Showcasing students’ roots

Today will bring a day of music, art and food to the South Park Blocks as the PSU Roots Festival, the yearly celebration of diversity, hits campus.

Today will bring a day of music, art and food to the South Park Blocks as the PSU Roots Festival, the yearly celebration of diversity, hits campus.

The festival will be held from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. in the park near the Branford P. Millar Library. It will feature over a dozen bands, as well as several workshops from renowned artists and Portland State multicultural student groups.

The event is a collaboration of the Roots Festival student group as well as several student groups on campus including: Las Mujeres, the Vietnamese Student Association and KABIGAN. The majority of PSU student multicultural groups will have tables set out at the event and some will hold workshops.

“The main goal of the Roots Festival is the whole idea of planting a seed,” said Leah Meijer, coordinator for the festival, “exposing people to new cultures and ideas and to have fun.”

The diverse cultural performances at the festival will range from the Painted Sky Northstar Native American Dancers to the traditional Cuban music of the group Cubaneo. Other bands, with styles as different as the soul/funk/hip-hop of Copacrescent to Mike Struwin and his acoustic and roots music are set to perform at the festival.

The festival’s workshops will include several different activities, such as a graffiti stencil workshop, a political cartooning course by renowned comic artist for The Onion, Shannon Wheeler, and a songwriting seminar from Amor Fu.

The beginnings of the Roots Festival event started three years ago when the current student body president, Rudy Soto, was traveling abroad in Amsterdam. There, he witnessed the Amsterdam Roots festival, which brought several aspects of the community together. Soto’s goal was to bring that kind of festival to Portland and the PSU community.

Soto said that he felt a need to bring people together from the various multicultural communities at Portland State.

“I want to encourage people to appreciate other cultures here,” Soto said. “It’s in its third year and its larger and more exciting than ever.”

Schedule of Workshops

Here are the workshops scheduled for this afternoon:

Noon to 4 p.m. – Graffiti-stenciling workshop

Noon to 2 p.m. – Political cartooning seminar with Shannon Wheeler of The Onion

2 p.m. to 3 p.m. – Songwriting seminar by Amor Fu

3 p.m. to 4 p.m. – A look into various political movements

4 p.m. to 5 p.m. – KABIGAN holds the Multicultural Students Advocating for Social Change workshop

5 p.m. to 6 p.m. – KABIGAN commemorates author, poet and activist, Carlos Bulosan

For information on the schedule and listing of all performers at the Roots Festival visit www.rootsfestival.groups.pdx.edu.