Peter Chilson (English) will give a Common Reading talk TODAY at 4:30 pm in CUE 203. His talk, “The Town on the Misfortune River,” will explore the eastern Oregon town and its experiences as the United States transitions from a majority European culture to one far more ethnically diverse.
Chilson’s talk will include both Ontario’s past and present contexts as a microcosm of American immigration history–a history that includes native tribal lands; the Oregon Trail pioneers who settled there to become farmers and ranchers; Latino families who have been in the region since before the Mexican-American War and the Latino migrant workers who followed; and Japanese-American farmers with roots in WWII internment and labor campus built near Ontario in 1942. He also will discuss the issues surrounding the founding of Ontario’s Newcomer Welcome Center to assist recent refugees from Somalia, Sudan, Iraq, and Syria.
Chilson’s talk is part of the 2019-20 Common Reading Series complementing this year’s common text, Refugee: Rethinking Refugee Policy in a Changing World by Alexander Betts and Paul Collier. More information on the program and events can be found at CommonReading.wsu.edu.
