Welcome!
In this monthly e-newsletter, you will find information on upcoming programs, workshops, and other events. You will also learn about some of the celebrations and holidays that are observed by various cultural and religious groups each month. Your input, ideas, and questions are welcome! Please contact Karen Roth, Multicultural Activities at kroth1@cocc.edu or call 541-383-7412 for more information. You may also view this newsletter on our webpage at: www.cocc.edu/Multicultural
Upcoming Programs and Events
Student Club meetings in the Multicultural Center:
Native American Club, Wednesdays, 11 am, below the tennis courts
Latino Club, Wednesdays at Noon - 1 pm, Multicultural Center
Black Student Union, Fridays starting Oct. 12, noon, Multicultural Center
Conversations on Books and Culture
Stories have a way of bringing people together because they help us understand differences from and connections with our fellow humans. Though language, culture, and geography may separate us, we can come together to share stories. Join other campus readers and culture lovers this year for an occasional discussion of books representing various world cultures. Read the book ahead or just come and hear about it during the conversation.
Our schedule for this term includes these books:
October 29, 3 – 4 pm, Multicultural Center: Burros Genuis by Victor Villaseñor, facilitated by Willan Cervantes. Highly gifted and imaginative, Villaseñor coped with an untreated learning disability (he was finally diagnosed with extreme dyslexia at the age of forty-four) and the frustration he felt growing up Latino in an English-only American school system that had neither the cultural understanding nor the resources to deal with Hispanic students.
November 27, 4 – 5 pm, Multicultural Center: Ceremony, by Leslie Marmon Silko, conversation facilitated by Professor Neil Brown. Ceremony tells the story of Tayo, a mixed-blood Native American from the Laguno Pueblo Reservation who is severely traumatized from his unstable childhood and combat experiences during World War II. As the novel progresses, Tayo attempts to recover from these deep psychological wounds by drawing upon various Native American cultural traditions.
October is Latino Heritage Month!
Spanish Conversation Group Starts Monday October 1
Every Monday, 12 - 1 pm in Campus Center room 116.
This conversation group is open to anyone willing to try and converse in Spanish. Bring your lunch and join us for almuerzo y conversación en Español.
Teatro Milagro Presents:
Free Performance and Interactive Workshop Thursday, October 11
“Journeys” Workshop at 3 – 4 pm, Hitchcock Auditorium, Pioneer Hall
Through poetry, movement and image theater, the "Journeys" workshop creates a relaxed and fun environment in which to design utopian communities that embrace equality and environmental sustainability.
Bilingual play: B’aktun, 6 – 8 pm, Hitchcock Auditorium, Pioneer Hall
This bilingual play explores the lives of three Latinos swept up in an ICE raid who are deported to Mexico and suddenly immersed into indigenous cultural experiences. As they are drawn into prophecies surrounding B’aktun 13, the final era in the Mayan calendar, will the world change on December 21, 2012? Or will they?
From Che to Castro: Building Bridges with 21st-Century Cuba
With Daisy Rojas, Founding Member and Director of Solidarity at Martin Luther King Jr. Center in Havana
Thursday, October 11, 6:30-8:00 p.m. at Nativity Lutheran Church, Bend—60850 Brosterhous Road (at Knott)
OR
Friday, October 12, 1:30-3:00 pm, Hitchcock Auditorium, Pioneer Hall, COCC
What is daily life really like in Cuba? Why can't U.S. citizens travel there to see it for themselves? Why is Cuba included on the U.S. state-sponsored terrorism list?
Sponsors: COCC Latino Program and Trinity Episcopal Church Condega-Bend Sister City Project
Spanish Film Night: Medianeras (Sidewalls)
Thursday, October 18 at 6 pm, Boyle 155
Martín and Mariana are slightly damaged people who live in buildings just opposite one another. While they often don't notice each other, separation might be the very thing that brings them together.
Sugar Skull Making Workshop
Wednesday, October 24, 11:30 am, Multicultural Center
The Latino Club will be hosting a sugar skull making workshop in preparation for Dia de los Muertos. During this workshop we will be learning about sugar skulls as we make and decorate them. There are limited materials and space for this event so please contact the Latino Program Coordinator to sign up 541-318-3726 or esandoval@cocc.edu .
Burros Genius with Author Victor Villaseñor
Thursday, Oct. 25, 3pm, Hitchcock Auditorium, Pioneer Hall
Burro Genius continues the Villaseñor family story and illustrates Victor Villaseñor’s own youth and education. With his signature of bold vitality, and his own incredible life-story, Burro Genius takes the reader into the soul of a young boy full of confusion . . . and yet encouraged by the love for his brother and a sense of artistic destiny and magic.
The sponsors are Latino Club and Program, Deschutes Public Library and the Nature of Words.
COMING IN NOVEMBER…….
Dia de los Muertos Celebration: Charla and Danza Azteca
Thursday, November 1, Noon – 1 pm, location TBA
Join us for a pre-Hispanic celebration remembering those who have gone before us. Learn more about this day and where it comes from. There will be several Aztec dances to go along with the presentation.
Nature of Words Poet: Sherwin Bitsui – “The Strategy Within”
Thursday, November 8, Noon - 2pm, Wille Hall
This lecture will explore examples from contemporary Navajo poetry in order to experience possible underlying strategies that occur in Navajo thought and philosophy.
Free tickets for the first 50 students – available at the Office of Multicultural Activities, 216 Campus Center. Tickets are $15 for staff and students available at the Campus Box Office. General admission is $30 available at: www.thenatureofwords.org
Multicultural Celebrations and Holidays
October is Disability Awareness Month and Latino Heritage Month
October 1– Sukkot - This Jewish feast is a joyful harvest festival lasting 8 days to remember the time the Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years, sleeping and eating under the stars. On the last day, October 8 (Shemini Atzeret), special prayers for rain are offered.
