Oregon Multicultural Archives Blog

MLK Jr. Week featured a panel of current and former OSU students who have spearheaded activism at OSU. The students shared their recent experiences with using speech and activism to initiate change on campus. Among other things, panelists detailed their experience with activism at OSU, the barriers or challenges they experienced and their advice for student activists concerning organizing, cultivating relationships, and building coalitions.

The moderated Q&A was followed by an opportunity for the audience to participate in a Q&A with the panel. The following former and current OSU students made up the panel:

• Darius Northern, People of Colour
• William Miller, Indigenous Peoples’ Day
• Raven Waldron,  Scab Sheet, Dr. Asmatey, Indigenous Queer and Two-Spirit Student Alliance
• Azeem Hussaini, SUPER, Building Names, Tuition Costs
• Sienna Kaske, Here to Stay and DACA

The event was made possible through a collaboration between the Office for Institutional Diversity, the Coalition for Supporting Free Speech and Activism, and the Community for Responsibility and Belonging.

The OMA was there to record the panel!

Dr. King’s Legacy Lives On: Student Activism at OSU — event recording

Date: January 23, 2019
Location:Student Experience Center, OSU Campus
Panelists: Raven Waldron, Azeem Hussaini, Darius Northern, Sienna Kaske, and William Miller
Moderators: Jonathan Stoll and Yiqiu Cai
Length: 01:05:08

There were about 70 people in attendance at the event!

“Creating Change and Community: Histories of Activism at OSU” is a pop up exhibit that highlights historical moments of student activism at Oregon State University. Each panel includes background information, an overview of strategies used, and the impact and result of the student activism. The exhibit is intended to celebrate student speech activity and activism at OSU. Celebrating every moment would be impossible; this exhibit features specific moments and is intended to represent diversity across time, strategies, and issues. We hope to expand the exhibit with additional examples of activism.

The exhibit “popped up” by the SEC and MU plazas during weeks 1 and of fall term 2018…

The stories featured include:

• The Black Student Union Walk Out ~ As a local embodiment of the national Civil Rights Movement during the 1960s, in October of 1968, fifty-five OSU students established the Black Student Union (BSU) with the mission to give Black students a united voice regarding their educational experiences and needs. Just a few months later, a conflict between the head football coach and a player named Fred Milton, a black student athlete, sparked the newly formed organization into action. As a result, the BSU walk out of 1969 forever changed race relations on OSU’s campus.
• African Students’ Association Anti-Apartheid Movement ~ Apartheid in South Africa, from 1948-1994, was the legalized policy of segregation and political, economic, and social discrimination based on race. In the 1970s, the United Nations condemned apartheid as a violation of human rights, and various organizations in the international and United States sports community barred South Africa from athletic competition. In the early 1980s OSU’s African Students’ Association voiced its opposition to the OSU wrestling team’s connections, specifically the head coach’s relationship, to the South African Wrestling Federation. Those in favor of the relationship argued that sports and politics should remain separate, while those in opposition argued that the OSU wrestling team’s actions were indirectly condoning apartheid.
• Declaration of Indigenous Peoples’ Day in Corvallis ~ For many years Indigenous communities have condemned the celebration of the federally recognized holiday “Columbus Day” to commemorate Christopher Columbus, a man who, along with his contemporaries, launched an era of genocide and slavery. Instead, Indigenous communities have called for the recognition and celebration of the Indigenous peoples thriving in the Americas prior to Columbus’ arrival, as well as in the present day. On Monday, October 12, 2015 the City of Corvallis celebrated Indigenous Peoples’ Day for the first time and became a part of the larger national movement to honor the history and living legacies of the first peoples of the Americas.
• Students of Color Speak Out ~ Inspired by the students at the University of Missouri, on November 16, 2015, members of OSU’s students of color bravely shared experiences of racism endured throughout their lives and as part of their educational experiences at OSU. The “Students of Color Speak Out” in Gill Coliseum was the result of a petition to President Ed Ray to address the students’ need for the university to prioritize their safety and well-being. The “Speak Out” concluded with a call to action for the administration to make institutional changes to move OSU toward being a more socially just and inclusive campus.

To access the exhibit PDFs, be sure to download the file when prompted.

The exhibit is a part of OSU’s “We Have Work to Do” campaign, #wehaveworktodo

We Have Work To Do encourages all Oregon State community members to find their roles as essential contributors to the creation of an inclusive and equitable university.

The exhibit was curated by members of the Coalition for Supporting Activism & Protected Speech at OSU. Members include representatives from ASOSU; Office of Student Life; Office of Institutional Diversity; School of History, Philosophy, and Religion; OSU Libraries Special Collections and Archives Research Center; Diversity & Cultural Engagement; Advancing Academic Equity for Student Success; Educational Opportunities Program; the Center for Civic Engagement; Student Experiences & Engagement; and the Ethnic Studies Program.

