PANA Institute for Leadership Development

The text of a ritual held on the river as part of the PANA Pilgrimage to the Sacramento River Delta (March 29-30, 2008).

The Hawaiian tradition of giving a lei to the ocean waters as one is leaving is symbolic of a heartfelt return. We offer a lei brought from Hawaii for our ancestors whose suffering and spirit mark the delta waters and levees, and promise our return to remember. We will also offer flowers as the closing of our flower ritual for all of our common ancestors. When possible, the response will also be spoken in the
language of the ancestors. We face the back of the boat, watching the waters and leis recede, symbolic of facing future by remembering the past and all it wants to teach us.

To our First ancestors of this land

Coast
Miwok, Patwin, Plains Miwok, Bay Miwok, Ohlone (Costanoan), Yokuts and
so many more...You suffered under the militarization of California as a
Spanish territory, enslaved to build the missions, forbidden to speak
your own languages, dying from disease and broken hearts. The Gold rush
ravaged the land, your hearts, your bodies. Yet your spirit deep within
the land itself beckons us to return, to remember, to repent, to
release new life.

RESPONSE:

We remember you, we listen to your whispers in the wind, we rock you in the cradle of our hearts.

To our Native Hawaiian ancestors

You
crossed the Pacific, bringing your ocean wisdom to guide the watery
journeys through the Delta, bringing earth wisdom to care for the land,
bringing aloha spirit to counteract a growing inhospitality to the Other.

RESPONSE:

We remember you, we listen to your whispers in the wind, we rock you in the cradle of our hearts.

(Pause to offer flower lei)

To our Chinese ancestors

You
reclaimed land in this delta with innovative levee techniques, started
truck farms, developed and harvested asparagus, potatoes, onions,
celery, strawberries, salmon, abalone, crab and seaweed. You built
temples, constructed miles of solid rock walls for the fencing of
cattle and huge underground tunnels for wineries in the north. You laid
miles and miles of railroad track where no one dared.

RESPONSE:

We remember you, we listen to your whispers in the wind, we rock you in the cradle of our hearts.

To our Japanese ancestors

You
began to fill the labor needs when our Chinese ancestors were excluded
from entry in 1882– working sugar beets, grapes, fruits, berries,
vegetables and hops, sleeping in fieldsheds on the edge of the
orchards, in camps worse than dog and pig pens, unfit for humans, dying
premature deaths. Yet you became farmers and tripled the fruitfulness
of the land.

RESPONSE:

We remember you, we listen to your whispers in the wind, we rock you in the cradle of our hearts.

(Pause to offer flower lei)

To our Filipino ancestors

You
began arriving in the San Joaquin Valley after the Philippines became a
U.S. colony in 1902 (after the Philippine-American war) and were
brought in to fill the labor needs when our Japanese ancestors were
excluded from entry in 1924 – by 1929 you were nearly nine thousand in
Walnut Grove alone, expert in the asparagus harvest. Yet you suffered
the same living conditions and psychological impact of racism, cultural
alienation. You suffered from the shadow of intraethnic competition
with Japanese farmers leasing from white landowners. Yet you invoked
the spirit of struggle and unity with strikes and a Filipino-Mexican
union of fieldworkers, roots of the United Farmworkers today.

RESPONSE:

We remember you, we listen to your whispers in the wind, we rock you in the cradle of our hearts.

To our Sikh ancestors

You
labored in logging, railroad, mines, road construction and all type of
agricultural work, bringing expertise in irrigation methods of
developing rice fields and fruit and nut orchards. You built a
Gurdwara, providing spiritual home and welcome to all.

RESPONSE:

We remember you, we listen to your whispers in the wind, we rock you in the cradle of our hearts.

(Pause to offer flower lei)

To our Latino ancestors

You
labored in fields that by 1930 had excluded Asian workers ... and labor
in those same fields today, enduring welcome and unwelcome, perceived
as threat and peril. Yet you continue to offer the spirit of la lucha for the fulfillment of life for all.

RESPONSE:

We remember you, we listen to your whispers in the wind, we rock you in the cradle of our hearts.

To our Cambodian ancestors

You
suffered in the killing fields and sought refuge across the Pacific,
laboring in agricultural fields... and continue to labor in the slow
process of healing from the traumas of war... sharing with us your
vulnerability and strength, your deep humanity.

RESPONSE:

We remember you, we listen to your whispers in the wind, we rock you in the cradle of our hearts.

To our European ancestors

At
times, some of us really don’t know quite what to say to you but we
know you are there and that your many of your own stories have been
silenced. And we know you were suffering. We reach out to you and
remember.

RESPONSE:

We remember you, we listen to your whispers in the wind, we rock you in the cradle of our hearts.

(Pause to offer flower lei)

To all our ancestors to come

ALL:

Remember, Listen to the whispers in the wind, Let us rock each other in the cradle of our hearts.

(Pause for everyone to offer flowers)

Prepared
by Joanne Doi with inspiration from Mike Campos, Corinna Gould, Zoe
Holder, Gordon Lee, Keali’i Reichel,. Special mahalo to Gordon Lee for
bringing leis and gathering plumeria blossoms in Hawai’i to bless our
journey with the ancestors with their beauty and fragrance, evoking
also the remembrance of double plumeria leis brought by pastors from
Hawai’i for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other key civil rights
leaders during the second march in Selma, Alabama, March 1965.

3/29/2008