UNM faculty and students travel to Japan to commemorate 80th anniversary of atomic bombings

UNM Associate Professor Myrriah Gómez and graduate students Sachi Barnaby (computer science) and Yoma Wilson (art) joined faculty and students from eight U.S. universities, as well as U.S. Catholic clergy, on a pilgrimage to Japan to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

During the weeklong trip, the UNM delegation participated in Catholic masses and civic gatherings, including academic panels. The students joined peers from eight other universities in the U.S. and Japan for seminar discussions.

"Our pilgrimage to Hiroshima and Nagasaki was just transformative," said Barnaby. "The conversations I had with Japanese and American students, as well as faculty and clergy, challenged me to ask deeper questions about nuclear weapons, and I'm eager to continue our peacebuilding efforts beyond this trip."

Gómez delivered a talk titled From New Mexico to Nagasaki as part of the "Walking Together: A Gathering of Pilgrims for Peace" symposium in Nagasaki. The event was organized by the Partnership for a World Without Nuclear Weapons (PWNW), which includes the Archdioceses of Santa Fe, Seattle, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in collaboration with Notre Dame University, Georgetown University, Loyola University Chicago, Marquette University, Sophia University (Japan), Nagasaki Junshin Catholic University (Japan), and Nagasaki Protestant universities.

As part of her talk, Gómez delivered dirt from El Santuario de Chimayó to the Urakami Cathedral in Japan as a symbol of her pilgrimage-from the place where the plutonium bomb known as Fat Man was developed and tested to Nagasaki, where it killed 40,000 people on impact. The original Urakami Cathedral was at the hypocenter of the blast.

Her talk, From New Mexico to Nagasaki: A Pilgrimage of Hope, was delivered in both English and Japanese at the Urakami Cathedral. The original cathedral was at the hypocenter of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki by the United States on Aug. 9, 1945. The prototype for the bomb dropped on Nagasaki was developed in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and tested at the Trinity site in south-central New Mexico.

"There were many reflections of New Mexico in Japan, which is so fundamentally different, but there were two things for me that were strikingly similar: the Catholic faith and the language of nuclear abolition," said Gómez.

Other participants on the panel included Archbishop Emeritus Takami of Nagasaki; Hirano Fusako, a hibakusha (atomic bomb survivor) from Japan; and Nishimura Yuji, a Nissi Hibakusha (second-generation atomic bomb survivor) from Nagasaki.

"The partnerships developed before and during this trip will extend into the future in terms of binational collaboration. We hope to bring a traveling exhibit from the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum to UNM in 2027," Gómez stated.

Barnaby and Wilson joined 33 other students from U.S. and Japanese institutions in a forum that met twice before the pilgrimage and twice during the trip to discuss nuclear weapons. They also listened to hibakusha testimony and visited the atomic bomb museums in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, along with other cultural landmarks.

"It was great to connect with other students from American and Japanese Universities on our goal for nuclear abolition," said Wilson. "We were able to exchange information and stories and some of the Japanese students were hearing about the [Trinity] Downwinders for the first time."

"The best part was taking two UNM students to collaborate with the three dozen students who participated in this convergence. Yoma and Sachi have already started a local chapter of Students for Nuclear Disarmament since we returned," Gómez concluded.

The trio will co-author a piece, Finding Querencia in Japan: A Nuclear Pilgrimage from New Mexico to Nagasaki, in an upcoming special issue of Nexus: Conversations on the Catholic Intellectual Tradition.