Series theme: Pasifika Indigeneity (ancestral knowledge)
Description: Connection to our culture is critical in developing and maintaining an Indigenous identity. Join the Pacific Islander, Asian & Asian American (PIAAA) Student Center during week 7 (May 10-14, 2021) for our second annual weeklong series of events during Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month (APIHM) that aim to highlight our Pasifika community. Our theme for this year is “Pasifika Indigeneity'' with a special focus on ancestral knowledge. We will have four cultural practitioners share their craft and magic with us so you do not want to miss out!
We strive to make our events inclusive and accessible so if you require ADA accommodations, please reach out to us prior to the event at piaaa@pdx.edu or 503.725.9390.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
For Us, By Us: Exploring AAPI Studies at PSU
Protecting Our Elders: Defunding the Police, Investing in Our Communities
A Sweet Love Language: A Conversation With Judy Butay Cacal
The Power in Pasifika Voices: A Poetry Workshop
Tufunga Ta Talanoa | The ART in Storytelling
Creating Indigenous Future Histories
Future Ancestors: Collaborative Communities
Parenting Across Race and Culture: A Conversation for AAPI Families
Mixed-ish in the API Community
Seeing Ourselves: API Media and LGBTQ+ Identity
People Power vs Firepower: Resilience under Military Rule
Re-Imagining our Future: PIAAA 2022
For Us, By Us: Exploring AAPI Studies at PSU
Monday, May 3 5:00 - 7:00pm PDT
Register to attend via Zoom
Speaker: Dr. Enrique (Rick) Bonus
Event Description: Portland State University (PSU) currently does not offer an Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) studies program and we want one! We need our collective support, love, and energy to make this happen. Join us for a conversation about the fight for AAPI studies at PSU and why it’s crucial for us to have AAPI studies at PSU.
This event is sponsored by: The Pacific Islander, Asian & Asian American (PIAAA) Student Center and PSU’s English Department.
Protecting Our Elders: Defunding the Police, Investing in Our Communities
Wednesday, May 5 12:00 - 2:00pm PDT
Speaker: Sy Stokes
Event Description: The rise in anti-Asian hate crimes has shaken the lives of our AAPI communities across the nation, leaving us all searching for solutions for how to protect our loved ones. Unfortunately, these horrific incidents have resulted in demands to invest more into law enforcement. Such a response will inevitably lead to unintended and potentially fatal consequences for all communities of color, specifically Black and Brown people. Dr. Stokes will be discussing how our communities can respond to anti-Asian violence by utilizing community resources, cultivating solidarity amongst other communities of color, and educating our communities about white supremacy.
A Sweet Love Language: A Conversation With Judy Butay Cacal
Friday, May 7 2:00 - 4:00pm PDT
Speaker: Judy Butay
Event Description: Join the Pacific Islander, Asian and Asian American Student Center and the Littman + White Galleries for an engaging artist talk and Q&A session with artist Judy Butay Cacal as we discuss her exhibition A Sweet Love Language.
Judy Butay Cacal is a Filipino-American artist from Waipahu, Hawaii. The concepts of Cacal’s initial artwork stem from her academic studies at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa. She received her Bachelor’s of Science in Tropical Plant and Soil Sciences in 2018, and during her junior year in college, Cacal enrolled in an introduction to drawing course where she learned the fundamentals of drawing.
The Power in Pasifika Voices: A Poetry Workshop
Monday,, May 10 12:00 - 1:30pm PDT
Speaker: Destiny Spicer
Event Description: Join Palauan author and student activist Des Spicer Orak and the Portland State Pacific Islander Asian and Asian American student center for a poetry workshop that amplifies the voices of Pasifilka people, their culture, art, and history. Featuring open letter writing and a collaborative poem, this workshop will center relationships and reflection. Some central themes that will be explored are relationships to land and water, culturally specific identity, climate change, Pasifika traditions, ancestral knowledge, and interpersonal connection.
Des Spicer-Orak (she/they) is a queer Palauan poet currently residing in Portland Oregon, where she has spent all of her life. Des has come to understand herself and her culture through her relationship to the ocean, the largest and most powerful force to be known. She believes that the ocean embodies all of life's extremities, this truth undeniably reflected in her work. Their strong passion for learning and teaching involve them in many organizational positions focused on building community resilience and healing. Des believes in the power of knowledge, and its ability to transform our impact on both each other and the Earth. In her work, Des intentionally amplifies the voices of her people and their struggles. Without recognition and action several smaller Pacific Island communities will continue to suffer silently in the development of climate crises.
