In recognition of WSU’s 2020 celebration of the life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and also in recognition of Bryan Stevenson’s authorship of WSU’s 2015 Common Reading book Just Mercy, we are pleased to be screening the 2019 HBO documentary True Justice. For more than three decades, Alabama public interest attorney Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, has advocated on behalf of the poor, the incarcerated, and the condemned, seeking…

The keynote speaker for this year’s MLK Community Celebration is W. Kamau Bell, a sociopolitical comedian, director, and author who is the host and executive producer of the Emmy Award winning CNN docu-series “United Shades of America with W. Kamau Bell.” He is also the director of the documentary “Cultureshock: Chris Rock’s Bring the Pain” and has hosted several podcasts. He is currently the ACLU Celebrity Ambassador for Racial Justice. In addition to Bell’s talk, the MLK Community Celebration will…

Undocumented Tales is a YouTube web series that follows the journey of Fernando Gutierrez, an undocumented queer immigrant from Mexico living in the U.S.  Fernando’s story is one that is rarely told in the broader immigrant and LGBTQ communities, and one that is almost never told in mainstream media. Written and directed by Armando Ibañez, the series serves brings together the intersections of immigration status, homophobia/transphobia, class, and race to portray the realities of what it means to be both…

Carlos Gil, emeritus professor of history at the University of Washington, will talk about immigration and American identity through the lens of his own family history. Part of the ongoing “Pizza and Politics” series sponsored by the Foley Institute, pizza and beverages will be provided. Cosponsored by the Common Reading Program, the Foley Institute for Public Policy and Public Service, and Humanities Washington. Verification of attendance available.

As immigration becomes more hotly debated in the United States, the arguments have become cartoonish, with one side often painted as naïve and another as xenophobic. What has become lost is the human story of immigration to America, with all its complexity, heartache, and hope. Carlos Gil, emeritus professor of history at the University of Washington, sought to understand immigration by tracing his family’s history from the 1920s to the 1970s. In the process, he discovered the excitement, culture shock,…

Peter Chilson (English) will talk about his recent research of the town of Ontario, Oregon, which has served as an important site of migration and immigration for hundreds of years--from the Nez Perce, through the Oregon Trail, to contemporary global immigrant communities. His work has led him to see this small community as a microcosm of immigration history, policy, and impact. Verification of attendance available.

Patrick Coleman is an author of short stories, poetry, and a recent novel (The Churchgoer, published July 2019). He is also the assistant director of the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination at the University of California- San Diego, where he explores the relationship between visual arts and music. His visit is sponsored by the WSU Department of English and the Visiting Writer Series. For more information, see https://english.wsu.edu/visiting-writers/  Verification of attendance available.

Matthew Jeffries, the director of WSU’s Gender Identity/Expression and Sexual Orientation Resource Center (GIESORC), will talk about how gender identity and discrimination factor into issues of immigration and asylum.  Verification of attendance available.