EDITORIAL: Seeing signs of hope in these trying times
Published 1:30 am Wednesday, September 26, 2018
It was impossible not to fall in love with Vashon all over again last weekend. From Friday night through Sunday, there were multiple events to attend, some raising funds for important organizations, such as Vashon Center for the Arts and The Journeymen Institute, and others — the Japan Festival and Bill Fisher Day — simply community celebrations. In all, the weekend was a remarkable offering of islanders’ creativity, generosity and spirit.
In the midst of all the goings-on, Rep. Pramila Jayapal attended a fundraiser at Vashon Cohousing late Saturday afternoon, where she told the group gathered that she would like to move to Vashon when she retires. The statement drew an enthusiastic response from the crowd, with many likely envisioning discussing world affairs with her at Thriftway or exchanging pleasantries about the weather in Island Center Forest.
It is easy to wonder what Vashon might be like should she choose to move here some years down the road. Will there be southern resident orcas that still swim by? Would she forgo buying a waterfront home, concerned about the rising seas of climate change? And speaking of homes, who will be able to afford to live and work here by then? The list goes on. What kind of ferry service will the island have? And what about health care?
Lately, it has seemed like the pressures on the island are increasing. Combined with challenges on the national level, it can feel like trying times everywhere.
But Jayapal also spoke about hope. She said she had just finished reading “The Book of Joy” by the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu, and in it Tutu draws a distinction between optimism and hope. Optimism, he says, is superficial, and likely to turn to pessimism in challenging times. But hope is deeper, is rooted in conviction and is nearly unshakable. Hope, the book says, is the antidote to despair.
We saw plenty of signs for hope last weekend: the beauty of Fisher Pond, young men raising funds to help nurture boys and a crowd gathered at the newly refurbished Mukai Farm and Garden. From there, an easily missed story unfolded. Joe Okimoto, a board member of the Friends of Mukai, attended the festival as one of the organizers. As a young child, he was imprisoned during World War II with his family in an Arizona concentration camp. On Saturday, he hosted Takeshi Murazawa, senior consul at the consulate general of Japan in Seattle, who attended the festival. After enjoying some of the offerings there, Okimoto took Murazawa and two other guests to the Heritage Museum to see the exhibit, Joy and Heartache: Japanese Americans on Vashon, which includes stories of the island life and imprisonment of some of Vashon’s Japanese American residents.
Racial and cultural tensions are again simmering in this country, and there is ample cause to despair. But this story, of Okimoto and his distinguished guest quietly visiting the small museum on Bank Road together, offers the kind of hope that we hunger for, a living history lesson and a reminder that against seemingly all odds, a more equal society is within our grasp.
