We invite you to join us for Resilience, Recovery, Repair, an online speaker series in January and February 2024 funded by a grant from the Asian Pacific American Religions Research Initiative (APARRI) and hosted by May We Gather in collaboration with Tricycle. This series will feature conversations with community elders and leaders, acclaimed historians, archaeologists, educators, and spiritual teachers. Building on discussions generated from the first May We Gather memorial in 2021, this multi-part speaker series explores 19th-century gender and immigrant experience, folk religion and spiritual life, and contemporary projects of restoration and repair in California and beyond.
Resilience, Recovery, Repair will offer insight into the historical and contemporary contexts that shape the March 16, 2024 May We Gather pilgrimage in Antioch, California. Our 2024 pilgrimage will mark the third-year anniversary of the 2021 Atlanta-area spa shootings by situating the lives lost in the tragedy within a broader legacy of anti-Asian racial-religious oppression. The series will feature a diverse range of Buddhist leaders and spiritual friends in a ceremony of commemoration and healing. Registrants will receive a link to recordings of the three talks at the conclusion of the series; these recordings will be made freely available on May We Gather’s YouTube page as well.
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Resilience: A Story of 19th-Century Chinese Immigrants in Antioch and Beyond
Wednesday, January 24, 2024 at 4 P.M. PT / 7 P.M. ET
Moderated by Dr. Duncan Ryuken Williams, “Resilience: A Story of 19th-Century Chinese Immigrants in Antioch and Beyond” sets the historical stage for the May We Gather Pilgrimage, which will take place in Antioch, California on March 16, 2024. Through presentations and conversation, acclaimed author Jean Pfaelzer and community historian Dwayne Eubanks offer insights into 19th-century Chinese immigrant experience, moving from the hyper-local, to state politics, to broader patterns in Asian American experience and community building. Topics will include Antioch’s formation and evolution, the immigration of Chinese laborers and merchants, the positioning of Chinese women in the city and in California Chinatowns more broadly, and Antioch’s contemporary Chinese History Project.
Recovery: The History of America’s Early Buddho-Daoist Temples
Thursday, February 8, 2024 at 4 P.M. PT / 7 P.M. ET
Moderated by Chenxing Han, “Recovery: The History of America’s Early Buddho-Daoist Temples” illuminates the process of cultural and religious recovery through architecture and archives. Together, Drs. Chuimei Ho, Bennett Bronson, and Jonathan H.X. Lee will discuss the vibrant communities and voices engaged in 19th-century California’s thriving traditional Chinese temples and shrines, allowing us to hear more clearly how early Chinese immigrants cultivated their faith, and how faith gave meaning to their daily lives.
Repair: A Path to Healing Land and Ancestors
Thursday, February 22, 2024 at 4 P.M. PT / 7 P.M. ET
Moderated by Dr. Funie Hsu, “Repair: A Path to Healing Land and Ancestors” will consider Asian American Buddhist resilience and recovery alongside the racial karma of settler colonialism and enslavement, as well as the cultivation of spiritual friendship. Panelists Corrina Gould of Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, Christine Cordero of Asian Pacific Environmental Network, and Devin Berry and Noliwe Alexander of Deep Time Liberation discuss Indigenous-, Asian- and Black-led efforts for the repair of land and recovery of ancestral relations as resilient religious practice.
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