Warm greetings from CWJC!  We hope you’re healthy and safe.

This is a strange time for all of us as we try to be quarantined and productive at the same time.  This is a time when our communities need to stay connected, for we know that our mental and social health are as important as our physical health.

CWJC wants to share with you some of our activities over the past months, as well as some of our plans for the future.

News of the “Grandmas”

When we heard that the city of Daegu in Korea was the hardest hit by the COVID-19 outbreak, we were quite worried.  This is the home of Halmoni Lee Yong Soo, who has visited us on several occasions.  Luckily, she is fine and continuing her work in advocating for justice for the “comfort women.”

Unfortunately, we do have sad news to share – Lau Hai Yue 劉海魚 whose name means Sea Fish, passed away on April 13th.

So far, none of the other surviving Chinese grandmas were affected by the outbreak of COVID-19, mainly because they live in remote rural areas rather than in populated cities. Be that as it may, there are fewer than 20 grandmas still with us, and they are very old.

Successful Commemoration of Nanjing-Ji

On December 8, 2019, more than 400 people came together to commemorate the 82nd anniversary of the massacre of Nanjing in 1937.  Many people commented that this was one of our most successful events yet!

“Viruses Know No Nationality:” Responding to Trump’s Anti-Chinese Racism

There has been a national spike in hateful attacks against Asian Americans of all nationalities. People of all age groups, from children to the elderly, have been bullied, spat at, and physically attacked.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, President Trump, his administration, and his allies have persisted in calling the virus the “Chinese virus.”  Other names have been the “Kung Flu” or the “Wuhan Virus” – all derogatory terms intended to scapegoat China and incite animosity towards Asian Americans.  CWJC has been part of the national response to fight against this xenophobia and racism.

Here in San Francisco, we supported the passage of a Resolution condemning the use of the term “Chinese Virus.”  We’re happy to report that the resolution passed unanimously.  The text of the resolution: “Condemning the Hateful Usage of the Term “Chinese Virus” and “Wuhan Virus” and Condemning Hate and Xenophobic Attacks” will be on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors website in the next two weeks.

On 2/29/20, CWJC Julie Tang and Michael Wong helped organize a Chinatown-to-Downtown San Francisco rally of over 1,000 people to unite against anti-Asian racism. It was one of the largest rallies ever held by a Chinese community in California.

Preserving the Testimony of “Comfort Women” for Eternity

In conjunction with the Nanjing “Comfort Women” Museum and the Shoah Foundation, we are preparing an “Eternal Testimony” (ET) with a “comfort woman” survivor from China. We will do this by using a New Dimension (ND) platform, which allows people to interact with survivors through a conversation on a Virtual Reality platform.

The Shoah Foundation has pioneered a project where a survivor (in this case a “comfort woman”) is asked thousands of questions on video. These questions are based on what people will most likely ask in any given situation.  Then the video, using artificial intelligence of the ND platform, is made into an interactive film which will be preserved eternally – hence the name, Eternal Testimony! Using a computer, the ET can be projected onto any live setting (a school, a library, a museum, etc.) and anyone in that setting can ask the subject, our “grandma,” a question, and she will answer as if she is right there in the room.

The Shoah Foundation has used this emerging technology to preserve the memories of Jewish Holocaust survivors and survivors of the Nanjing Massacre in China.

For a much better visual explanation go to this link.

We are racing against time.  Within the past ten years, many “comfort women” have either passed away or have become too frail to testify. CWJC is working to record the testimony as quickly as possible, so that their experiences and memories will endure long after they are gone.

Our sister organization in Southern California, CARE, has already begun this project by interviewing Grandma Lee in South Korea.

National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA)

This year, the National Women’s Study Association held its national convention in March in San Francisco. Over 2000 people attended the conference, and CWJC was there!

We participated in a workshop, gave out a mini reader and our curriculum, and sponsored a tour entitled “Memorializing the Comfort Women – Building Solidarity.”   In addition to speakers from CWJC,  we were honored to have Palestinian SFSU Professor Rabab Abulhadi.  The curriculum is on our website, and our mini reader will be posted soon.

UNESCO – Memory of the World

Thank you all for signing our petition to urge UNESCO to inscribe Our “Comfort Women documents” entitled “Voice of the Japanese Comfort Women” into the UNESCO Memory of the World (MoW).  The “Voice of the Japanese Comfort Women” details 2,744 cases of the atrocities committed by Japanese Imperialists.

Unfortunately, under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the Japanese government continues to shamelessly impede the process and sabotage the efforts.  CWJC is at the forefront of this battle. On December 2019, our co-chairs, Judge Julie Tang and Phyllis Kim, went to Seoul, Korea to attend the International Committee for Joint Nomination of Documents (ICJN) meeting in Seoul, Korea.  The ICJN is comprised of 14 organizations from 8 countries, as well as the British Imperial War Museum.  Judge Lillian Sing and Judge Julie Tang are advisors to ICJN.

CWJC is also exploring other methods of preserving the “Voices of the Japanese Comfort Women,” including approaching museums and historical archives to see if they can house and preserve these historical documents.

We will not allow Japan to erase history! We will not allow the painful history of the “CW” to be forgotten.

Japan: Do Not Display the Rising Sun War Flag During the Olympic Games!

Due to the coronavirus, the 2020 Olympic Games to be held in Tokyo will be postponed for one year.  At this point, they’re scheduled for July 2021.  We can use this time to continue our work against Japan’s continued use of the infamous Rising Sun flag that the Japanese Military used in WWII.

Curriculum

We are continuing our extensive work on curriculum on several fronts:

– Our curriculum is being distributed throughout the state and the country via our website, conferences, and workshops.
– We are working with teachers in the San Francisco Unified school district on a week-long pilot program that we hope to roll out in the 2020-2021 school year.

Future Plans

At CWJC, we’ve been thinking a lot about our future and how we can again come together as a community.  We know the world that we will encounter once we “emerge” from our homes will be a different, and difficult one.  Some will have lost family and friends. Many will have lost their jobs and will not get them back. It is clear to us that we need our communities more than ever.

CWJC, along with our partners, was planning to celebrate International Women’s month by having a huge gathering at the statue.  We aimed to celebrate women’s continued opposition to state and domestic gender violence, similar to our International Women’s Day event two years ago.

Violence against women is increasing all over the world during this pandemic – in some places the rise has been 50% or greater. While the rise in violence has been universal, the particulars vary given the different circumstances faced by women.  Are they stuck at home with an abuser?  Are they fighting in, or stuck in, war zones? Are they living in impoverished conditions?  It is clearly a time for solidarity. Please stay tuned for future announcements.

September 26th – Our Statues’ 3rd Anniversary!

Despite continued efforts by the Japanese government and the Japanese consulate, our statue still stands as a symbol of resistance and resilience.  September 22, 2020 will be the third anniversary of our installation and the fifth anniversary of our organization.  We will either be together at the statue itself, or be together virtually.  Either way – join us!

Our best wishes to all. Please remain healthy and safe.  Let’s stay in touch!