Author Judy Fong Bates, Lectures, Book Readings and More

For the second year in a row, Portland State University will partner with the Multnomah County Library for the 2007 “Everybody Reads” project. As part of the month long event, PSU will offer roundtable discussions and lectures with local and visiting scholars and authors, and a traveling exhibit, (listed below), all focused around Judy Fong Bates’ Midnight at the Dragon Café.

Everybody Reads 2007 is the fifth-annual community reading project of Multnomah County Library, made possible by The Library Foundation and numerous corporate and private sponsors. The goal of Everybody Reads is to get people reading and connecting with each other around a single book. The project kicks off in late January. For more information on events please visit www.multcolib.org/reads/. All events are free and open to the public. Media interested in an interview with Judy Fong Bates should contact Angela Abel, PSU Office of University Communications at 503-725-8794.

Judy Fong Bates's first novel, Midnight at the Dragon Café, is the story of Su-Jen Chou, a Chinese girl growing up as the only daughter of an unhappy and isolated immigrant family in Ontario, Canada, in the 1950s. Through Su-Jen's eyes readers see the hard life behind the scenes at the Dragon Café, the local diner her family runs. Her half-brother Lee-Kung smolders under the responsibilities he must carry as the dutiful Chinese son. Her mother, beautiful but bitter, lays her hopes and dreams on Su-Jen's shoulders, until she turns to find solace in the most forbidden of places, while Su-Jen's elderly father strives to hek fuh, (swallow bitterness), and save face at all costs.

“The Chinese restaurant seems to be a fixture of many small towns in North America. But in spite of seeming ubiquitous, it is at the same time invisible. Separated from the town by language and culture, the families living inside are often viewed only in stereotypical terms: hardworking, quiet, law-abiding,” Bates explains. “Midnight at the Dragon Café is an attempt to lift that veil, if only a little, so that the reader might have a glimpse of the complex lives “behind that kitchen door,” hidden from the customer’s view. On one level Midnight at the Dragon Café could be seen as an immigrant story, but it is my hope that readers will look beyond and see that its themes of love, betrayal, sacrifice, hope and forgiveness are in fact universal, and that all families, whether native-born or immigrant, share in their desire for place and belonging.”

Everybody Reads Events at Portland State University
Events with Author Judy Fong Bates
“Tales from a Chinese Canadian Childhood”
Thursday, March 1, 2007, 11 a.m., Smith Memorial Student Union (SMSU), room 355 (1825 SW Broadway)
Author, storyteller and radio personality Judy Fong Bates presents a program for teens and adults.

"Midnight at the Dragon Café and China Dog: And Other Tales from a Chinese Laundry"
Thursday, March 1, 2007, 7 p.m., SMSU, room 355
Author Judy Fong Bates who will speak about her life and work.

Lectures
“The ‘Yellow Peril’ and the Pacific Coast Race Riots of 1907”
Tuesday, February 6, 2007 at 7 p.m., Portland State University Millar Library, Second Floor (1875 SW Park)
Erika Lee, professor of History at University of Minnesota, is a well-known historian and a specialist in the history of Asian migration and exclusion in the United States and Canada. Lee will discuss the anti-Asian race riots in San Francisco, Bellingham, and Vancouver in 1907 and their impact on Asian Americans and Asian Canadians.

“Reading North and South, East and West: Asian literature in Canada and the United States, a comparative vision”
Friday, February 23, 2007, 7 p.m., SMSU, room 333
Tomo Hattori, former professor of English at Vassar College, and visiting professor of English at Loyola University in Los Angeles is a specialist in the comparison of Asian American and Asian Canadian literature. Hattori will speak on the differences in the American and Canadian trajectories of Asian minority fiction.

Roundtables with Local Scholars
“Chinatowns in the Pacific Northwest”
Friday, February 9, 2007, 11 a.m. and 7 p.m., SMSU, room 298
This roundtable discussion includes Marie Rose Wong, author of “Sweet Cakes, Long Journeys: The Chinatowns of Portland, Oregon”; Carl Abbott, professor of Urban Studies, PSU; and Chet Orloff, director emeritus, Oregon Historical Society.

“Comparative Perspectives on Asian American and Asian-Canadian Literature”
Monday, February 26, 2007 at 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. SMSU, room 333
This roundtable discussion includes Marie Lo, professor of English, PSU; Patti Duncan, professor of Women’s Studies, PSU; Patti Sakurai, English, Oregon State University; and Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt, English, Linfield College.

Traveling Exhibit
“Gateway to Gold Mountain”
February 1-March 2, 2007, Portland State University Millar Library Lobby (1875 SW Park)
Gateway to Gold Mountain was created by the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation, the Ellis Island of the West Coast. The exhibit features photographs, videotaped testimony and other artifacts that help audiences better understand and visually experience Asian immigration in America during the period of the Chinese Exclusion laws.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (#07-003)

Source: Ann Marie Fallon (503-725-9423)
University Studies