Transitions: The Spirituality of Changing Times
Faithfulness In and Through Forced Transitions
Masaru Edmund Nakawatase Tuesday, 19 January 2010
Mas will speak from personal and family experience of relocation and incarceration during World War II. As part of the talk, Mas will convene a group of Nikkei (Japanese Americans) who had direct experience of surviving this forced transition of dislocation, personal and financial loss, and racial discrimination. They will share stories of living through this tumultuous time, of moving on, and of having the Religious Society of Friends become part of their lives.
Masaru Edmund Nakawatase was born in 1943 in an internment camp in Poston, Arizona, where his family was incarcerated because of their Japanese ancestry. Mas grew up in New Jersey. He became active in the Civil Rights movement, and worked for the American Friends Service Committee in many capacities: as a community organizer, staff member for the Third World Coalition, and national representative for Native American Affairs. Recently retired, he is a member of Germantown Monthly Meeting.