The Sawtooth National Recreation Area rangers join us for a special Science Time! Children will have fun learning about this special place that is right outside our back door.
Winter Read Closing: “Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet” with Jamie Ford
The Community Library’s 2020 Winter Read concludes with a presentation and book signing with Jamie Ford, author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet.
This program will be live streamed and can be viewed on The Community Library’s LIVESTREAM page during and after the event.
Seats will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. Doors for the program will open at 5:00 p.m.
Jamie Ford is a Northwest author most widely known for his bestselling Seattle-based novels. His debut, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, spent two years on the New York Times bestseller list, won the 2010 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, and was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award, the Pacific Northwest Book Award, and the Langum Prize for Historical Fiction. Hotel was named the #1 Book Club pick in 2010 by the American Bookseller Association and is now read widely in schools all across the country. This multi-cultural tale was adapted by Book-It Repertory Theatre, and has recently been optioned for a stage musical, and also for film, with George Takei serving as Executive Producer.
Jamie’s second book, Songs of Willow Frost, was also a national bestseller. His third novel set in Seattle, Love and Other Consolations Prizes, was published in 2017 and Library Journal named it one of the Best Historical Fiction Novels of 2017. An award-winning short-story writer, his work has been published in multiple anthologies, from Asian-themed steampunk set in Seattle in the Apocalypse Triptych, to stories exploring the universe of masked marvels and caped crusaders from an Asian American perspective in Secret Identities: The first Asian American Superhero Anthology, and Shattered: The Asian American Comics Anthology. His essays on race, identity, love, heroes, and complex families have been published nationwide and his work has been translated into 35 languages. He says he’s holding out for Klingon, because that’s when you know you’ve made it.
Jamie is the great-grandson of Nevada mining pioneer, Min Chung, who emigrated from Kaiping, China to San Francisco in 1865, where he adopted the western name “Ford,” thus confusing countless generations. Having grown up near Seattle’s Chinatown, he now lives in Montana where he’s on a never-ending search for decent dim sum.
The Community Library’s 2020 WINTER READ explores the history and effects today of the incarceration of Japanese Americans in the U.S. during World War II. Throughout February and March we invite the community to read Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Jamie Ford’s novel that focuses on two families, of Chinese and Japanese ancestry, who experience discrimination, incarceration, loss, and friendship during the early war years in Seattle. The novel features the Minidoka War Relocation Center, Idaho’s own site of war-time incarceration where more than 9,000 Japanese Americans were imprisoned from 1942-45. The site is located just eighty miles south of Ketchum. Join us as we engage in conversation around this important regional and national civil liberties history.
The 2020 Winter Read has been generously sponsored by the Spur Community Foundation and Carlyn Ring.
“Minidoka: An American Concentration Camp” and Q&A with Hanako Wakatsuki
As part of our WINTER READ and focus on the Minidoka National Historic Site and Japanese American incarceration during World War II, The Community Library welcomes Hanako Wakatsuki, Chief of Interpretation at Minidoka National Historic Site.
The evening will feature a screening of Minidoka: An American Concentration Camp, produced by North Shore Productions for the National Park Service. The 30-minute film tells the story of a group of Americans and their incarceration by the U.S. government in the High Desert of southern Idaho, purely on the basis of race. The film also explores the lasting impact of incarceration on Japanese-Americans, through decades of shame and silence, before the community took a stand for redress, and examines the relevance of their story for civil rights today.
A Q&A with Hanako Wakatsuki will follow the screening.
The Community Library’s 2020 WINTER READ explores the history and effects today of the incarceration of Japanese Americans in the U.S. during World War II. Throughout February and March we invite the community to read Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Jamie Ford’s novel that focuses on two families, of Chinese and Japanese ancestry, who experience discrimination, incarceration, loss, and friendship during the early war years in Seattle. The novel features the Minidoka War Relocation Center, Idaho’s own site of war-time incarceration where more than 9,000 Japanese Americans were imprisoned from 1942-45. The site is located just eighty miles south of Ketchum. Join us as we engage in conversation around this important regional and national civil liberties history.
The 2020 Winter Read has been generously sponsored by the Spur Community Foundation and Carlyn Ring.
Minidoka Civil Liberties Symposium: The Legacy of Minoru Yasui and WWII Japanese American Incarceration with Jessica Asai
As part of our Winter Read and focus on the Minidoka National Historic Site and Japanese American incarceration during World War II, The Community Library welcomes civil rights investigator Jessica Asai, presented by the Minidoka Civil Liberties Symposium. Her lecture will speak to the legacy of Minoru Yasui’s Supreme Court case protesting the war-time incarceration and the implications for citizenship and civil liberties today.
