All Upcoming Events

Bill Naito’s name became synonymous with civic leadership, whether it was growing Portland’s urban canopy, revitalizing its downtown, or preserving historic buildings. The son of Japanese immigrants, Bill had to overcome the emotional trauma of a difficult childhood followed by the racism of World War II. Learn about Bill's life and how he became one of Portland's greatest changemakers, with a particular focus on the historic buildings that he preserved. At the forefront of the movement, the National Trust for Historic Preservation called him "an individual who truly made a difference in preservation, in short, a preservation hero." Presented with video and many pictures, the presentation will cover the entirety of Bill's life and a large amount of Portland's history.

Presented by Erica Naito-Campbell with a book signing.

Tickets: $25.00

Visit the website to learn more and register for the event.

Architectural Heritage Center, 701 SE Grand Ave, Portland, OR 97214

The OSU Center for the Humanities presents a moderated book club conversation of Elizabeth Mehren's I Lived to Tell the World: Stories of Holocaust, Genocide, and the Atrocities of War. The book presents thirteen inspiring profiles of men and women who have fled from Rwanda, Myanmar, Bosnia, Syria, and more to make new homes in Oregon.

Copies of the book will be available to check out from the 2nd floor reference desk, while supplies last, beginning Tuesday, December 17th. 

Visit the Corvallis-Benton County Public Library website to learn more.

Corvallis-Benton County Library, 645 NW Monroe Ave Corvallis, OR 97330

Please join us for the opening of "I Lived to Tell the World," an exhibition featuring the stories of Oregon genocide survivors.

Through art, personal experience, and scholarship, audience members will explore the idea of using personal narratives to tell history. Photographs and short films document the experiences of genocide survivors, while a panel discussion brings together a survivor, an author, and a historian. What happens when we shift from a single version of history told in a textbook to a mosaic of individual experiences?

The exhibit will feature photographs by award-winning photographer and author Jim Lommasson. The accompanying panel discussion includes Elizabeth Mehren, author of I Lived to Tell the World: Stories from Survivors of Holocaust, Genocide, and the Atrocities of War; Saron Khut, speaker and genocide survivor, and Katherine Hubler, OSU Historian and editor of Listening to Survivors: Four Decades of Holocaust Memorial Week at Oregon State University.

Visit prax.oregonstate.edu for more information.

Toomey Lobby, PRAx, 470 SW 15th St, Corvallis, OR 97331

The Immigrant Story is a Portland-based nonprofit that seeks to elevate the voices of immigrants and refugees through multimedia narratives. I Lived to Tell the World presents first-person stories of survival alongside memorable music.

Join us for a pre-show happy hour! PRAxPRELUDES feature food and drink for purchase and an equally tantalizing bit of programming related to the main event.

• February 1: The Immigrant Story Founder's Talk with Sankar Raman | Toomey Lobby | Doors 6 p.m

Buy tickets online here. To learn more, visit prax.oregonstate.edu.

Oregon State University, 470 SW 15th Street, Corvallis, OR 97331

Poems composed by numerous Japanese American poets during WWII were kept in a journal by Masaki Kinoshita and discovered by his grandson Duane Watari. These poems and their translations were compiled into the book They Never Asked: Senryū Poetry from the WWII Portland Assembly Center. Selected poems will be read in Japanese and English by translators Satsuki Takikawa and Mike Freiling.

Visit www.oswegoheritage.org/Chautauqua to learn more.

Oswego Heritage House, 398 10th St., Lake Oswego, OR 97034

Join us at McMenamin's St. Johns Theater & Pub for a special presentation by author Johanna Ogden. Ogden will be sharing her new book Punjabi Rebels of the Columbia River: The Global Fight for Indian Independence and Citizenship with us followed by Q&A.

Oregon is commonly perceived to have little, let alone notable, South Asian history. Yet in the early 1900s Oregon was at the center of two entwined quests for Indian independence and civic belonging that rocked the world. Punjabi Rebels of the Columbia River traces the stories of the radical Indian independence organization known as Ghadar and Bhagat Singh Thind's era-defining US Supreme Court citizenship case. Ghadar sought the overthrow of India's British colonizers while Thind utilized sanctioned legal channels to do so. Despite widely differing strategies, both the movement and the man were targeted, often in coordination, by the highest levels of the US and British governments. The empires' united message: India would not be an independent country and Indians could not be citizens.

Visit mcmenamins.com to learn more about this event.

Tickets: $5. Available for online purchase at etix.com.

St. Johns Theater & Pub, 8203 N. Ivanhoe St., Portland, OR, 97203