The Gardena Buddhist Church Board of Directors approved the rental of our Social Hall to the Japanese American Living Legacy organization in May 2009 to hold a fundraiser dance for its program. This was after a brief presentation by the presenters to the Board, after an introduction by Rev. Nakano.
http://www.jalivinglegacy.org/main.cfm?stg=home
They have had similar fundraisers at other Japanese American community and religious organizations. The group started with Sansei wanting to tell the stories for their fathers who had served the United States in World War II. Eventually, they included veterans of later wars, this time including voices of the Sansei generations themselves, and oral histories of non-veterans, too.
I am not involved in the group, but I think oral histories are important for our temple, too. In 2026, we will be celebrating our 100th, and I hope by then we will have a library of stories featuring our temple's history of the ministers of years past, how our temple fared during World War II, how the community opened up as our Sangha returned to their homes in the South Bay, and how are current traditions got started.
Each year, the group of people to pool our resources get smaller and smaller, so like the work of the JA Living Legacy, the oral histories of our temple's history is important to record and review. We have our own legacies. In our structure, we have komon (counselors) and sodanyaku (advisors) for our temple. Most of them are former board chairs. They are entrusted with our legacy - their combined knowledge is a valuable commodity and resource. They uphold the decisions of the board and are sought for their advice as well.
All important decisions have been discussed with the komon and sodanyaku. To participate in an oral history will help preserve this common knowledge, so that future generations of leaders can also learn from them.
Maybe we should partner with groups like the JA Living Legacy to learn how to obtain and manage an oral history database.
Just some thoughts to ponder.
In Gassho
1 comment:
Bill Nishimura hand wrote an article about GBC past history. He copied it from an old newspaper article. I'm working on it to get a printed copy of it by typing it into "Word" format. It is very interesting but I'm having trouble reading his handwriting.
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