Yo Ghana! at last had its first big event, in collaboration with theAssociation of African Students of PSU on Sunday, May 3. It was a bit of a blur for me, as there was so much to keep track of and keep up with, including, of course many things we had not thought of!
By all accounts, the event was a great success. The 230 people in attendance loved Madam Victorine's food and the Obo Addy Legacy Project's music. Mr. Matthew Essieh delivered an eloquent keynote address, and Dr. Kofi Agorsah conveyed some of his vivid experiences as a student growing up in Ghana., Miss Mercy and her helpers taught Oregon students how to play Ampe, the West African skipping game. Our six honorees (Dr. Michael Williams; Miss Elizabeth Fosler-Jones, Mr. Roy Thompson, Ms. Jane Carlton, Mr. Rashid Hafisu, and Mr. Brando Akoto) shared heartfelt remarks.
Part of what I most enjoyed about the event was its blend of diversity and commonality. The ethnic diversity was readily apparent. One would not have guessed that Portland is the whitest city in the U.S. from visiting our event. But too often we inscribe ethnicity as the alpha and omega of our identities. At one point Mr. Essieh pointed out that he has been in Oregon long enough to consider himself an Oregonian as well as a Ghanaian. More and more, our cultural identities are dynamic hybrids, not static and mutually exclusive boxes. Yo Ghana! aspires not just to bring people from different places or ethnic groups or colors or races together, but to facilitate "transformative exchanges" that open us up to each others' cultures, relationships that enable us to both care for and learn from each other in ways that leave us different from who or what we were before. There was a lot of that happening last Sunday afternoon in the Smith Center Ballroom of PSU.
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