Des believes in the power of knowledge, and its ability to transform our impact on both each other and the Earth. In her work, Des intentionally amplifies the voices of her people and their struggles. Without recognition and action several smaller Pacific Island communities will continue to suffer silently in the development of climate crises.
Tufunga Ta Talanoa | The ART in Storytelling
Tuesday, May 11 5:00 - 7:00pm PDT
Speaker: Va’eomatoka (Toka) Valu
Event Description: Storytelling is one of the most common ways Pasifika people have kept their customs and traditions alive for over a thousand years. Our people’s mastery of this critical practice has been passed down through song, dance, poetry, carving, tattooing, and through visual art. This session will explore Tongan literary devices through my artistic practice in the visual arts and how I have used them to reiterate centuries old lessons of cultural protocol, societal hierarchy, spirituality, and even addressing injustice as a Tongan in the diaspora.
Toka was born and raised in the South Pacific Islands of Tonga and migrated to the United States with his late mother in 1997. He has an extensive background in student and leadership development after having spent ten years at the Office of Minority Affairs & Diversity at the University of Washington. He is an active member of the Tongan Catholic Community of Seattle and is humbled to be in his current role with the Pacific Islander Community Association of WA that exercises his commitment to NHPI community organizing & leadership development, equitable policy advocacy, and Pasifika arts advancement.
As a professional artist, Toka’s work focuses heavily on folklore from the South Pacific Islands. Legendary feats of strength, tales of creation, and concepts that are foundational for how Pasifika people understand the world and their place in it, are present throughout his work. After leaving the islands in his youth and being immediately confronted by the absence of anything that hinted at any sense of belonging, he cultivated a dedication to consistent creation of Pasifika focused works, initially, as a longing for home, but later as an assertion of identity, voice, and self-determination. Toka is a doting father, a dedicated husband, and a staunch community & youth voice advocate.
Creating Indigenous Future Histories
Wednesday, May 12 5:00 - 7:00pm PDT
Speaker: Lehua Taitano
Event Description: Lehua M. Taitano is a queer CHamoru writer and interdisciplinary artist from Yigu, Guåhan (Guam) and co-founder of Art 25: Art in the Twenty-fifth Century. She is the author of two volumes of poetry—Inside Me an Island and A Bell Made of Stones. She has served as an APAture Featured Literary Artist via Kearny Street Workshop, a Kuwentuhan poet via The Poetry Center at SFSU, and as a Culture Lab visual artist and curatorial advisor for the Smithsonian Institute’s Asian Pacific American Center. Taitano’s work investigates modern indigeneity, decolonization, and cultural identity in the context of diaspora. Learn more about Lehua at https://lehuamtaitano.com
"Creating Indigenous Future Histories" is an examination of re-indigenizing our daily experiences as Asian/Pacific Islanders. Especially for those of us living in diaspora, what are the ways we seek to cultivate, honor, and utilize Indigenous knowledge--both from our own cultural backgrounds and those of the First Nations people on whose land we are visitors? Taitano will present from her paper, "The Language of Recognition: One Indigenous Approach to Pedagogy," an examination of what it means to honor Indigenous identities as we care for ourselves and each other in education and community.
This is a free event in honor of Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month and PRIDE Month. Live captioning and ASL will be provided. This event has been designed with accessibility and inclusion in mind but if you need accommodations please contact Bree at bkalima@pdx.edu or (503) 725-9390.
Future Ancestors: Collaborative Communities
Thursday, May 13 12:00 - 1:30pm PDT
Speaker: Lehua Taitano
Event Description: Lehua M. Taitano is a queer CHamoru writer and interdisciplinary artist from Yigu, Guåhan (Guam) and co-founder of Art 25: Art in the Twenty-fifth Century. She is the author of two volumes of poetry—Inside Me an Island and A Bell Made of Stones. She has served as an APAture Featured Literary Artist via Kearny Street Workshop, a Kuwentuhan poet via The Poetry Center at SFSU, and as a Culture Lab visual artist and curatorial advisor for the Smithsonian Institute’s Asian Pacific American Center. Taitano’s work investigates modern indigeneity, decolonization, and cultural identity in the context of diaspora. Learn more about Lehua at https://lehuamtaitano.com
Lehua, PSU's featured API Heritage Month and PRIDE Month speaker, will lead a small group workshop about collaborative practice as an act of community building. Participants will envision projects that center cross-cultural Indigenous collaboration and will create a plan with their small groups for implementation in their own communities.
