Press Kit
49 DAYS CEREMONY – May 4, 2021
Now that the event has passed, we encourage you to share the video and the press coverage of the ceremony. Please take a moment to enjoy the photo gallery as well.
The information below is being kept for archival purposes. If you have any questions about past events or press materials, please contact us. You can download the archival press kit materials for the May 4, 2021 49 Days Ceremony by tapping the “download” buttons. Thank you for your support of May We Gather.
We hope this online national gathering will bring together a broad range of participants. Please share widely with your family, friends, religious communities, educational institutes, and local media outlets through word of mouth, email, social media, and other avenues. A press release and sample invitations in Chinese, Japanese, Khmer, Korean, Lao, Thai, and Vietnamese are available below. Please use the hashtag #MayWeGather for social media posts and link to the URL www.maywegather.org.
Graphic & Flyer
Graphic 1
Use this graphic for sharing on social media.
Suggested caption:
Please join me in supporting #MayWeGather, A National Buddhist Memorial Ceremony for Asian American Ancestors, to be livestreamed on Tuesday, May 4, 2021 at 4pm PDT. Join the list of endorsing individuals and temples at www.maywegather.org.
Graphic 2
Use this graphic for sharing on social media.
Suggested caption:
Please join me in supporting #MayWeGather, A National Buddhist Memorial Ceremony for Asian American Ancestors, to be livestreamed on Tuesday, May 4, 2021 at 4pm PDT. Join the list of endorsing individuals and temples at www.maywegather.org.
Flyer
Feel free to share this flyer widely.
Illustration by Rob Sato
instagram.com/robsato/ | robsato.com
Sample Tweet
Please join me in supporting #MayWeGather, A National Buddhist Memorial Ceremony for Asian American Ancestors, to be livestreamed on Tuesday, May 4, 2021 at 4pm PDT. Join the list of endorsing individuals and temples at www.maywegather.org.
Host a Viewing
We encourage temples and sanghas to consider hosting an in-person (if your community has the capacity to do so safely) or virtual event in conjunction with the National Buddhist Memorial Ceremony for Asian American Ancestors. The livestreamed event will be 90 minutes long, from 4–5:30pm PDT (7–8:30pm EDT) on Tuesday, May 4, 2021. Your community may wish to hold a brief ritual or discussion immediately before or after the livestreamed event, which could be projected for community viewing. Alternatively, the ceremony will be recorded, and you are welcome to use the recording for an event at a later date. The recording will be available here on May 5, 2021.
Sample Invitations in Asian Languages
Please use these sample invitations in Chinese, Japanese, Khmer, Korean, Lao, Thai, and Vietnamese—which roughly translate to the following English text.
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We invite you to join us for May We Gather, a national memorial ceremony to pay respect and offer merit to Asian American Buddhist ancestors, including those who lost their lives to violence in the past year. The ceremony will be broadcast live on YouTube at 4pm (PDT) / 7pm (EDT) on May 4, 2021, with the participation of Asian American Buddhists from various traditions, languages, and cultures, including Burmese, Cambodian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Lao, Sri Lankan, Taiwanese, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese, among others. For more information and to endorse the ceremony as an individual or as a temple, click this link: www.maywegather.org. Please share with your friends, families, and communities.
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Please feel free to adjust these Asian language translations to best serve your community's needs.
Press Release
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May We Gather: A National Buddhist Memorial Ceremony for Asian American Ancestors (www.maywegather.org) is the first national Buddhist memorial service in response to anti-Asian violence. The ceremony will be livestreamed from Higashi Honganji Temple in Los Angeles, which was vandalized earlier this year. The event will be freely broadcast online and will bring together Asian American Buddhists and their allies to heal in community together.
On May 4th, 2021, exactly seven weeks, or forty-nine days, will have passed since the Atlanta shootings claimed the lives of eight people, six of them women of Asian descent, including the 63-year-old Buddhist Yong Ae Yue. In many Buddhist traditions, forty-nine days after death marks an important transition for the bereaved. May We Gather will feature Buddhist chanting and reflections from forty-nine Asian American Buddhist leaders of South, Southeast, and East Asian descent in a communal ritual to honor people who have died from acts of anti-Asian violence in the United States.
The 90-minute-long event will be held on Tuesday, May 4th, 2021 at 4pm PDT (7pm EDT). We welcome Asian American Buddhist temples and organizations as well as allied communities and individuals of all backgrounds to participate in this ceremony by endorsing the gathering, sharing it widely, and watching the livestream on May 4th.
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