Happy Minoru Yasui Day

Wednesday, March 28, 2017 will be the the second annual Minoru Yasui Day as officially recognized by the Oregon Legislature. Who was Minoru Yasui you might ask? He was a Japanese American lawyer who challenged President Roosevelt’s executive order 9066: aka the executive order which led the way to Japanese Internment camps.

On my way into the McMenamins Kennedy School to see a presentation of Stories of the Resistance to Japanese American Incarceration by Linda Tamura and George Nakata, I happened to come across a lovely cherry tree in blossom. The light was low, but I was able to capture this photo:IMG_0108

Inside I learned that this very tree that I’d snapped a quick photo of was in fact donated to the Kennedy School in 1939 by the Nakamura family who’s children attended the school. The Nakamuras wanted to give back to their community, but only two years after giving this gift the  larger community of our country decided they wanted more from the Nakamuras. In the name of safety and security, President Roosevelt signed an executive order which led to the imprisonment of the Nakamura family and thousands of others.

When we take freedoms away from one it is to the detriment  of all.

My Thoughts on Blogging

This post could also be called “Grace’s Excuses For Not Writing About Farm Life For So Long” but that title would be slightly over the top in it’s length. I just feel that blogging is an unfair medium in some ways. I want to be taken seriously by my readers, and to do so it is best if I post as regularly as possible. I also however want to be taken seriously by the people I live with at Pikunieta, and while we aren’t working non-stop from dawn to dusk, there is never a set time when I am allowed to do exactly whatever I want to do. Reading a book is seen as being lazy, and being on the internet almost a complete waste of time. Add that to the fact that there is only one computer in the house connected to internet, and said computer must be shared between all seven people living in the house, and perhaps you will begin to understand how difficult it has been for me to keep up writing this blog.

No matter how many times I tell them that this blog is for school purposes (I will be using my experiences in the Basque Country to create an independent study class and therefore take care of the study-abroad requirements for my Spanish major), if talk about writing my blog, they assume I am keeping it for social purposes, and therefore it should not be a priority, and I am therefore forced to choose between seeming to be serious about my responsibilities as a WWOOFer and my responsibilities as a student.