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Vanport Mosaic Festival: Becoming American. A conversation
May 17, 2020 @ 5:00 pm - 6:00 pm
FreeAs part of The ~virtual~ Vanport Mosaic Festival 2020 – May 8-30
Vanport Mosaic presents:
BECOMING AMERICAN. A Conversation
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Sunday, May 17th 5:00 PM PST/ 8:00 PM EST
Streaming on Vanport Mosaic Facebook page
and at www.vanportmosaic.org
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This is a FREE event. If you can, please support our memory activism collective by a tax-deductible donation to >> vanportmosaic.org/donate
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Who gets to be “American?” How many generations does it take for one to become an American?
These questions of American identity have long surrounded the immigrant experience and its answers are tangled in our country’s webbed history with immigration, racism and xenophobia.
Join author Ramiza Koya and founder of The Immigrant Story, Sankar Raman as they bring their unique perspectives and explore ideas of “Americanness” as a part of the virtual Vanport Mosaic Festival on May 17 at 5 p.m..
Koya, a second generation Muslim American, joins the conversation with observations from her experience growing up in a multigenerational migrant family. Her debut novel, The Royal Abduls, explores the dynamics of growing up in an ethnically mixed, minority family living in post 9/11 America. Raman’s work at The Immigrant Story and the hundreds of immigrants he has interviewed about their experiences of coming to the United States has given him broad insight into how many different immigrants deal with identity in their new home. Together, they discuss questions that have defined members of the United States since its foundation.
About Ramiza Shamoun Koya (Author):
Ramiza Shamoun Koya has an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and her fiction and nonfiction has appeared in publications such as Columbia Review, Lumina, Washington Square Review, and Mutha Magazine. She has been a fellow at both MacDowell Colony and Blue Mountain Center. Her father was born in Fiji, her mother in Texas, and she was born in California. She lives with her daughter and two cats.
About Sankar Raman (Founder of The Immigrant Story):
Sankar immigrated to the U.S. from Madras, India, to attend graduate school, earning a Masters in Physics, and a PhD in Engineering from Purdue University. After a successful career in high tech, he founded a nonprofit organization, The Immigrant Story, which chronicles stories of immigrants in order to document and archive their voices in a variety of formats and genres.
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This event is part of the VIRTUAL VANPORT MOSAIC FESTIVAL 2020 – an online series of memory activism opportunities curated by Story Midwife Laura Lo Forti.
Made possible by the generous support of MCDD, Port of Portland, City of Portland Office of Community & Civic Life, Oregon Historical Society, Apex, Oregon Cultural Trust and Regional Arts & Culture Council
With the collaboration of Cerimon House and Open Signal: Portland Community Media Center