Join us! We collaborate with community partners for story sharing events and interview days.

ONGOING

Currently, we are producing an ongoing event series, Nuestras Huellas, which are site-specific story walks led by community guides whose stories have been unheard or silenced in our community. 

Using recorded conversations as research, each community guide works with an expert Listener from The Listeners Project: Queremos Escucharte to devise a personalized route for their walk. At sites along the route, the guide shares important stories from their lives with the walking tour participants. With support and training from the expert Listeners, guides employ tools of the theatre and socially engaged art to lead participants in embodied activities, creating opportunities to both hear AND feel the guides lived experiences.

Spots on our walks  are limited. Email tlpwallawalla@gmail.com to get on our invitation list!

UPCOMING EVENTS

Feeding Ghosts: A Conversation with
Graphic Novelist Tessa Hulls

When: May 29, 2024
Time: 6:30 pm reception
6:45 pm public talk & conversation
Where: Walla Walla Public Library, 238 E. Alder Street

* Spanish interpretation will be available on-site at this event, with ASL interpretation available with advance notice.
This event is free!

Queremos Escucharte is proud to partner with the Walla Walla Public Library for a conversation with artist, writer, and adventurer Tessa Hulls. Hulls will share Feeding Ghosts, an illustrated memoir of intergenerational and immigrant trauma with starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, and Booklist.

Hulls’ essays have appeared in The Washington Post, Atlas Obscura, and Adventure Journal, and her comics have been published in The Rumpus, City Arts, and Spark. She has received grants from the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture, 4Culture, and the McMillen Foundation, and she is a recipient of the Washington Artist Trust Arts Innovator Award. Feeding Ghosts is her first book. 

A reception with light refreshments will begin at 6:30 p.m. in the main reading room, followed by Hulls’ talk at 6:45 p.m. Spanish interpretation will be available on-site at this event, with ASL interpretation available with advance notice. Please email The Listeners Project: Queremos Escucharte at tlpwallawalla@gmail.com, or call Young Peoples’ Librarian Liz George at 509-527-4550 by May 22nd to request an ASL interpreter. 

PAST EVENTS

We are Not Strangers: A conversation with Josh Tuininga

When: April 27th
Time: 11am
Where: Walla Walla Public Library, 238 E. Alder Street

The Walla Walla Immigrant Rights Coalition with The Listener’s Project: Queremos Escucharte, and the Walla Walla Public Library are excited to present Josh Tuininga, author  of "We are Not Strangers".

We Are Not Strangers is based on the true story of a Sephardic Jewish immigrant who helped his Japanese-American neighbors when they were incarcerated during WWII. In this talk, Josh Tuininga traces his family's Sephardic roots as they flee their home in Turkey, discover opportunities in America, and forge a new community in the multicultural neighborhood of the Seattle Central District. Through a visually engaging presentation, Tuininga will share the intricacies of his research and his creative process, while unraveling the profound lessons embedded in these tales of allyship and unity amidst the turbulence of wartime.

This story resonates deeply with the mission of the Walla Walla Immigrant Rights Coalition. Just as this historical account exemplifies solidarity and support across cultural boundaries, we strive to foster similar unity and advocacy for those facing injustice and discrimination. The story serves as a poignant reminder of the enduring impact of allyship and community support.

More about the artist: Josh Tuininga is an author, artist, and graphic designer based in North Bend, WA. A graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Tuininga's artistic career has explored a variety of mediums including sequential art, animation, painting and design. In 2003, he founded an Art + Design Agency, The Medium where he continues to work as Creative Director.

La Misma Canción: An artist talk
by Mark Menjívar

When: April 10, 2024
Time: 6:00 pm
Where: Reid Ballroom at Whitman College
This event is free and open to the public!

