Details for Place/Displace: A Jade-Midway Reading, Thursday, June 25

Photo: Danielle Frandina, Founder of Tell it Slant Reading Series

This Thursday, June 25th, the Tell It Slant Reading Series and APANO Arts and Media Collective are joining forces to host, Place/Displace: A Jade-Midway Reading, a reading by residents of the Jade and Midway Districts around issues of displacement, gentrification and dual identity. The event will be held at the Jade/APANO Multicultural Space - JAMS (formerly the furniture store on SE 82nd and Division). Doors open at 7, show begins at 7:30. Refreshments and food from Thai Fresh will be available. The event is free.

Tell It Slant (TIS) Reading Series is, according to the Portland Mercury, “one of the warmest and most wellcurated reading series in town.” (7/30/14) Since launching in January of 2014, the series has featured many of Portland’s favorite emerging writers, musicians, poets and artists, as well as visiting writers. TIS alumni include: Emily Kendal Frey, Evan P. Schneider, Laura Gibson, Nick Jaina, Trevino Brings Plenty, Neal Hall, Dao Strom, Annalisa Tornfelt and many more. TIS readings strive to represent writers of all genres, including multimedia and “fourth genre” work. The TIS mission is to provide a supportive, inclusive platform for writers that enables them to celebrate their ageold roles as storytellers and entertainers, and fortify a sense of community among writers. TIS was founded and is hosted by Danielle Frandina.

The APANO Arts & Media Collective is an emerging group of Asians and Pacific Islanders that are passionate about engaging community members with APANO's mission of achieving social justice through artistic and creative practices.

AMC began meeting in late January 2015, and started collectively brainstorming a type of project that would be a first introduction of the group to the community. We decided that the gathering of community members around a theme of place would be a great way to formally introduce our group as an official APANO committee, as well as a reason to bring communities together by sharing stories. The theme of "place" resonates with AMC, since we are a group of APIs that have either lived in Portland all our lives or have recently moved here from other places. We have all been searching for a place to belong to, for a community to grow with. We believe that by sharing stories of place, of being displaced, and of our identities that are tied to a place, we create a space for conversations about these experiences in order to understand the many layers of complexities that a "place" holds.

AMC understands that as an API group within APANO, the collaboration with the Tell It Slant Reading Series can conjure up some debate and confusion over the name - specifically by including the name "Slant". The title for the reading series was drawn from "Tell all the truth but tell it slant," a work by acclaimed American poet Emily Dickinson, which emphasized that the journey to discovering truth is not always straightforward. While the word "slant" carries a history of oppression and discrimination towards Asians specifically, the AMC and Tell It Slant Reading Series does not intend to invoke these types of messages but rather to connect to the legacies of writing and storytelling.

Details about the Jade/APANO Multicultural Space (JAMS)

• The APANO/Jade Multicultural Space is located at 8114 SE Division Street Portland, OR 97206, on the corner of SE Division and 82nd.
• We’re encouraging guests to not park in the parking spots directly in front of the community space. We are reserving that space for loading and unloading, and for guests who are mobility challenged.
• Please park either on the JAMS property designated parking spaces, the surrounding neighborhoods, or at the APANO and Jade District office 1 block away (2788 SE 82nd Suite 203 Portland, OR 97266). Please do not park at the PCC Southeast campus, the campus security patrols the parking lot regularly and we cannot guarantee you won't be ticketed if you park in their lot.
• We encourage you to take public transportation! JAMS is located right off Bus Line 4.
• Remember to bring cash if you’d like to purchase drinks at the bar.
• Doors open at 7:00 and the program starts at 7:30pm. Come early to grab food, drinks, and mingle!

If you have any questions about the event, please contact Community Engagement Manager Luann Algoso at luann@apano.org.