Diversity Dialogues

Welcome to Diversity Dialogues 2008

This years theme is Cultural Unity within Community. In addition to outside speakers and workshop presenters, we are collaborating with MHCC faculty and staff to offer you opportunities to dialogue with your campus community about your own heritage, explore issues impacting our campus, and celebrate our unity.
Please check in at the College Center throughout the day.

One campus, many flags
Begins at the College Center

A. Against All Odds: Overcoming Barriers and Realizing Dreams
Dr. Abel Ahumada Alaniz
Visual Arts Theater
Dr. Abel Ahumada Alaniz, DMD will inspire you to hold fast to your own dream to become the professional you want to become. When he was a teenager, he came to the United States seeking work to help support his family in Mexico. He overcame obstacles including hunger, poverty and language barriers to realize his dream of becoming a dentist.

B. Past hunger, poverty, and cultural oppression: keeping your dream alive
Dr. Abel Ahumada Alaniz
Visual Arts Theater
This workshop will help give you insights about what challenges students from impoverished areas encounter on a college campus, in the local community, and around their family and friends as they work toward their dream. Dr. Abel Ahumada Alaniz DMD graduated from OHSUs School of Dentistry in 2005. Although he faced huge obstacles including hunger, poverty and language barriers, he held onto his dream of becoming a dentist. Alaniz knows it takes a communityteachers, staff, and other studentsto keep a student focused when academic challenges seem overwhelming. He, too, began at a community college here in Portland and Portland State University. This dialogue will help us create greater understanding in the ways we can all work to make our dreams come true.

C. Paint, Create, Connect: Building Cultural Understanding Through Art
Yolanda Valdes-Rementeria
Lake Room in College Center
In this interactive workshop, participants will explore the transformative power of art and how art can connect people from various cultures. Nationally known artist, Yolanda Valds-Rementeria, is an accomplished artist and instructor based in Portland, Oregon. She received her Bachelor of Arts from Portland State University and studied at the Instituto de Cooperacin Iberamericana and Museo del Prado In Madrid Spain. Bring your creativity; well provide the paint.

D. Oregon Trails and Trials: Immigration Stories
MHCC Faculty and Staff
Room 1251 (down the hall next to the book store)
Unless you are Native American, you are an immigrant. A panel of MHCC staff and faculty will tell their family immigration stories, relaying how his or her family felt the need to move from their country to come to America and then to Oregon. For some, that was as far back as two hundred years; for others, it was just two months ago. No matter how long ago, each story is a story of a family's Oregon Trail and a story of the trials and tribulations of learning to adjust to Oregon.

Keynote Address: Your Journey, Your Story
Renee Mitchell of The Oregonian
College Center Lounge

How do you understand your heritage and find your identity when you are the only African-American in your school? That was the problem Renee Mitchell faced growing up in Newport, Oregon. By telling her story and performing her poems, Renee Mitchell, relays her quest in understanding who she is. Reading books by black writers and attending a historically black university helped her become the inspiring and amazing woman and writer who speaks and performs all across the Pacific Northwest. At Florida A & M University, Mitchell earned a degree in journalism that has lead to becoming editor of The Oregonian newspaper.

G. Students to Faculty: How to Create a More Welcoming MHCC
Room 1267 behind the bookstore
A panel of five minority students will talk candidly with faculty and staff about creating a welcoming campus for all students. How do staff members and instructors show regard for the learning styles and values of the various cultures that comprise MHCC? The panelists include Native American, Hispanic, African-American, Romanian-American and Asian-American students who want to recommend this college to their friends and relatives.

H. Discover Your Culture(s)--Just a Click Away
Rick Fernandez, Genealogist
Computer Lab 3333 in the library
This interactive workshop will help you learn to use internet based resources for uncovering and exploring your family heritage. Through this session you will be introduced to various software and online tools that can help you learn about your own culture. Rick Fernandez has over twenty years of genealogy research experience. He will bring his knowledge and good humor to our campus. Dont miss this opportunity to learn about yourself through your familys history.

I. Storytelling
Ed Edmo (Native American)
Lake Room in the College Center
Ed Edmo worked with the U. S. Forest Service 1072-74 speaking at the Civil Rights Training Session through out Oregon, Washington on Native American Cultural Issues. He plans to read from "Walking On Water" a short story exploring the racial prejudice he experienced at the local swimming pool near where he was raised. He will also read from "Celilo Falls: Parallel Lives Along N'Che Wana" co-written with Lani Roberts. Addressing the racial prejudice he experienced growing up in The Dalles, Oregon in the early 1950's. In 1988 Ed and his wife and were awarded the "Russell A. Peyton" for their work in teaching Native American Values in schools and the court system in Portland, Oregon. It is the first time the award was given to a couple.

J. Diversity and all that Jazz (2:45 - 5:30pm)
The Thara Memory Band
College Center Lounge
Internationally-acclaimed singer Linda Hornbuckle joins the great Thara Memory and his jazz band for a festive celebration of jazz, an original American art form from African-Americans. Linda Hornbuckle is a graduate of MHCC and the Transitions program. Stan Bock, who teaches jazz at MHCC, is part of Memorys band. Memory teaches and conducts the Pacific Crest jazz orchestra of young musicians who he has led to national acclaim.

K. Women Direct the Future
Jonathan Morrow, MHCC English Instructor
Room 1001
Women have had a long and proud history in the area of social reform, and in this workshop we will examine their specific role as filmmakers in attempting to effect change around the world. Through viewing and discussing works by directors such as Agnes Varda, Mira Nair, Barbara Kopple, and Leslie Iwerks, we will consider documentary film not only as an instrument of education but also as a catalyst for global activism.

L. Discover Your Cultures--Just a Click Away
Rick Fernandez, Genealogist
Computer Lab 3333 above the library
This interactive workshop will help you learn to use internet based resources for uncovering and exploring your family heritage. Through this session you will be introduced to various software and online tools that can help you learn about your own culture. Rick Fernandez has 20+ years of genealogy research experience. He will bring his knowledge and good humor to our campus. Dont miss this opportunity to learn about your self through your familys history.

M. Native American Music and History
Harold Paul of the Nez Perce Tribe
Lake Room in the College Center
Harold Paul from the Nez Perce Tribe in Lapwai, Idaho will bring you music and history of Native American traditions. Come listen, share, ask questions and participate.