*Live English to Spanish interpretation will be provided.
*Free bilingual childcare is available with advanced registration. RSVP with children’s ages and language to tlpwallawalla@gmail.com

Join us to welcome visual artist Mark Menjívar who will present his current public, participatory artwork focused on the migration of peoples and birds across borders. Menjívar’s multidisciplinary work, La Misma Canción (The Same Song), emphasizes how the world of birds can help us engage the complexities of place, borders, and movement. His talk will examine migratory birds' resilience and determination in their perilous journey and the fortitude of peoples who have moved across borders to create better lives for themselves and their families. 

La Misma Canción will launch in early April during a Bird Welcoming Festival at Prescott School District, a rural PreK-12 public school 30 minutes north of Walla Walla. This project was commissioned through Carnegie Picture Lab as part of local artists Amanda Evans and Tia Kramer’s multi-year engagement with Prescott School District titled When The River Becomes A Cloud / Cuando el río se transforma en nube. Evans, Kramer, and Menjívar have been meeting weekly with Prescott students since February to co-author drawings that celebrate birds that migrate between Central America and Eastern Washington.

This project brings together local community partners including Whitman College and The Northwestern Archives, WEB-Whitman Events Board, Walla Walla Immigrant Rights Coalition, Carnegie Picture Lab, Prescott School District, The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and Audubon Society.

Accessibility / Interpretation / Childcare
Spanish Interpretation provided. ASL Interpretation is available with advanced request to tlpwallawalla@gmail.com
Child care is also available with advance registration. RSVP with children’s ages and language to tlpwallawalla@gmail.com

More about the artist: Mark Menjívar is a San Antonio-based artist and Associate Professor in the School of Art and Design at Texas State University. His art practice primarily consists of creating participatory projects while being rooted in photography, oral history, archives, and social action. He attended McLennan Community College, holds a BA in Social Work from Baylor University and an MFA in Social Practice from Portland State University. Menjívar is the artist-in-residence with the Texas After Violence Project, a public memory archive that fosters deeper understandings of the impacts of state violence. He is also a member of Borderland Collective, which utilizes collaborations between artists, educators, youth, and community members to engage complex issues and build space for diverse perspectives, meaningful dialogue, and modes of creation around border issues.

A Black Counterstory:
Power & Privilege Symposium- Blacknificent

When: Thursday, February 22, 2024
Time: 2-2:50pm
Where: Chism Auditorium in the Whitman College Music Hall

On Thursday, Feb 22, 2024 Anyla Dior McDonald will present her own personal counterstory of Walla Walla at Whitman College’s Power and Privilege Symposium. This new talk will be a continuation of her Feb 1st black history month kick-off presentation at Walla Walla Public Library.  At this event she will speak about where she finds power, inspiration and strength as a black woman in our small rural community. She will share aspects of Black History not commonly elevated. 

More about Power and Privilege Symposium: The Power & Privilege Symposium is designed to make space for conversations about structural oppression and how they manifest themselves on the Whitman College campus and beyond. Topics include racism, sexism, ableism, capitalism and more. The community unites to support the lectures, panels, discussions and showcases created by our peers. The symposium strives to educate the community about the power structures prevailing around the world, questioning many of the paradigms which have socialized us. Our mission as a team is to create an environment that interrogates hard questions and the relationships, and structures of power and privilege. 

Big Idea Talks: Blacknificent

When: Thursday, February 1st, 2024
Time: 6:30-8:00pm
Where: Walla Walla Public Library

The Walla Walla Public Library is thrilled to present Big Idea Talks: Blacknificent in partnership with The Listeners Project: Queremos Escucharte. This Big Idea Talk features local guest author Anyla Dior McDonald as she speaks about her experiences growing up in Walla Walla as a black youth and her motivations for writing her most recent work, "Black Joy & Black Tribulations: Poems, Short Stories and Essays."

Anyla describes her work as "...centered around Black Joy, Black Trauma, and Black Excellence. The intention of my book is to empower and encourage others to love and celebrate their Blackness."  She has published creative fiction, nonfiction, essays and more in publications such as Tumbleweird and lead discussions with The Listeners Project: Queremos Escucharte in advocation of black youth and restorative justice.

