Remember to visit the SF Library Exhibit!
Want more information about the statue?
Need resources on the issues of
“comfort women” and gender violence?
Contact us: comfortwomencoaltion@
www.remembercomfortwomen.org
LIBRARY EXHIBIT OPENS TO GREAT ACCLAIM
80 YEARS SINCE WW II PACIFIC WAR:
REMEMBER THE “COMFORT WOMEN!”
On September 26th, more than 150 people squeezed into the lower room of the Main Branch of the SF Library in order to honor the “comfort women:” The hundreds of thousands of women and girls who were sexually abused during WWII. The occasion? A new exhibit featuring photos, copies of original paintings, maps and resources.
Presided over by CWJC’s co-chairs: Retired Judges, Lillian Sing and Julie Tang, speakers featured Vice Consul Shouzheng Yang of the People’s Republic of China, members of the Board of Supervisors including Board President, Raphael Mandelman, and members of the community such as Win-Mon Kyi of the Myanmar Student Union and Marily Mondejar of the Filipina Women’s Network.
Our keynote speaker, Professor Peipei Qiu, personalized what it meant to be both a victim and survivor by telling of the ordeals and subsequent life of Peng Zhuying.
In the next few months members of the public will be able to learn more about Peng, who was forced to become a comfort woman in China, as she is the subject of our AI program, Eternal Testimony.
Judge Tang reminded us of the dangers of historical denialism: to deny the truth and rewrite history. She echoed the demand of the “comfort women” movement to Japan: “Apologize – formally and officially – for your wartime crimes!” Speaker after speaker spoke of the importance of honoring the suffering of so many women in the past and how we must link that with demanding an end to gender violence in the present.
Members of CWJC connected the issue of the “comfort women” and wartime violence to the increasing militarization both here and abroad.
As Judge Sing pointed out, there are few survivors left alive, so the time for an apology has become ever more important. As the quotation on the plaque at the “Comfort Women” Memorial reminds us: “Our greatest fear is that we will be forgotten.” Our exhibit at the library helps to insure that they will not.
The morning concluded with people going upstairs and viewing the exhibit itself.
YOU CAN VISIT TOO
Third Floor: International Section
San Francisco Public Library
Main Branch, 1400 Larkin Street
(Civic Center BART)
San Francisco
For Tours contact: comfortwomencoalition@gmail.
