During WWII, Sr. Joanne Doi’s father and grandfather were detained at the Manzanar “Relocation Center” (detention camp) in the California desert, where the St. Francis Xavier (Maryknoll) parish community was also interned. In 1981, Sr. Joanne entered the Maryknoll Sisters and was assigned to Peru. While living and serving among the Aymara people of the southern Andes, she witnessed and participated in spiritual practices of collective memory that involved pilgrimage, sacred earth and healing. This stirred a personal movement that soon joined in the collective pilgrimage movement in the U.S. to reclaim a history of suffering and hope as Japanese Americans, through the shadows and light of the WWII internment period and redress movement.
Our presenter, Sr. Joanne Doi, M.M.
Born and raised in Los Angeles, California in a Japanese Catholic community, Sr. Joanne Doi entered the Maryknoll Sisters in 1981. She lived and served in the southern Andes of Peru among the Aymara people for 11 years before she began her graduate studies at the Pacific School of Religion and the Graduate Theological Union (Berkeley, CA). She earned her PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies with her dissertation focusing on the spiritual practice of collective memory, reconciliation and solidarity on the pilgrimage visits to former WWII Japanese American detention camps.
Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, P.O. Box 302, Maryknoll, NY 10545-0302, 914-941-7636
Kris EastTue, Sep 28 at 8:07 AM