And, the Native American Longhouse Eena Haws featured the exhibit panel about Indigenous Peoples’ Day as part of the 2018 celebration!

The OMA was featured in “Internet Reviews” within College & Research Libraries News!

Below is the text of the post, and here is the link to Vol 79 No 8 (2018) Internet Reviews

Oregon Multicultural Archives

The Oregon Multicultural Archives (OMA) web portal gathers the Oregon State University (OSU) Special Collections and Archives Researcher Center and OSU Library’s archival and digital collections on African American, Asian American, Latino/a, and Native American communities. OMA was established in 2005 to highlight its multicultural collections as well as provide a link out to other institutions and organizations with multicultural archives. Since then it has grown through collaborations with multicultural educators and archivists, museums, other academic library special collections, and organizations such as the Oregon Tribal Archives Institute and the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association. OMA, over the past 13 years, has developed into a rich, engaging resource of multicultural history in the Pacific Northwest for students and researchers alike.

Readers can browse guides on general information or specific peoples and cultures. The guides feature special projects, manuscript collections, special topics, a community’s history in Oregon, Oregon Multicultural Communities Research Collection files, and their connection within the OSU community.

The African American People and Culture guide, for example, gathers descriptions and links to records of organizations like the Urban League of Portland and St. Philip the Deacon Parish. It also provides finding aids for manuscript collections such as the Oregon African American Railroad Porters Oral History Collection, Harold C. Williams Papers documenting community activism and civic leadership, and the Corvallis branch of the NAACP. Histories of OSU campus organizations such as Lonnie B. Harris Black Cultural Center and Black Student Union (BSU), and student activism like the BSU walkout of 1969 and the 1996 student boycott are included.

The Latinos en Oregon Oral History Interviews is a project between Yamhill County Cultural Coalition, Yamhill County Historical Society and Museum, Oregon Multicultural Archives, and Unidos Bridging Community. It has more than 30 interviews featuring diverse stories from Latino communities in Yamhill County, Madras, The Gorge, Hood River, and The Dalles, Oregon. The collection has audio, video, and interview summaries in Spanish and some English.

The guide illustrates a vibrant and diverse picture of Oregon’s communities. This engaging site highlights the integral part these communities’ histories play in contributing to Oregon’s identity, and the overall history of the region.

—Hilary Robbeloth, University of Puget Sound

“Internet Reviews” by Joni R. Roberts and Carol A. Drost

Joni R. Roberts is associate university librarian for public services and collection development at Willamette University, and Carol A. Drost is associate university librarian for technical services at Willamette University

On Sunday August 12, 2018 the 17th Oregon MLS cohort of Emporia State University’s School of Library & Information Management (SLIM) celebrated its graduation! The graduation ceremony took place in the auditorium of Oregon Health & Sciences University in Portland. Over two dozen students graduated this year, and Perri Parise, the Director of the Oregon MLS Program, could not have been prouder.

The commencement speaker was Natalia Fernandez, the Curator and Archivist of the Oregon Multicultural Archives and OSU Queer Archives at Oregon State University. Her reflections on the ceremony are on the SCARC Speaking of History blog. The student representative speaker was Lynne Stahl. Additionally, Oregon’s Interim State Librarian, Caren Agata, and OLA President, Buzzy Nielson, were also featured speakers, and SLIM’s dean, Dr. Wooseob Jeong, was the ceremony’s MC.

Fernandez spoke about how the graduates exemplify the Emporia State professional values of service, leadership, integrity, and mentorship. She expressed that as we advocate for equity and value diversity, we always have to remember it is not about our intentions, it is about the impact that we have; she encouraged graduates to always reach with one hand forward, while holding one hand back to lift others up; and she encouraged the students to remember that in their commitment to being leaders in our profession and our communities, our job is to use our positions of power to be advocates for those who lack power.

She asked the graduates to consider the question: what the values of service, mentorship, and leadership have in common? Action. Fernandez then shared her journey of activism and social justice throughout her career thus far, and reflected on words of wisdom expressed in a 2010 lecture by the archivist Randall Jimerson entitled “Archivists and the Call of Justice.” She stated that in the journey toward social justice, as information professionals, we each have a role to play as part of the work that we do. One of the many beautiful aspects of our profession is that activism can take many forms.

She closed by stating that it is incumbent upon all of us as information professionals to reflect upon our role and ask ourselves how we can be more pro-active to the cause of social justice as we serve, lead, and mentor others. When we fully commit ourselves to our professional values is when we can truly say that we are employing our power as information professionals, our expertise, and the love we have for our communities as we strive to promote a better society for all.

Excitingly, the 17th Oregon MLS cohort of Emporia State University’s School of Library & Information Management (SLIM) graduates are ready to take action – to serve, lead, and mentor – they are fellow activists!