Big Idea Talks: Blacknificent will hold a reception with refreshments at 6:30pm followed by the talk at 6:45pm. Copies of her book "Black Joy & Black Tribulations: Poems, Short Stories, and Essays" will be available for purchase at the event.

Nuestras Huellas: Unapologetically Black with Anyla Dior McDonald

This guided story walk is part of the Nuestras Huellas story walk series.  Anyla Dior McDonald, an 18-year-old WAHI graduate and the author of Black Joy and Black Tribulations, will lead up to 20 participants through the Walla Walla High School Campus. At stops along the path Anyla share her personal stories and the experiences that motivated her to become a writer and advocate for black youth and restorative justice in the education system. 
This event is by invitation only as we can accommodate just 20 participants. Reach out to tlpwallawalla@gmail.com to inquire and learn more.

More about Nuestras Huellas: Nuestras Huellas is an ongoing series of site-specific story walks led by community guides whose stories have been unheard or silenced in our community. Using recorded conversations as an artistic research method, each community guide works with an expert Listener from The Listeners Project: Queremos Escucharte to devise a personalized route for their individual walk. At sites along the route, the guide shares important stories from their lives with the walking tour participants. With support and training from the expert Listeners, guides employ tools of the theatre and socially engaged art to lead participants in embodied activities, creating opportunities to both hear AND feel the guides lived experiences.

Reflection
The Listeners Project Paper

Throughout the journey of my story walk, I felt as if I was sailing on a ship. Leaning over the rail towards the front of the ship, with my arms spread wide. As the ocean air runs through my finger tips, entering the insides of my ear lobes, my small nostril wholes, the tiny cracks of my eyelets, and the small hairs upon my eyebrows as they sing Luther Vandross. The fresh air brushing against the blush inserted upon my cheeks, blowing away my thick mascara, creeping inside my dimples, almost removing the pink lipstick applied against both of my lips, and giving my gap a sense of drifty inner coldness. Pushing my strands towards the back of my neck and making the hairs on my arms dance to Faith Evans.

As I read my essay “Black culture, Black essence, Black celebration”,I felt Taraji P Henson, James Baldwin, Denzel Washington, and Kirk Franklin enlarging my throat chakra. To better enunciate the words that I needed to vocalize. As I read “The new Black girl in School”, I felt the 12 year old me healing itself. Releasing the shackles, the heavy boot, and the large brick she had been carrying over her shoulders for the past 6 years. She was sighing and exhaling with glory. Breaking strings and ropes of disparity and heart ache. Being able to truly say “I am divine, I am flawless, I am black excellence, I am the essence of blackness, I am the child of the most high god, I am black, and I love me unconditionally”.

When I mentioned the trauma that I had possessed from having to hear my teacher repeatedly say the n word, as she read “To kill a mockingbird” and the Martin Luther King Letter. I felt a sense of therapeutic recovery and accomplishment. I felt that I was no longer camouflaging and erasing my feelings about that specific occurrence. I felt freed from the burden, that taunted me and inputted demons inside of my dreams that were then turned into nightmares. That caused me to lose oxygen and stillness as I layed on my mattress throughout nightfall. Shivering as if a spell or curse had been placed within me. Only being able to breathe in the voodoo potions and witchcraft stew. Shaking as if I was having a seizure and then stuck as if I was having a stroke. Stuttering and punching the air as my eyes remained shut. Searching for air in a place where there was none.

As I read “Harmonious Black Joy” I felt as though I was actually in my grandmothers living room, watching her smile as I did the electric slide and K-wang. As she witnessed me enjoy the scent and flavors of the yams and collard greens. But as I danced to the cupid shuffle and Cha Cha slide with the audience towards the end of the walk. I began to feel even more proud of my cultural traditions, ways of expressing black happiness, and black enthusiasm. Overall, leaving me with a sense of being rejuvenated and conquered.