October 1 - Kathina, a Buddhist festival that takes place during the months of October and November. For 2500 years families have gathered to take part in the largest alms-giving ceremony of the Buddhist year. Friends, old and new, parents and children join together in a celebration on the theme of harmony. Also, as winter approaches, the supporters are checking to see that the basic needs of the samanas are being met. It is with regard to the offering of these requisites that this festival comes about.
October 2 – Gandhi’s Birthday is celebrated in India. Mohandas Gandhi adopted the philosophy of “non-violence” in fighting for India’s freedom from British rule.
October 4 – Confucius Birthday is celebrated in China and Taiwan with a dawn ceremony at temples.
October 4 – Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals. He founded the Franciscan Order which today has about 33,000 members.
October 5 – Death of Tecumseh (1768 – 1813), a Shawnee leader who spoke out against unfair treaties with White settlers.
October 6 – U.S. Supreme Court declares California’s ban on interracial marriage unconstitutional, 1948.
October 8 – Dia de la Raza – Day of remembrance of the landing of Christopher Columbus on San Salvador in 1492 and the impact of his arrival on the Americas.
October 9: Simchat Torah, which means "Rejoicing in the Torah," marks the completion of the annual cycle of weekly Torah readings. Each week in synagogue a few chapters from the Torah are read, starting with Genesis and working to Deuteronomy 34. On Simchat Torah, the last Torah portion is read, then the first chapter of Genesis, reminding that the Torah is a circle and never ends. This completion of the readings is a time of great celebration. There are processions around the synagogue carrying Torah scrolls and plenty of high-spirited singing and dancing in the synagogue.
October 11 – National Coming Out Day for Gays, Lesbians, and Bisexuals. This event, first held in 1988, is an event which gives gay, lesbian, and bisexual people the opportunity to “come out” to others about their sexuality. It also provides a means of increasing the visibility of gay people.
October 12 - 16 – Gahambar Ayathrem, one of six seasonal festivals in the Zoroastrian faith to commemorate the six universal creations of God. Gahambar Ayathrem is celebrated to mark the return of the herds of cattle from grazing in faraway lands.
October 16 - 24– Navratri means 'nine nights' and is one of the most celebrated festivals of the Hindu calendar and one can see it in the zeal and fervor of the people with which they indulge in the festive activities of the season. Dandiya and Garba Rass are the highlights of the festival in Gujarat, where farmers sow seeds and thank the Goddess for her blessings and pray for better yield. The first three days of Navratri are dedicated to Goddess Durga (Warrior Goddess) dressed in red and mounted on a lion. Her various incarnations - Kumari, Parvati and Kali - are worshipped during these days. In some communities, people undergo rigorous fasts during this season that lasts for nine days.
October 13 – B’nai B’rith, leader in fighting against anti-Semitism, founded in New York City in 1843.
October 14 – Martin Luther King receives Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.
October 16 – National Boss Day in the US and Canada.
October 19 – Joseph Rainey became the first African American member of Congress in 1870.
October 20 – Birthday of the Bab. The Bab (1819-1850) was the Martyr-Prophet of the Baha’i Faith. His mission was to proclaim the imminent arrival of “Him Whom God shall make manifest,” namely Baha’u'llah (1817-1892), the Founder of the Baha’i Faith. Baha’is observe the Holy Day by abstaining from work and holding joyous meetings open to all. There are no prescribed ceremonies but gatherings usually involve prayers, devotional readings, music, and fellowship.
October 21 – Alfred Nobel, founder of the Nobel Prize, born in Sweden in 1833.
October 23 – Chung Yeung Festival or Festival of Ancestors is a day to respect and remember ancestors. It is observed in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan by families visiting the graves of their ancestors to perform cleansing rites and pay their respects.
October 25 – Day of Hajj – All Muslims are expected to make the pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in their lifetime as one of the five pillars of Islam. During the Hajj, Muslims remember and commemorate the trials and triumphs of the Prophet Abraham.
October 26 – Eid al-Adha - At the end of the Hajj (annual pilgrimage to Mecca), Muslims throughout the world celebrate the holiday of Eid al-Adha (Festival of Sacrifice). On the first morning of Eid al-Adha, Muslims around the world attend morning prayers at their local mosques. Prayers are followed by visits with family and friends, and the exchange of greetings and gifts. At some point, members of the family will visit a local farm or otherwise will make arrangements for the slaughter of an animal in commemoration of Abraham’s trial to kill his own son. The meat is distributed during the days of the holiday or shortly thereafter.
October 29 – U.S. declares an end to school segregation in Brown vs. Board of Education in 1969.
October 31 – Halloween, Samhain, and other traditions around the world, many of which pay respect to those who have passed on. In Egypt, they set out oil lamps and food in honor of Osirus, the god of the dead. The Romans established November 1 and 2 for similar rituals.
October 31, All Hallows Eve, became a Christian holiday in 1006. In the US, it is celebrated by carving pumpkins and dressing up in costumes. Children “trick or treat” for candy. For Samhain (the Celtic festival of the dead), candles are lit in carved turnips and the spirits of ancestors are honored. For the autumn festival of Bon, the Japanese dress up in disguise and hang paper lanterns to guide the spirits of their ancestors’ home. In Mexico, El Dia de los Muertos (the Day of the Dead) is celebrated on November 2 by building special altars with sweets to feed the spirits and by visiting gravesites of family members.