Schedule for Friday, May 6

May 6, 2016 Friday Schedule

Documentary Film Premiere: 12-1 p.m. May 6

“Sad Happiness: Cinthya’s Transborder Journey,” followed by Q&A with the director. Browsing Room, Knight Library.

Directed by Lynn Stephen, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Ethnic Studies at the University of Oregon and co-director of the Center for Latino/a and Latin American Studies (CLLAS). Produced by Sonia De La Cruz and Lynn Stephen.

Sad Happiness: Cinthya’s Transborder Journey explores the differential rights that U.S. citizen children and their undocumented parents have through the story of one extended Zapotec family. Shot in Oregon and Oaxaca, Mexico, and narrated by 11-year old Cinthya, the film follows Cinthya’s trip to her parent’s home community of Teotitlán del Valle with her godmother, anthropologist Lynn Stephen. There she meets her extended family and discovers her indigenous Zapotec and Mexican roots. While in Oaxaca, she participates in her community’s annual celebration of their patron saint, learns how to make chocolate and spin wool, explores a Zapotec archaeological site, and shares in a family party where she dances with her great-grandmother. Her absent parents are omnipresent on the trip as Cinthya’s cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents and great-grandparents all talk to her about them and how they wish for their return. Cinthya’s happiness is modified by the sadness of her parents being unable to accompany her. At a larger level, Cinthya’s story illuminates the desires and struggles of the millions of families divided between the U.S. and other countries where children are mobile citizens and parents cannot leave. In English, Spanish, and Zapotec with English subtitles. TRT: 39 minutes. The development of this documentary was supported in part by a Faculty Research Grant from the UO Center for the Study of Women in Society.

Friday Panel, 1 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.

“Crossing Borders: What It Means in the Life of a Child,” with keynote author Reyna Grande, Browsing Room, Knight Library.

This panel will focus on the memoir The Distance Between Us, featuring Reyna Grande reading sections from her work, with comments by community educators and University of Oregon faculty.

Reyna Grande’s novels, Across a Hundred Mountains and Dancing with Butterflies, were published to critical acclaim and have been read widely in schools across the country. In her memoir The Distance Between Us (Atria Books, 2012), Grande writes about her life before and after her undocumented border crossing as a young child from Mexico to the United States. A National Book Circle Critics Award finalist, this book was hailed by Los Angeles Times reviewer Hector Tobar as “the Angela’s Ashes of the modern Mexican immigrant experience.”

Panelists include:

Reyna Grande: featured presenter
Moderator: Lynn Stephen, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Ethnic Studies at the University of Oregon and co-director of the Center for Latino/a and Latin American Studies (CLLAS).
Gustavo Balderas, Superintendent, Eugene School District 4J
Lidiana Soto, UO graduate and recent Migrant Education Program worker
Carmen X Urbina, Program Development and Outreach Coordinator, Educational Methodology, Policy, and Leadership Program, UO College of Education; Administrator on Special Assignment, Eugene School District 4J
Kristin Yarris, a migration scholar and Assistant Professor in the UO Department of International Studies

Reception, May 6, 2:30 – 3:30 Browsing Room, Knight Library

Conversation, May 6 3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.

“Fearless Journeys on the Edge: A Literary Conversation with Ariel Gore & Chris Scofield,” moderated by Valerie Brooks. Browsing Room, Knight Library

Ariel Gore

Ariel Gore is the editor & publisher of the Alternative Press Award-winning magazine Hip Mama and the author of eight books. Her most recent book, The End of Eve, chronicles her years spent caring for her dying mother and has been described as “Terms of Endearment meets Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” This memoir was awarded both the Rainbow Award 2014 for Best Lesbian Book and the 2014 New Mexico Arizona Book Award in the Gay/Lesbian (GLBT) category. Her lyrical memoir, Atlas of the Human Heart, a recounting of her travels as a teenager, was a 2004 finalist for the Oregon Book Award. She won the LAMBDA Literary Award in 2010 for her anthology Portland Queer: Tales of the Rose City. A graduate of Mills College and the University of California at Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, she has taught at The Attic Institute in Portland, Oregon, at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, and at the Institute for American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. Currently she teaches online at Ariel Gore’s School for Wayward Writers.

Chris Scofield

Chris Scofield is a Eugene author who published her first novel, The Shark Curtain (Black Sheep, an imprint of Akashic Books, April 2015), to great reviews. Here’s a review on KLCC radio by Connie Bennett, the director of the Eugene Public Library: http://klcc.org/post/book-review-shark-curtain.

Valerie Brooks is a writer, editor, and literary activist. Among many other venues, her work appears in the Seal Press anthology France, A Love Story: Women Write about the French Experience.

Keynote Reading & Talk with Reyna Grande. May 6, 6 p.m. followed by Q & A and book signing. Downtown Eugene Public Library at 10th and Olive (100 W. 10th St., Eugene, OR 97401).

Takes place during First Friday Art Walk.

“Reyna Grande is an award-winning novelist and memoirist. She has received an American Book Award, the El Premio Aztlán Literary Award, and the Latino Book Award. In 2012, she was a finalist for the prestigious National Book Critics Circle Awards. Her works have been published internationally in countries such as Norway and South Korea.

“Her novels, Across a Hundred Mountains and Dancing with Butterflies, were published to critical acclaim and have been read widely in schools across the country. Her latest book, The Distance Between Us, was published in August 2012, by Atria Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. In this memoir, Reyna writes about her life before and after illegally immigrating from Mexico to the United States. A National Book Circle Critics Award finalist, The Distance Between Us is an inspirational coming-of-age story about the pursuit of a better life. The Los Angeles Times hailed it as ‘the Angela’s Ashes of the modern Mexican immigrant experience.’

“Born in Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico, Reyna was two years old when her father left for the U.S. to find work. Her mother followed her father north two years later, leaving Reyna and her siblings behind in Mexico. In 1985, when Reyna was going on ten, she entered the U.S. as an undocumented immigrant. She later went on to become the first person in her family to graduate. After attending Pasadena City College for two years, Reyna obtained a B.A. in creative writing and film & video from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She later received her M.F.A. in creative writing from Antioch University … she is … an active promoter of Latino literature and is a sought-after speaker at high schools, colleges, and universities across the nation.”