Speaking With Ancestors: Discovering Families Through the Written Word, Readings and Conversations on Impact of Racial and Cultural Politics on Family

Join the Japanese American National Museum for special readings and conversation with writers and poets who will explore the complexities and impact of racial and cultural politics on family as part of the program. Speaking with Ancestors: Discovering Families Through the Written Word will be held at the National Museum on Saturday, May 31 at 1:30 p.m., featuring a diverse panel of guests and moderated by Peter J. Harris, producer/host of KPFK’s Inspiration House: VoiceMusic for Whole Living.

One of the featured poets will be Larry Jaffe, the International Readings Coordinator for the United Nations Dialogue among Civilizations through Poetry program. He also serves as the co-founder of Poets for Peace/United Poets Coalition and is the Poet-in-Residence/Director of Writer’s Voice for the Los Angeles Downtown YMCA. Jaffe is also the Editor of Poetix, the poetry magazine for Southern California, the resident Poet/Host at the Autry Museum of Western Heritage, and currently produces the popular Buddha Jam Poetry Series at the Elixir Café.

Jaffe’s work can be found in numerous publications and anthologies, such as Short Fuse, Off the Cuff, 100 Poets Against the War, and PoetryMagazine.com. He has authored several books, including Jewish Soulfood (Dead End Street Publications), Unprotected Poetry CD and book (PoetWarrior Press), the upcoming Lying Half-Naked in the Doorway (Salmon Publishing, Ireland) and L.A. Rhapsody, a book of poetic noir (Lummox Press). He has been featured at numerous readings and poetry festivals throughout the United States and abroad.

Princess Peter-Raboff is a poet, filmmaker and cultural/environmental activist. Born in Bethany, Israel and raised in Alaska, she embraces her mixed Gwich’in Athabascan and Jewish heritage. Influenced by her writer parents, the late Ernest Raboff, and her mother, Adeline Raboff, she was raised to appreciate the antidotal nature of poetry and words.

Peter-Raboff has a B.A. in International Relations from The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., is a 1999 Sundance Fellow (Screenwriter, Director, Producer), and most recently an Emerging Voices/Rosenthal Fellow through PEN USA. PEN Center USA strives to protect the rights of writers around the world, to stimulate interest in the written word, and to foster a vital literary community among the diverse writers living in the western United States.

Another featured poet and writer will be Dina Hilal, born in Beirut, Lebanon. She earned her B.A. in English, with a focus on writing and poetry, at the Unviersity of California, Berkeley. Her work has appeared in various literary journals and anthologies, including the San Francisco Chronicle, Mizna, and The Poetry of Arab Women: A Contemporary Anthology. She has taught poetry in numerous workshops and has guest lectured at UC Berkeley. She has appeared on NPR’s radio program “Flashpoints,” and “Levantine Center/Beyond Baroque,” a reading on KXLU with host Christine Dromo’s show, “Echo in the Sense.” Hilal currently lives in Laguna Beach

Author, poet, playwright, and journalist Michael Datcher received his B.A. from University of California, Berkeley and his M.A. from University of California, Los Angeles. He curates and performs programs at cultural institutions nationwide. His latest play, Silence, was commissioned by and opened at the Getty Museum in February 2002. He is the author of the critically acclaimed New York Times Bestseller, Raising Fences: A Black Man’s Love Story (Penguin Putnam/Riverhead), in which the film rights have been optioned by actor Will Smith’s Overbook Productions. His essays and poetry are widely anthologized, including Bum Rush The Page (Crown Books), Testimony (Beacon Press), and Another City (City Lights Books), among others. Datcher is also the co-editor of Tough Love: The Life and Death of Tupac Shakur (Alexander).

As a journalist, he has written for nationally known publications such as Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Vibe. He is a frequent news commentator on BBC Radio in the United Kingdom and has appeared on both “Nightline” and “Dateline” as an analyst. He teaches English Literature at West Los Angeles College and UCLA Extension. He is the director of literary programs at the World Stage Writer’s Workshop in Leimert Park.

The program will be moderated by Peter. J. Harris, the producer/host of Inspiration House: VoiceMusic for Whole Living, which airs Mondays, 10-11 pm, on KPFK, 90.7 FM, and features poets reading live to recorded music. Inspiration House has a unique format: In a seamless, improvisational ebb-and-flow, poets read live to recorded jazz, African and World Music, diving into a shifting musical soundscape, spontaneously selecting poems they feel best connect with the songs and reveal their widest range of interests, themes and emotions.

Speaking with Ancestors will be held in conjunction with the exhibition finding family stories, on display at the Japanese American National Museum until July 6, 2003 and at the California African American Museum until July 19, 2003. Finding family stories is a multi-site collaborative art exhibition exploring themes of community and cultural diversity. It is part of a three-year arts partnership project that has brought together four cultural institutions (the Japanese American National Museum, California African American Museum, Chinese American Museum, and Self-Help Graphics & Art) representing Southern California’s diverse communities. The exhibition highlights the works of eight emerging and established local artists working in a variety of media, including photography, sculpture, video, and painting.

Reservations are encouraged for all programs. Speaking with Ancestors is FREE with Museum admission ($6 adults; $5 seniors (age 62+); $3 students and children (ages 6–17); free for Museum members and children 5 and under. It will be held at the Japanese American National Museum, located at 369 East First Street in the Little Tokyo Historic District of Downtown Los Angeles. For more information or to RSVP, please call 213-625-0414.