O.K.A.E.R.I.

(Organizing Kollaboration/konnections Around Education, Resilency, & Internationalsolidarity)

OKAERI, generally meaning “You have returned” or “you came back,” is a common expression used to greet people when they have returned home. 

MISSION STATEMENT

O.K.A.E.R.I. is a 2-week exploratory trip to Japan. Our pilot trip was for our members and took place in the Summer of 2012. The pilot program was to be a vehicle for people from the Japanese Diaspora* to reconnect and grow cultural roots to Japan through exposure to traditional and modern Japanese activities and building relationships with social justice organizations and individuals in Japan.

Our goal statement: “We will learn and share political organizing skills to build our collective tool box of anti-colonial and international solidarity strategies.
We do this in order to promote a generational shift towards a positive nikkei* identity that includes

• remembering parts of our identities lost to assimilation and incarceration,
• building resiliency and healing strategies around internalized oppression and other shared traumas
• creating lasting relationships both internally and internationally.”

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This project has been modeled by our amazing ally organizations such as: Sahngnoksoo/Nodutol/Eclipse Rising with their Korean Education and Exposure Program (KEEP) and Koreans in Japan Education and Exposure Program (kJEEP), as well as Pinay Sa Seattle/Bayan Seattle involvement in the Philippine Exposure Program. (See our Allies page for more info)

Here’s a link to a bilingual radio show about Eclipse Rising’s trip:  http://www.tcc117.org/fmyy/index.php?e=784

Please email us at seattletadaima@gmail.com if you have questions, would like to share resources, or make a donation to help fund OKAERI. You can also join our Allies list serve at http://groups.google.com/group/tadaima_okaeri?pli=1

image borrowed from Michael Lujan Bevacqua who blogs about Chamorro Rights & Reclaimation

シアトルにある「TADAIMA」と言う日系グループのメンバーです。TADAIMAのメンバー全員がアメリカやも世界中で差別されている人々が平等の扱いを受けるようになって欲しいと言う考えを持っている日系人です。現在、TADAIMAのメンバーの５人が、今年の夏、日本への２週間の旅を計画しています。この旅の目標の一つは日本の社会正義を扱う機関と会い、日本のNPO、NGO、草の根の組織はどのように活動しているかを学ぶことです。

もし、イベント等、活動に参加できる機会があればぜひ参加したいです。

*we define both nikkei (“a person of the Japanese Diaspora”) and Japanese Diaspora very widely to include multi-racial folks, cultural and ethnic minorities from Japan (zainichi-koreans, etc), adoptees, and their descendents.