Assistant Professor Gabriela Martinez and Professor Lynn Stephen

Lane County has quite a rich history that many residents are unaware of. More specifically, Lane County’s racial and ethnic past. Lane County has not always been the home to European settlers, other ethnic groups made Lane County their homes far before that.

To help celebrate Oregon’s 150th birthday, Assistant Professor Gabriela Martinez and Professor Lynn Stephen of the UO’s anthropology department partnered with the Lane County Historical Museum to create an exhibit and documentary featuring the underrepresented Latino population of Lane County.

Lane County Historical Society & Museum will feature and exhibit highlighting different racial and ethnic groups that have constituted Lane County since before European contact and continuing to present day.

This is the largest exhibit in the museum’s Sesquicentennial celebration, it includes collected testimonials from various ethnic peoples and tells the stories of Latino roots, Native American termination and the Ping Yang School Bombing (a mysterious domestic terrorism act that remains unsolved), among others.

“It was really a community organized event founded by collective efforts,” Martinez says of the project, which combines her passion for filmmaking with her expertise on Latin America studies. She worked with grassroots organizers from local organizations FACETA and CAUSA who helped finding people in the community wiling to share their stories.

This is a great opportunity to learn more about the county we live in and get the correct information. The exhibit will be at the Lane County Historical Society & Museum until December 31, 2009.

Times: Tuesday – Saturday, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
www.lanecountyhistoricalsociety.org

Location: Lane County Historical Society/ 740 W 13th Ave; Eugene

Phone: (541) 682-4242

Admission: $3, $2 seniors

[Information from http://www.traveloregon.com and http://jcomm.uoregon.edu/articles/]