“American Sutra: Buddhism and the WWII Japanese American Incarceration” Lecture. Sponsored by the Thich Nhat Hanh Program for Engaged Buddhism, Union Theological Seminary.

Please RSVP if you will be attending.

Please join us for a discussion on this recently published book, with its author Duncan Ryūken Williams​. This groundbreaking history tells the little-known story of how, in one of our country’s darkest hours, Japanese Americans fought to defend their faith and preserve religious freedom.

In the face of discrimination, dislocation, dispossession, and confinement, Japanese Americans turned to their faith to sustain them, whether they were behind barbed wire in camps or serving in one of the most decorated combat units in the European theater. Using newly translated sources and extensive interviews with survivors of the camps and veterans of the war, American Sutra reveals how the Japanese American community broadened our country’s conception of religious freedom and forged a new American Buddhism.

“There are many works on Japanese-American incarceration in World War Two—especially those that recount the government and the media’s perspective on this history—but American Sutra is the first to highlight the role that Buddhism played in this history, telling the story from the inside out.” Duncan Ryūken Williams​

This program is sponsored by the Thích Nhất Hạnh Program for Engaged Buddhism