Below is a list of the planned activities sponsored by the Multicultural Center for March. We hope that you'll participate in as many as you can. Also, below is a list of the cultural holidays and celebrations for this month. Enjoy!
For further information, contact Karen Roth, Director of Multicultural Activities at COCC, at kroth1@cocc.edu or call 541-383-7412.
Programs and Events
Cultural Student Club meetings in the Multicultural Center:
Latino Club, Wednesdays at noon - 1 pm
Black Student Union, Wednesdays at 1:30 – 2:30 pm
First Nation Student Union, Tuesdays at 10 - 11am
Spanish Conversation Group
Every Monday, 12 - 1 pm, in Campus Center room 116
This conversation group is open to anyone willing to converse in Spanish.
Celebrate Women’s History Month
Tuesday, March 6, noon – 1 pm, Multicultural Center, Campus Center
Come and learn about the important contributions of women in history and today!
Refreshments will be provided.
Latino Dance Festival
Friday, March 9, 2 – 7 pm, and Saturday, March 10, 10 am – 10 pm, Wille Hall
Learn to dance bachata, salsa and merengue with dance performer Alejandro Rey.
Free and open to the public. Donations will be accepted for the Latino Club scholarships.
Native American Film Series, “The Fast Runner”
March 15, 5-7 pm, Madras Campus Community Room
This film turns the frozen landscape of Northern Canada into the stage for a sweeping adventure adapted from an Inuit legend. Free and open to the public.
Cheewa James and “The Modocs: The Tribe That Wouldn’t Die”
March 16, 6:30-8:30, Wille Hall, Campus Center, COCC Bend Campus.
Author Cheewa James will share the details of her latest book about the Modoc tribe. She will gladly answer questions afterward and her book will be available for purchase. Free and open to the public.
March Cultural Events and Holidays
March is Women's History Month
March 1: Blanche Bruce, an ex-slave, became the first African American to serve a full term in the U. S. Senate, 1841.
March 2: World Day of Prayer, a worldwide movement of Christian women of many traditions who came together in 1927 to observe a common day of prayer.
March 4: Birth of Tecumseh, Shawnee leader, 1768.
March 4: Garrett Morgan, African American inventor of the “gas mask” and first traffic signal, died in 1877.
March 8: International Women’s Day was proclaimed in 1908, to remember women’s struggles for equal rights and better lives.
March 8: Great Prayer Festival. In Tibet, monks from the Three Great monasteries of Tibet assemble to pray.
March 8: Holi, the Sikh and Hindu festival of color, celebrates Spring. People play with liquid and powdered colors, light bonfires, and blow horns to celebrate the victory of good over evil.
March 8: Purim, the Jewish festival known as the Feasts of Lots, celebrates the deliverance of Jews from extermination in Persia. Jews dress in costume and give gifts of food to each other. It is one of the most joyous and fun holidays on the Jewish calendar.
March 9: Hola Mohalla, honors Sikh Guru Gobind Singh, who took to armed struggle against tyranny.
March 11: U.S. Secretary of War, John C. Calhoun, created the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the War Department, 1824.
March 14: Eli Whitney patented the cotton gin based on the ideas and plans of a slave, 1794. African slaves, because they were not citizens, could not register any invention with the patent office. Their owners could not register a slave's invention either, since the law required that the patent be issued to the actual inventor. Consequently, any free person wanting to patent something could not acknowledge any contribution from a slave. Thus, it was easy to steal a slave's ideas and patent them.
http://www.aaregistry.org/historic_events/view/cotton-gin-patented
March 15: Congress passed immigration laws denying admission to aliens “ineligible for citizenship” (Asians), 1924.
March 17: St. Patrick’s Day. The person who was to become St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, was born in Wales about AD 385. His given name was Maewyn, and he almost didn't get the job of bishop of Ireland because he lacked the required scholarship. Far from being a saint, he considered himself a pagan. During his training to become a priest, he became aware that his calling was to convert the pagans to Christianity. His wishes were to return to Ireland, to convert the native pagans to Christianity. But his superiors instead appointed St. Palladius. But two years later, Palladius transferred to Scotland. Patrick, having adopted that Christian name earlier, was then appointed as second bishop to Ireland. http://wilstar.com/holidays/patrick.htm
March 19: Frederick Douglass escaped slavery under the disguise of a sailor, 1838.
March 20: Holocaust Remembrance Day.
March 20: Spring Equinox, a pagan festival celebrating fertility and the balance of light and darkness. Celebrations include lighting fires at sunrise, ringing bells, and decorating hard-boiled eggs.
March 20: Shunki-Sorei-Sai. This Shinto observance shows reverence to ancestors on home altars. Gravesites are cleaned and purified.
March 20: Shunbun no hi. In Japan during the time of the Spring Equinox, Buddhists meditate on the harmony in the universe.
March 20: Poutuerangi has Aboriginal roots of the Maori in New Zealand. This is the fall season and autumn equinox when they harvest their crops.
March 21: As its first act as a new territory, Alaska passed a bill granting women the right to vote, 1913.
March 21: Now Ruz, Baha’i New Year in conjunction with the ancient Persian New Year. People start preparing for the holiday with a major spring-cleaning of their houses and the purchase of new clothes to wear. They visit the elders of their family, then the rest of their family and finally their friends.
March 22: Freedom March at Selma AL, 1965.
March 23: Ugadi marks the beginning of the Hindu new year. People awake before dawn, bathe and decorate the entrance of their homes with mango leaves.
March 25: Annunciation commemorates the day Jesus’s mother, Mary, was visited by an angel to inform her that she was chosen to be the mother of Christ.
March 26: Birth of Prophet Zarathrushtra, the founder of the Zoroastrian religion dating back to 1500 – 1000 BCE. He lived in Persia, modern day Iran.
March 31: Birth of Cesar Chavez, labor organizer for migrant farm workers, 1927.
Some holiday information comes from the calendar available at: The Multicultural Calendar 2012.