Juneteeth Jubilee

When: Saturday, June 17, 2023
Time: 10a-4p
Where: Washington Park. Walla Walla, WA

The Listeners Project Queremos Escucharte will be leading a series of kids’ activities at Walla Walla’s 2nd annual Juneteenth Jubilee. Join us to learn how to share a story from your life through images or as a comic strip. All ages are welcome!

More about the Juneteeth Jubilee: The Walla Walla Juneteenth Jubilee exists to bring people together, share culture, and celebrate freedom for all. COCOA is excited to announce that The Juneteenth Jubilee 2023 is on June 17th at Washington Park in Walla Walla, Washington. This is an event for people of all ages, and will have free food, live music, fun activities, a silent auction, and so much more. We look forward to seeing you there!

Nuestras Huellas: El poder de ser madre con Marcela Alvarado Luz

When: Thursday, May 18, 2023 from 5-6:30 by invitation. Contact us to inquire about availability.

Where: Pioneer Park

On Thursday, May 18, 2023, community advocate and mother, Marcela Alvarado Luz will be leading a story walk in Spanish for local mothers titled “El poder de ser madre.” The guided walk will begin at the Pioneer Park playground. Stopping at sites throughout the park, Marcela will reflect on the ways this community space has supported her during her most difficult times and its importance in her personal story. Marcela’s story walk addresses the topics of migration, mental health, community work, family and motherhood.

Free childcare and dinner afterward is provided for all attendees. Walk will be led in Spanish. 20 spots available.

Event facilitated by Marian Sandoval. Ideated and supported by Tia Kramer, Ben Murphy and the Colectivo de Arte Social.

More about Nuestras Huellas: Nuestras Huellas is an ongoing series of site-specific story walks led by community guides whose stories have been unheard or silenced in our community. Using recorded conversations as an artistic research method, each community guide works with an expert Listener from The Listeners Project: Queremos Escucharte to devise a personalized route for their individual walk. At sites along the route, the guide shares important stories from their lives with the walking tour participants. With support and training from the expert Listeners, guides employ tools of the theatre and socially engaged art to lead participants in embodied activities, creating opportunities to both hear AND feel the guides lived experiences.

Amplifying Our Voices Through Oral History

A public talk and panel discussion at the Whitman College Power & Privilege Symposium 

When: Thursday, February 23, 2023 from 2-2:50pm
Where: Olin Auditorium, Whitman College

Lead & Facilitated by Marian Sandoval. Presenters and Panelists include Guillermo Corro, Marcela Luz, Rubén Murcia and Joel Gaytan.

Organized by Marian Sandoval, Tia Kramer & Ben Murphy

Queremos Escucharte is proud to present at Whitman College’s 2023 Power & Privilege Symposium. This panel session articulates the importance of oral history in contemporary times and outlines the critical role that Queremos Escucharte plays in our community. Listener, Guillermo Corro will present a short talk titled, “I am here because you are here” then Marian Sandoval will lead a short panel at which local people interviewed by the project to share the sheer power listening and exchanging stories has had on their lives.

More about the Whitman College Power & Privilege Symposium: Power and Privilege 2023 Theme “No More Allies” interrogates the various issues and injustices impacting minority and marginalized communities, and imagine the ways that we can move from allies to accomplices in social justice work.

Historias de Injusticia y Solidaridad: Escuchando con Nuestro Cuerpo Entero

Stories of Injustice and Solidarity: Listening with Our Whole Body: An embodied storytelling workshop en Español with Fanny Julissa Garcia, a NYC based Oral Historian.

When: Wednesday, March 29th
Where: Pioneer Methodist Church
Time: 5: 30-6p Welcome!
6-7:30p Workshop
7:30-8:15p Food & Socializing

Food and childcare provided. By invite only. Email tlpwallawalla@gmail.com to inquire about attendance.

