As we come into the end of 2024, I wanted to share a piece I wrote as a reflection of the pilgrimage we made to Manzanar through our Nikkei Progressives Reparations Committee (a group of folks dedicated to the study, public education and support of Black Reparations, and growing our engagement and support of Landback, land sovereignty, and continued support of the Comfort Women).

Our buses held a deep and expansive community of folks. We asked all to enter the buses thinking of the ancestors they are walking with. Folks had ancestors from a wide swath of the world—Okinawa, Mexico, Korea, Japan, Africa, South America, the Philippines, Palestine, Lebanon, and on and on. 

I asked each bus to indulge us with some writing and poetry exercises on the way to Manzanar, to visit with the people of Three Creeks, and on the ride back home, through which the following poem was inspired and allowed to be…

—traci kato-kiriyama

* * * * *

Rooted in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo, Nikkei Progressives (NP) is an intergenerational, grassroots community organization. Formed in 2016, NP carries on the values and principles of earlier groups like the Little Tokyo Peoples Rights Organization (LTPRO) and Nikkei for Civil Rights & Redress (NCRR). NP’s mission is to engage and unite the Nikkei community to stand against injustice, inequality and white supremacy and to work in solidarity with others for a more just society.

Nikkei Progressives has six committees that are actively working in the following areas: Black and Indigenous reparations, immigrant rights, non-partisan electoral work, sustaining Little Tokyo, support for Palestine, and arts and culture.

Photo by Raquel Joyce Fujimaki

traci kato-kiriyama, they+she, based on unceded Tongva Land, is a queer Sansei/Yonsei Nikkei inter/multi/transdisciplinary artist, poet, actor, educator, and cultural producer. They are principal writer/performer of PULLproject Ensemble; author of Signaling (2011, The Undeniables) and Navigating With(out) Instruments (2021, Writ Large Projects), Director/Founder of Tuesday Night Project, and an award-winning audiobook narrator. traci is a community organizer with Nikkei Progressives and the National Nikkei Reparations Coalition and a recipient of several distinguished lectureships, fellowships, and residencies. traci's writing, work, and commentary has been featured in a wide swath of publications including NPR, PBS, and C-SPAN. Hosts for tkk’s performance, storytelling, poetry, teaching/facilitation, and speaking include The Smithsonian, The Getty, Skirball Cultural Center, Hammer Museum, and many more.

70 Spirits to Manzanar or 70 Spirits Traveling Beyond our Ancestors’ Imagination

Poem of collective prompts and responses
on the Nikkei Progressives Reparations Committee buses
for the Pilgrimage to Manzanar in April, 2024, crafted by traci kato-kiriyama

Photo by Corey Ohama

Onto two buses we climbed
70 souls lifting off from Little Tokyo
Bringing with us thousands more
Planting ourselves into each seat next to
Ancestors who have grounded
A million tendrils of existence

Roots of Castuera, Yamada, Sergany, Masaoka, Mora, Cheung, Griffin, Jones,
Roots of Shimizu, Lee, Ishii, Santos, Rooks, Kanegawa, Taing, Wakabayashi, Kondo 

Our buses carry a spectrum of memory and reflection
We bring with us
grandmothers and grandfathers, 
matriarchs and mentors, our
children, veterans,
students crying Freedom
queer Abolitionists,
A childhood cat Poppy,
Family trapped in Japan who never returned
Family separated from a place now known as Mexico
Family from Ghana, torn from the shores of Africa
Family who endured the Trail of Tears
People who are still locked up in prison, in detention centers
Palestinians who passed before seeing a Free Palestine while still on this earth 
The countless many voices
Before who have suffered, who continue to suffer
Across soil, across oceans, across time

We bring with us
Their righteous anger
Their audacious hope

Roots of Higashiyama, Noji, Radinsky, Yeto, Maru, Blackburn, Abe, Kim, Hibino, Murase
Roots of McLemore, Sakamoto, Watanabe, Iwama, Sano, Madrilejo, Tripurana, Ohama

We arrive
into the dust
The heat
The dirt
The graves at Manzanar
Where brutality meets beauty
As the majestic peaks
Push up against a clear blue sky

Against a backdrop of
Pop up tents
and
Taiko drums
        –  don don don, kara don  –
We are stung by the rising temperature
We run for cover in the shade
Knowing of too many a people before us
Who were unable to escape the heat of oppression
And fear

Anger rises, pain surfaces, tears stream down
As
Stories
move through our skin

Memory of sepia toned photograph of Grandpa and Grandma
standing in front of dark brown barracks in Manzanar

As more archival
Maps
unfold in our memories

The breadcrumbs Auntie left – she wrote down the names of every street
they passed on the way to Santa Anita

And standing before us all, a man named George
His first time speaking to a crowd about
Manzanar since he was there as a child
In the middle of a full, steaming
Reconstructed barrack
Not a sound
All bodies still
All voices supporting this moment of recalling
Hand on his chest
Eyes closed shut
Swaying in remembrance
All hearts wrenched in awe

His tears choking his words
He apologized for needing to pause
And the voices all around:
We got you.
You got this.
Take your time.
We understand.
We understand.

We can see
Our Ancestors move into this room with us

Roots of Kaufman, Cosney, Iwataki, Rios, Chun, Fukushima, Nagatani, Lieb Dula, Mulligan, Ochi, nakamaru, Yen
Roots of Oda, Tolbert, Takahashi, Walker, Yoon, Zahzah, Kato, Kiriyama,
Roots of Matsuoka, Nishio, Uyematsu 

We move
through Payahuunadü
35 miles
Up the 395
To Big Pine
To AkaMya
To the people of the Three Creeks,
The Paiute
They welcome us all

Roots of Henry, Iwamoto, Grills, Tamaki, Torres, Bin, Agara, Abo, Doi, Toña,
Roots of Romero, Pugliese, Kaneko, Horiuchi, Matsumoto, Tokumaru, Contreras, Calderon

We are here to 
Learn more
Fight for more
Expand our circles
Be broken open

We are here to
Absorb the wisdom of the land
What it teaches us through all
It has endured
Through our misuses
and abandonment
Our spirits and hearts
Are filled with more oxygen
And
We are here to
Break bread: “Indian Tacos” and ice cream
Applaud the hoop dancers
Play games with potatoes
Expand ourselves in the circle
And
Dance 

Our appetites have been filled
With connection and growth
With commitment and gratitude

We stand taller now from our roots
And reach through the tips of our fingers
Toward the sky

To this …a
Constellation of Ancestral Dreams 
In
Solidarity 
Righteous Anger
Audacious Hope

They are embracing us
To empower us all

A renewed spirit of
Community 
Beyond our
Ancestors’ imagination

© 2024 traci kato-kiriyama; Nikkei Progressives