(Re)Collection
A WGS Quarterly Publication

APRIL 2010 newsletter

Dear (Re)Collection: A WGS Newsletter Readers:

What does a solidarity movement look like in for communities across the Pacific experiencing multiple manifestations of militarism? WGS and Famoksaiyan members works from the Bay Area to halt the military build up of Guam through discussions with the San Francisco Environmental Protection Agency, and through letter writing campaigns to political leaders. Yoko Fukumura of Okinawan Women Act Against Military violence reminds us of the history of militarization in Okinawa, encouraging us, the larger U.S. citizenry and the Obama administration, to not forget about the continued military presence there. Annie Fukushima writes about the transnationality of human trafficking that links the experiences of women's racialized and sexualized bodies across the lands of Philippines, Korea, and the U.S. Ariko Ikehara writes about the limitations of fixing Black Amerasian and mixed-race discourses to understand agency, fluidity and (re)construction of identity boundaries as a way to survive and resist the militarized present. Ellen-Rae Cachola foregrounds body-knowledge and empowerment as part of human-led, community based information systems that network, resist and rupture hypermilitarized worlds. Women in WGS continue to reflect on this ongoing process through retreats where they must actively reflect to determine the direction(s) of this complex, intercultural, trans-spatial and temporal work. These U.S. based voices work in alliance with demilitarization movements in the Pacific, U.S. and beyond, to interrupt the ways that knowledge can be oppressive through mapping simplistic discourses onto bodies and lands, which are then organized according to hegemonic imaginations that do not ask consent in how they are representing and impacting people's lives.

In Solidarity,

APRIL 2010 CONTRIBUTORS

Erica Benton
Diana Cabcabin
Ellen-Rae Cachola
Yoko Fukumura
Joseph Gerson
Annie Fukushima
Yvette Hochberg

Lina Hoshino

Ariko Ikehara

Maikiko James

Gwyn Kirk

Debbie Lee

Kevin Martin

Rima Miles

Lisa Linda Natividad

Sandra Schwartz