We strive to make our events inclusive and accessible so if you require ADA accommodations, please reach out to us prior to the event at piaaa@pdx.edu or (503) 725-9390.
Kālai Kāpala: Creating patterns, rhythm, and symbolism through the carving of traditional Native Hawaiian ʻohe kāpala (bamboo stamps)
Friday, May 14 12:00 - 2:00pm PDT
Register Now Deadline to register is May 4
Speaker: Adrienne Lehuauakea Fernandez
Event Description: In Hawaiʻi, patterns play an important role in preserving and sharing stories of the world around us. These patterns are often hand-printed using detailed and symbolic ʻohe kāpala (carved bamboo stamps). Learn how to make these patterns and traditional ʻohe kāpala using simple tools and basic carving techniques.
Lehuauakea is a mixed-Native Hawaiian interdisciplinary artist and kapa maker from Pāpaʻikou on Moku O Keawe, the Big Island of Hawaiʻi. Lehua’s Kānaka Maoli family descends from several lineages connected to Maui, Kauaʻi, Kohala, and Hāmākua where their family resides to this day. They have participated in several solo and group shows around the Pacific Ocean. Most recently these include ‘A Gift, A Breath’ at Alice Gallery in Seattle, ‘Until We Meet Again’ at Blackfish Gallery in Portland, and ‘He Hae Hōʻailona Ia’ at Aupuni Space in Honolulu. Through a range of craft-based media, their art serves as a means of exploring cultural and biological ecologies, spectrums of Indigeneity, and what it means to live within the context of contemporary environmental degradation. With a particular focus on the labor-intensive making of ʻohe kāpala, kapa cloth, and natural pigments, Lehua is able to breathe new life into patterns and traditions practiced for generations. Through these acts of resilience that help forge deeper relationships with ʻāina, this mode of Indigenous storytelling is carried well into the future. The artist is currently based between Portland and Pāpaʻikou after earning their Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Painting with a minor in Art + Ecology at Pacific Northwest College of Art.
Parenting Across Race and Culture: A Conversation for AAPI Families
Monday, May 17 12:00 - 1:30pm PDT
Event Description: Join the Services for Students with Children (SSWC) and the Pacific Islander, Asian & Asian American (PIAAA) Student Center for a facilitated discussion in celebration of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month! Our esteemed panelists include PSU community members who identify as being an AAPI parent and folx who are parents to AAPI children. Come with questions, or just listen, learn and build community. All are welcome, including your families, partners, and children!
Mixed-ish in the API Community
Wednesday, May 19 5:00 - 7:00pm PDT
Event Description: The Pacific Islander, Asian and Asian American Student Center (PIAAA), the Multicultural Student Center (MCC), and the Mixed Me student group are joining forces to create a dynamic panel of multi-ethnic and multi-racial Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) folks in honor of AAPI Heritage Month! Our panelists include PSU students, faculty, staff, and alumni. Not only will you get to learn from their experiences, but you will have an opportunity to connect with them during our Q&A session.
Seeing Ourselves: API Media and LGBTQ+ Identity
Friday, May 21 1:30 - 3:00pm PDT
Event Description: Join the Pacific Islander, Asian and Asian American Student Center for a brief overview of LGBTQ representation in API media, a viewing of the short film Kiss of The Rabbit God, and a discussion surrounding representation.
People Power vs Firepower: Resilience under Military Rule
Tuesday, May 25 3:00 - 4:30pm PDT
Event Description: In partnership with Anakbayan’s Environmental Justice Desk, People Power vs Firepower: Resilience under Military Rule, will examine the relationship of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands to the military. For centuries, the military has targeted PIAAA (Pacific Islander, Asian, Asian-American) communities for recruitment while polluting and plundering our homelands. As API’s, we are all too familiar with the intergenerational impact of imperialism and colonization on our lands and livelihoods. In this space, we will learn about the campaigns Anakbayan is waging against the military-industrial complex and understand how the identities of our land and people are being shaped by the military. This event will be particularly relevant to Filipinos and those of the Filipino diaspora.
Re-Imagining our Future: PIAAA 2022
Friday, May 29 11:30am - 1:00pm PDT
Event Description: As we wrap up API Heritage Month 2021 and the school year, we have a lot to celebrate and reflect on. If you are invested in our center and the work that we do, please join us to celebrate all that we have accomplished as a community as well as offering your insights/visioning for PIAAA 2022! We want to see our community thrive at PSU (and beyond) and would love each and every one of you to be a part of that process.