Travelogue of 1984 Xinjiang: Revisiting a Bygone Era For Oppressed Uighurs in China
Channel: Muslim Community Center - MCC East Bay
Date: 2021-09-12

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In 1984, Jenny White was traveling with friends in China when she heard East Turkestan had just opened to foreign visitors. She immediately took a two-day bus ride to Xinjiang and spent three unforgettable weeks there - taking rare photographs of this beautiful, bustling and isolated region of Uyghur Muslims in China.

Nearly 40 years later and with the tragic cultural erasure in Xinjiang, Ms. White takes us on a cultural homecoming with her photos that are now a testament to a bygone time for China's Uighur people.

- View Ms. White's full-resolution photos at: https://mcceastbay.org/uighur-photos
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This live video was delivered via the Muslim Community Center - East Bay (MCC East Bay) in Pleasanton, California on September 12, 2021.

Bay Area Uyghur Muslim Kasim Tuman provides context to these photos. Our MCC Uighur families prepared a special Uighur dessert in take-home boxes for guests after event. 

About the Presenter:
Jenny White was born and raised in Oklahoma. After university and graduate school, she spent years traveling through the Middle East, Asia, and Europe. In 1984, Jenny was traveling through China with friends when she heard that East Turkestan had opened up for foreign visitors. Jenny immediately decided to go, and took a solo two-day bus ride - she thinks from Lanzhou. Jenny then spent about three weeks in East Turkestan and had a wonderful, unforgettable time there. Jenny is a retired health policy researcher at the University of California, San Francisco.

Who Are the Uyghurs?
Uyghurs (alternatively spelled Uighurs, Uygurs, etc.) are ethnically and culturally a Turkic people living in the areas of Central Asia commonly known as East Turkistan. The area is vast, constituting one-sixth of the total land area under the control of the People’s Republic of China. The Uyghurs have a rich cultural history going back almost 4,000 years. Before embracing Islam in tenth century, Uyghurs believed in Buddhism, Manichaeism and Nestorian Christianity. Today, Uyghurs practice a moderate form of Sufi Islam and lead predominantly secular lives.

Uyghurs (Uighurs) are Turkic-speaking Muslim people with a population of more than twenty million in East Turkistan, (officially known as Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region of China), which was invaded by China in 1949. Since 2016, the Chinese Government has forced many Uyghurs to renounce their ethnic identity, religion, and culture and imprisoned over one million Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims.

Uyghurs are ethnically and culturally a Turkic people living in an area of Central Asia that is disputed by the indigenous Uyghur and China. The Uyghur Human Rights Project has documented abuses by the Chinese government, and according to the World Uyghur Congress, the existence of the Uyghur nation is under threat as the Chinese government continues to carry out deliberate policies opposing centuries-old tradition, culture and religion. Human rights violations remain pervasive including persecution on cultural and religious grounds, arbitrary arrests and the silencing of peaceful dissent.” There are an estimated 9 million Uyghurs living in the disputed region of East Turkistan.

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