Ethnic Studies Students are Cuteness

Even at the end of a long week, after a long podcast and under a bright unflattering light, Ethnic Studies brings the cuteness. This is Rashne, Maile, Ma and Kit (who just defended his MA thesis, congratulations Kit!) after our podcast last week.



I'll try to get some folks together for another one soon, I had lots of time to read and write on the train to and from Oregon. My panel went really well at ethnohistory, I brought the race card and I played it.

It was hard for me to find pictures of the longhouse where our panel was that showed it in any way how I feel about it. When I came to University of Oregon the NA students met in old ratty (the scrabbling eating food kind) barracks behind the swanky law school. We ate there, sang there, attended ceremonies. It was our place, our kids played outside, it was crappy and broke ass and ours, set in back of the shiny expensive Knight Law Center at Nike U, by the parking lots.

The longhouse went up quickly it seemed and was so beautiful, huge kitchen, fireplace, wood everywhere and many windows. The last time I was there was one of the best days of my life, after graduating from Ethnic Studies my friend Chris Finley (my sister really) and I had our families and friends there to eat and visit. So coming back three years later and reading a paper as a graduate student was meaningful.

These pictures are from the architects website, they come closest to how it looks to me.

A Change Is Gonna Come

Tonight Ma Vang, Rashne Limki, Maile Arvin, and Kit Myers came over to my apartment to record a podcast. Rashne is fresh from long hours canvassing in Las Vegas, she and Kit are our obsessive politicos so they take on election talk with some input from the rest of us. We talked for nearly an hour, a little about our work but mostly about the state of the union, race and Ethnic Studies. The title is a link that will take you to the podcast.

I'll post pictures when I get them, they are on Rashne's camera with her personal photos of Barack and Michelle Obama.

I'm leaving town to go read a paper at the Ethnohistory conference at my alma mater, University of Oregon. The conference is at the Hilton but our panel is at the Many Nations Longhouse, a beautiful building on campus near the law school. We used to have a WWII barracks we used for our gatherings, and that was good, we had our own space, there was room for the kids to play outside. But this newer building is something. The last time I was there was the day I graduated in 2005, we had food and family and friends came to spend time after the ceremony. It was such a happy day.

Here is the panel I am on, my family is coming, I'm looking forward to it.

9:30-11:45

Practicing Native-Centered Ethnohistory in Oregon

Gray Whaley (Southern Illinois University), Organizer

Lynn Stephen (University of Oregon), Chair

Gray Whaley (Southern Illinois University) and George Wasson (Coquille Indian
Tribe/University of Oregon)
"Collaborating on Ethnohistorical/Family Biography";

Robert Kentta (Confederated Tribes of Siletz)
“The Siletz and History(s): Old Friend and Familiar Foe"

David Lewis (Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, University of Oregon)
“Termination of Western Oregon Indians: Economics, Politics, and Oral
Histories”
Angela Morrill (University of California, San Diego)
“Colonialism, Factionalism, and Klamath Termination”

Pam Endzweig (University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History),
Stephanie M. Wood (University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History) and
Elizabeth Kallenbach (University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History)
“Weaving History and Community through Museums Collections: Documenting
Native American Baskets at the UO Museum of Natural and Cultural History”

Lynn Stephen (University of Oregon), Discussant

I know that there is pain but you hold on for one more day, things will go your way! Hold on for one more day!

I'll be putting up a new podcast in a few days. Certain current events, writing a prospectus, Maile is working on her MA thesis and recently spent a month in Hawai'i. I'm hoping we can get Kit Myers and maybe even Rashne Limki to come and talk, they have been true believers and taken more than a little crap from me, who wants to believe but has been Scully to their Mulders.

They get to gloat. So, new podcast coming soon!