Award-winning oral historian Fanny Julissa García, will be visiting Walla Walla later this month and is hosting a workshop, for Spanish speakers, on the theme of healing through stories. During this workshop, Fanny will present her oral history project Separated: Stories of Injustice and Solidarity, which documents how family separation was employed by the United States at the U.S./Mexico border beginning in 2018.

Applied Oral History: A Method for Documenting and Activating Stories of State-Inflicted Violence

A public talk by: Fanny Julissa Garcia 

When: Tuesday, March 28 from 6:00-7:30pm
Where: Olin Auditorium, Whitman College

*Free bilingual childcare available with sign-up.
*Live English to Spanish interpretation will be provided.

Join us for a public talk by award-winning oral historian Fanny Julissa García, presenting on her oral history project Separated: Stories of Injustice and Solidarity.

The Walla Walla Immigrant Rights Coalition, in partnership with Whitman College, would like to invite you to a bilingual talk from award-winning oral historian Fanny García. She will present on her oral history project Separated: Stories of Injustice and Solidarity, which documents how family separation was employed by the United States at the U.S./Mexico border beginning in 2018. This was a historic human rights violation. García has conducted oral history interviews with family members, both parents and children, who were separated at the border. Beyond archiving stories for posterity, the project uses applied oral history methodology to activate and disseminate stories contained within the collection of interviews in support of the ongoing policy efforts to achieve restitution for families. 

The event will be held on Tuesday, March 28 at 6:00 pm Olin Auditorium at Whitman College. Live English to Spanish interpretation will be provided, and bilingual childcare will be available in Olin room 129 from 5:45 to 7:30pm. Sign up for childcare here.

This talk is generously co-sponsored by the Whitman College and Northwest Archives, Penrose Library, the Walla Walla Immigrant Rights Coalition and the Whitman Events Board.

¡Festival de Cultura Viva!

Participatory Events Celebrating Hispanic Cultural Arts in the Walla Walla Valley.
Sunday, October 16, 2022

When: 10:15 am Parade
11am-4pm Festival Events
Where: Gesa Power House Theatre

We are excited to collaborate with the Festival de Cultura Viva, celebrating the diversity of Hispanic Arts and Culture in the Walla Walla Valley.

Join us for events on the street and in the Powerhouse Theatre! The Listeners Project: Queremos Escucharte member Erik Muro will be leading traditional songs and games activities for young people. A team of our Listeners including Marian Sandoval will be conducting brief interviews about Hispanic culture in our region. And we will have audio excerpts from past interviews available for participants to engage with the stories of Latinx members of our community.

More about the Festival de Cultura Viva: The Festival de Cultura Viva aims to celebrate the diversity of the Hispanic Arts and Culture in the Walla Walla Valley. It will feature performances of Mariachi, Latin Band Los Flacos (Seattle), Ballet El Color de México, and Las Estrellas de México, as well as Flamenco, Cha Cha Cha, Merengue, Bachata, Hip Hop, and juggling workshops. There will also be cultural presentations, art exhibitions, local food trucks and arts activities for all ages. Better yet, it is free and open to the public!

Protejiendo Nuestras Raíces: Un Proyecto de Salma Anguiano

A documentary film screening featuring anonymous migrant workers in the Walla Walla Valley.
Saturday, May 7 at 4:30pm at the Gesa Power House Theatre

Growing up in a migrant working community Salma Anguiana often saw many injustices and unsafe working conditions faced by people in her community. During her first year of college, Anguiana embarked on a journey to advocate for the community she grew up in. She formed Protejiendo Nuestras Raices, and began advocacy efforts to address the unsafe working conditions that people like her parents faced in the workplace. Through this effort she also hoped to create spaces for people in our communities to speak their truths. For so long, she saw people around her stay quiet due to fear. She wanted to end the cycle and bring light to the atrocities that occur in the workplace, in our own backyards.

