07. Pilgrimage will be 4/26-4/29/07. [12 max enrollment; faculty permission required; auditors with permission of faculty.]

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Special Announcement from PANA:

Employment Opportunity at PANA

DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT
The Institute for Leadership Development and Study of Pacific and Asian North American Religion (PANA Institute)

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PANA Institute
The Institute for Leadership Development and Study of
Pacific and Asian North American Religion
http://pana.psr.edu
Sharon Hwang Colligan, Administrative Assistant
(510) 849-8244 shcolligan@psr.edu