In honor of Memorial Day and all who have valiantly served for "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness," may this song, Let Freedom Ring, help keep the dream kindled in this storm.

This song came through me shortly after Election Day. Recording it was like riding a bronco--its meter made abrupt turns with math equation time signatures. I released it quickly, with its faint echoes of familiar patriotic music.

On post Election Day evening, I had scanned my Facebook feed and saw an image that a dear friend shared of a roaring red tsunami. My eyes couldn't look away. My stomach queased, my heart constricted, and my DNA screamed.

Images of traumatized people resembling my birth family flashed on the life-sized screen of my mind. The Manzanaar Internment Camp monument is two hours down the road, with its glossy museum of visual assurances that such an atrocity would never happen again.

I remember standing in the drafty wood-planked quarters where families who’d been seized were forced to live in the high desert's windy subzero temperatures.

These were my tribe--the Japanese Americans. Allowed to fight for a country that stripped them of their dignity.

I feel sadness and gratitude welling up around my Japanese mom, who passed in 2017. Though she'd worked many years for a bank in the United States, her green card had long expired. The thought that she could have been among those deported and treated inhumanely is too painful to hold. I think of the many dear ones who now anxiously live in this reality, breath by breath.

Seeing the red wave image back in November brought forth whole-body tears for the horrific devastation it signaled for so many. Out of that sorrow, the song Let Freedom Ring emerged. This song chronicles my heart navigating through the valley of the shadow of death, led by an angel's message to be awake in this surreal, tragic dream.

May we dig deep and reach high, drawing from the Wellspring that nourishes us through change into true freedom.

--Colleen Akiko

P.S. You can click HERE for my song discography and other musical resources. Thank you! 🙏🏽💕