Anguiano began collecting stories of farmworkers during the COVID-19 Pandemic. It was oftentimes difficult to bring these stories—including many from undocumented workers—to a wider audience. Anguiano and her collaborators navigated these challenges by making the narrators in the film completely anonymous.  As Anguiano states:

The people who often live in the shadows, people like my parents. People who have names, stories, feelings, and emotions. People who are often silenced or discouraged from speaking, were the people who I sought to elevate. Today I hope that their voices are projected in this space, the way they have asked for it, anonymously. The film is for my parents, for the latinx community, and for the migrant and undocumented folk across the globe. I hope you all feel empowered.

The event is cosponsored by the Walla Walla Immigrant Rights Association (WWIRC), the Colectivo de Arte Social, The Listeners Project: Queremos Escucharte, the Whitman College and Northwest Archives, the Associated Students of Whitman College, Project Pericles, and Hernandez Immigration Law, LLC.

Poner los Pies en la Tierra: Two Steps Beyond

An interactive walking tour featuring the stories of Estela Muro, Erika Silva, and Gustavo Reyna

Wednesday, April 13, 4:00-5:30 pm
Bilingual Spanish/English event
Begins at the Peterson Memorial Library located at Walla Walla University*

*Gather at the kiosk in front of the main entrance to the library. If possible, bring a charged smartphone and earbuds.

Join us for a self-directed and interactive walking tour that navigates the stories of Latinx immigrants living in the Walla Walla Valley. Participants will listen to the recorded stories of Estela Muro, Erika Silva, and Gustavo Reyna, walking with them through the struggles and demands that members of our community face day by day. Moments for reflection, dialog, and exchange will be provided along the way. 

The Two Steps Beyond series is intended to challenge each of the walking-listeners to engage deeply with the issues that condition the experiences of members of the Latinx community inside and outside the United States. 

The experience will start at 4:00 pm. Participants will be put in pairs and given a suggested walking path around the vicinity of Walla Walla University, with the Peterson Memorial Library as the center point. Several stops will be indicated on the suggested path. Please provide a mobile device, i.e. smartphone, with access to the internet and headphones compatible with your device. Also, dress accordingly for a 2.5-mile walk.* 

This event is sponsored by the Donald Blake Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity and Culture at Walla Walla University. It is produced as part of the 2022 Conference, Race & Belonging: Latinx Experience in the Pacific Northwest taking place, Tuesday, April 12 - Thursday, April 14, 2022. 

*Accommodations regarding walking accessibility and device accessibility can be arranged at the kiosk during the event. 

Guillermo Corro: Powerful Stories, The Search for Healing and Empathy in our Community

Thursday, August 5, from 7-8:30pm
Hosted by the Walla Walla Public Library
In-person event and streamed online. Simultaneous Spanish/English interpretation available.

Join the Walla Walla Public Library for their upcoming BIG IDEA TALKS, “Powerful Stories: The Search for Healing and Empathy in Our Community” with Guillermo Corro. The event marks the launch of  THE LISTENERS PROJECT: QUEREMOS ESCUCHARTE, a place-based project that promotes the sharing and preservation of stories in the Walla Walla Valley. Guillermo is an immigrant, community organizer and cook who will share parts of his journey which led him to live and work in Walla Walla. He will connect his experiences to TLP:QE themes of the power of stories as a way to heal and build a stronger community. Guillermo believes that empathy is a crucial part of listening but empathy must also lead to action in order to create a community free of hate and division. Participants will learn how they can engage with TLP:QE and share their story, and the stories of their friends and family members. The event will be bilingual, with the talk presented in English with live translation into Spanish. 

The event will be Thursday, August 5, from 7-8:30pm. There will be limited capacity for in-person attendance at the Walla Walla Public Library; please sign up here. You can also sign up to live stream the event via Zoom here. Simultaneous Spanish/English translation will be available both in-person and online.