Recap: Ray Warren Symposium

Fall Symposia

Legacy: Race and Remembrance

In early November, Lewis & Clark hosted the 14th annual Ray Warren Symposium on Race and Ethnic Studies, titled Legacy: Race and Remembrance.

This year’s symposium explored questions of how we remember, create, and tell our individual and collective histories. In what ways do race and ethnicity shape how personal and national narratives are constructed? Who must reckon with memory, and who has the power to forget and manipulate it? What creative avenues are used to craft the stories we tell? How does the work of remembering serve as a form of resistance and enable us to imagine a more just future?

Keynote speakers included Jelani Cobb, a historian and New Yorker staff writer who examines race, politics, and culture; Wendy Red Star, an artist who explores the intersections of Native American ideologies and colonialist structures; and Sulu‘ape Keone Nunes, a primary force in the re-establishment of uhi (Hawai‘ian tattoo) in the Hawai‘ian community. The symposium concluded with the Race Monologues, a symposium highlight, where students share their personal narratives about race, ethnicity, and identity.

This year’s cochairs were Alexander Castanes BA ’18, Christen Cromer BA ’18, Gabriela Nakashima BA ’18, and Michelle Waters BA ’19.

Keynotes Wendy Red Star (at podium) and Sulu‘ape Keone Nunes (seated). (Nanialii Keliihoomalu BA ’18)