All Events
Resilient Love
**EVENT POSTPONED** - This Arab Is Queer
EVENT POSTPONED
** EVENT POSTPONED **
(1/17/23) - This event has been postponed. Please check back with the MCC for updates.
Building on the ground-breaking anthology consisting of memoirs from queer Arab writers, we will discuss heart-warming connections and moments of celebration as well as the challenges of being LGBTQ+ and Arab. Our panelists will represent and discuss a variety of Arab cultural perspectives and LGBTQ+ identities. The conversation will be moderated by UCSB graduate student Richard Nedjat-Haiem, and panelists will include Elias Jahshan, Palestinian/Lebanese-Australian editor of This Arab is Queer, and Bibi Alabdullah, a Kuwaiti trans woman and advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, among other panelist(s).
Bios: Moderator Richard Nedjat-Haiem (he/him) is a PhD student in the Department of Comparative Literature at UCSB. He was born and raised to Middle Eastern Jewish parents in Los Angeles. Richard works on Middle Eastern cultural anthropology in popular culture. Speaker Bios: Elias Jahshan (he/him) is a Palestinian/Lebanese-Australian journalist, writer, and editor. He is a former editor of Star Observer, Australia’s longest-running LGBTQ+ media outlet. His short memoir “Coming Out Palestinian” was anthologised in Arab Australian Other (Picador, 2019), and he has written freelance for outlets including The Guardian, SBS Voices, and Jordan-based LGBTQ e-zine My.Kali. Born and raised in western Sydney, he now lives in London and is the social media editor at The New Arab. Bibi Alabdullah (she/her) is a Kuwaiti trans woman who immigrated to the US in 2015. Educated in accounting and finance, she is an outspoken advocate for LGBTQ+ rights in the Middle East.
Why We Feel We Owe Our Parents for Their Sacrifices: A Workshop on Filial Debt
Dr. Mimi Khúc
Online
Pre-registration required via Shoreline for Zoom link.
Do you feel like you owe your parents for their sacrifices? How does this sense of debt--and the gratitude that it requires--shape your experiences and choices? This workshop will discuss the concept of filial debt, where it comes from, and how it shapes relationships in immigrant families. We will explore how it feels to try to be a person in the shadow of all-consuming debt to one's parents. Participants will gain new tools for understanding their own family dynamics, reflect on how to navigate them, and perhaps find new strategies of finding agency and selfhood.
Speaker Bio: Mimi Khúc is a writer, scholar, and teacher of things unwell. She is the creator of the mental health projects, Open in Emergency and the Asian American Tarot. Her forthcoming book, dear elia: Letters from the Asian American Abyss (Duke University Press), is a creative-critical, genre-bending deep dive into the shapes of Asian American unwellness at the intersections of ableism, model minoritization, and the university.
Cup of Culture
Sins Invalid: An Unshamed Claim to Beauty (screening #3)
MCC Lounge
5-7:30 PM, 32min documentary begins at 6 PM
Sins Invalid witnesses a performance project that incubates and celebrates artists with disabilities, centralizing artists of color and queer, and gender-variant artists. Since 2006, its’ performances have explored themes of sexuality, beauty, and the disabled body, impacting thousands through live performance. Sins Invalid is an entryway into the absurdly taboo topic of sexuality and disability, manifesting a new paradigm of disability justice.
Activity Description: For the duration of this event, art supplies and pages of the “Disability Justice from A to Z coloring book” will be available in the MCC lounge for attendees to benefit from the creative, embodied, and self-soothing aspects of coloring. Attendees will have the opportunity to join community discussions before and after the documentary screening. The documentary will be captioned, and an ASL interpreter will be present.
Co-sponsors: Commission on Disability Equity (CODE), DSP, & RCSGD
Art Exhibition
Reception for the MultiCultural Center’s 35th Anniversary: An MCC Staff Art Exhibition
MCC Lounge
Please join us for the MCC’s 35th Anniversary Art Reception honoring the caretakers of the MCC. The "Staff" (career staff, student-staff, and interns) are not just staff! We are creative in the ways we seek to change the campus and the larger community. Some of us are also artists! In honor of the MCC’s 35th Anniversary, this special art exhibition honors the current caretakers of the MCC. Food and drink provided.
