Both lectures are free and for all ages.
“Chinese in Eastern Oregon: beyond Kam Wah Chung”, presented by Gregory Nokes & Tom Banse
May 12th, Thursday, 7-9pm, U of O at White Stag, 70 NW Couch St., Portland.
Gregory Nokes was born in Portland and travelled the world as a reporter and editor for The Associated Press and The Oregonian. He is the author of Massacred for Gold: The Chinese in Hells Canyon, published in October of 2009 by Oregon State University Press and currently in its second printing. The book is the first authoritative account of the massacre of as many as three-dozen Chinese gold miners in Oregon’s Hells Canyon in 1887, a crime that was never fully investigated and later covered up for more than a century.
Regional Correspondent Tom Banse covers public policy, environment, business and breaking news from the public radio Northwest News Network bureau in Washington’s state capital, Olympia. His stories can be heard during Morning Edition and All Things Considered on OPB Radio, KUOW-Seattle, and on other National Public Radio stations in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. In summer 2010, Banse produced an in-depth investigative report on a star-crossed effort to exhume and repatriate the remains of 556 pioneer Chinese immigrants from Oregon to China.
“Men of Iron & Steel: History of Chinese railroad workers in the Siskiyou Mountains”, presented by Victoria Law
June 23rd, Thursday, 7-9pm, U of O at White Stag, 70 NW Couch St., Portland.
Victoria Law is Director and Curator of Ashland Historic Railroad Museum located in Ashland, Oregon’s historic railroad district. After retiring from a career in the software industry, Victoria returned to college and graduated cum laude with a Bachelors of Arts in History from Southern Oregon University in 2003. Since that time she has been active in the arts community in Ashland, helping found the Ashland Historic Railroad District Association in 2005, serving on the board of the Southern Oregon Historical Society, and co-founding Ashland Historic Railroad Museum in 2007.
Ms. Law designed and curated Ashland Historic Railroad Museum’s spring 2010 exhibit, “Men of Iron and of Steel: Chinese Railroad Workers in the Siskiyou Mountains.” and is working on a book about Ashland’s early Chinese community, “Seventy Thousand Fire Crackers: The Story of the Chinese People in Victorian Ashland.”
