Award-winning poet to speak virtually at CSUSB as part of Conversations on Diversity series

Cal State San Bernardino’s Conversations on Diversity series returns on Tuesday, April 13, at noon with Terisa Siagatonu, poet, speaker, educator and community organizer, who will present “Finally, the Poets: The Duty of Art(ists) as the Pulse of Our Collective Healing & Greatest Hope at Justices.”

The event can be accessed from a PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android. Use the password Diversity* to gain access to the webinar.

In this talk, Siagatonu invites the audience to reimagine our world as one where artists are not simply beautifying our lives with creative visions; artists are the beacons of light we depend on to articulate and guide the world in ways that cannot be accomplished through any other profession, field or discipline. In a time of global fear, trauma, anxiety, rage and crisis, art is the balm that reminds us of what else we are made of and made for.

Siagatonu is an award-winning touring poet, speaker, educator and community organizer born and rooted in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her voice in the poetry world as a queer Sāmoan woman has granted her opportunities to perform in places such as the White House (Obama administration), the UN Conference on Climate Change in Paris, the Asia Pacific Triennial in Brisbane, Australia, and the 2019 SF Women’s March.

One of the most memorable moments in her career was receiving President Barack Obama’s Champion of Change Award for her activism as a poet/organizer in her Pacific Islander community. With numerous viral poetry videos garnering over millions of views collectively, Siagatonu’s writing and teaching blends the personal, cultural and political in a way that calls for healing, courage, justice and truth.

A 2019 Yerba Buena Center for the Arts 100 List Honoree, Siagatonu’s work has been published in Poetry Magazine and has been featured on Button Poetry, CNN, NBC News, NPR, KQED, Huffington Post, Everyday Feminism, The Guardian, and Buzzfeed.

The event is co-sponsored by the University Diversity Committee’s Conversations on Diversity series and the Programming Subcommittee of the President’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Board.

For more information or accommodations, contact Twillea Evans-Carthen at tcarthen@csusb.edu or (909) 359-5029.