By Giovanni Hashimoto on June 1, 2012
Critically acclaimed author Maxine Hong Kingston spoke at Pacific Union College, May 31, on the “Woman Warrior's Journey to Peace” in the latest and final installment for the year of the Colloquy Speaker Series. Kingston spoke about how she became involved in anti-war activism during the Vietnam War and protested against military action before the 2003 U.S. Occupation of Iraq. Speaking on how she and her husband aided AWOL soldiers in Hawaii during the Vietnam War, Kingston noted the important role one’s conscience plays in life. “I truly believe that what protects us from harm are our values, and our conscience, and being able to know what that conscience is saying.” Kingston said that peaceful values can be traced back through the history. “These values of non-violence, we can trace them to Martin Luther King, Jr., and before him, to Ghandi, and before Ghandi, to the American Transcendentalists,” she said. Thoreau opposed the First American Intervention (Mexican-American War) and even refused to pay taxes in protest, Kingston noted, but he could not get away from the signs of war. “Even in the quiet of Walden Pond, he could hear the music coming from his neighbors, and it was Marshall Music...
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