Jessica Asai is yonsei, a fourth generation Japanese American, and was raised in Hood River, Oregon where her family has farmed for four generations. After receiving a B.A. in Politics from Willamette University, Jessica worked in marketing and government relations before attending Lewis & Clark Law School. In 2010, Jessica became a civil rights investigator for the Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Department (AAEO) at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU). At OHSU, she conducts internal civil rights investigations, facilitates the reasonable accommodation interactive process, and provides advice and training to administrators, faculty, staff, and students on civil rights, equity, and Title IX. Jessica is a founding board member of the Oregon Asian Pacific American Bar Association, and contributed to the team effort that successfully nominated attorney and civil rights activist Minoru Yasui for a 2015 Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. More recently, in December 2018, she was appointed to serve on the Oregon Commission for Asian and Pacific Islander Affairs.
Minoru Yasui was an American lawyer and son of Japanese immigrants who fought the restrictions imposed by Executive Order 9066 that allowed the military to set up exclusion zones, curfews, and ultimately the internment of Japanese Americans during the war. The Order was signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, and Minoru Yasui’s case was the first to test the constitutionality of the curfews targeted at minority groups.
The Minidoka Civil Liberties Symposium is a partnership between Friends of Minidoka, the National Park Service, Boise State University, and the ACLU of Idaho. The Community Library is extremely grateful to this partnership for bringing Jessica Asai to the Wood River Valley.
The Community Library’s 2020 WINTER READ explores the history and effects today of the incarceration of Japanese Americans in the U.S. during World War II. Throughout February and March we invite the community to read Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Jamie Ford’s novel that focuses on two families, of Chinese and Japanese ancestry, who experience discrimination, incarceration, loss, and friendship during the early war years in Seattle. The novel features the Minidoka War Relocation Center, Idaho’s own site of war-time incarceration where more than 9,000 Japanese Americans were imprisoned from 1942-45. The site is located just eighty miles south of Ketchum. Join us as we engage in conversation around this important regional and national civil liberties history.
The 2020 Winter Read has been generously sponsored by the Spur Community Foundation and Carlyn Ring.
Sage School Dam Debate and Discussion: Should the Four Dams on the Lower Snake River be Removed?
The Sage School 8th and 9th grades will present a debate and discussion on the future of the lower Snake River as both a vital and threatened natural ecosystem and a resource heavily utilized by humans. Students will take on the roles of various stakeholders — from salmon biologist to fly-fishing guide to an employee at Lower Granite Dam — and debate how to manage competing demands for salmon recovery, recreation, barge traffic, ecosystem health, and electricity, among others. This is the culminating event of a trimester spent studying these issues through research, numerous field visits, and meetings with experts in these fields.
Join us for this publicly presented mock debate.
The Sage School is a privately funded, coeducational day school located in Hailey, Idaho. Its mission is to honor adolescence as a critical developmental window for learning essential academic, cognitive, social, and emotional skills. The Sage School creates a thriving environment for students through a challenging, authentic curriculum centered on human ecology and engaging experiences designed specifically to promote self-awareness, community responsibility, and a sense of place.
2021 Ernest Hemingway Seminar: Hemingway in Africa
Register to Attend:
The 2021 Ernest Hemingway Seminar, initially scheduled for Fall 2020, will celebrate two short stories and Hemingway’s time in Africa. We’ll read “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” and “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” both published in 1936 following Ernest and Pauline’s three-month safari in 1933. Both stories can be read online by clicking their titles above, or in multiple print editions, including The Complete Short Stories: The Finca Vigía Edition.
For three days we will explore these texts and the history surrounding them. In addition to a dynamic array of lectures and opportunities for discussion, we will enjoy films, good food, and fellowship, all of which make this Hemingway seminar unique.
This year’s Seminar will be in a hybrid format, with both in-person and virtual attendance options. The in-person seminar will be limited to 100 attendees and costs $75. The virtual-only Seminar costs $25 and offers access to all presentations, panels, and films. Separate discussion groups will be hosted for virtual-only attendees via Zoom.
Seminar check-in will begin at 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, September 9. Thursday evening’s opening keynote by Dr. Suzanne del Gizzo, Professor of English at Chestnut Hill College and editor of The Hemingway Review, will introduce us to Hemingway’s time in Africa.
Throughout the day on Friday we’ll dive into “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” with panels, film, discussion, and a special theatrical presentation.
Saturday will conclude with a focus on “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” a discussion on the ethics of safari, our closing keynote from Dr. Andrew Farah, neuroscientist and author of Hemingway’s Brain, and an evening reception.
A full Seminar agenda will be posted soon.
Contact Martha Williams, Programs and Education Manager for information: mwilliams@comlib.org
Past Ernest Hemingway Seminars:
2020 – Virtual “Out of the Box” Seminar
2019 – For Whom the Bell Tolls
2018 – A Farewell to Arms: Hemingway and WWI
2017 – Isn’t it pretty to think so?: Hemingway and The Sun Also Rises
2014 – The Old Man and the Sea
2013 – Hemingway and the Modern
2010 – Second Annual Ernest Hemingway Symposium
2009 – Inaugural Ernest Hemingway Symposium
