8th Annual Diversity Monologues

By: DICE-Diversity, Inclusion, Community & Equity

Unity Multicultural Education Center                                                

LGBTQ+ Resource Center

We envision a community where human difference is affirmed and integrated into the intellectual, personal, and professional development of all students.

 

Walking into the Hemmingson Ballroom on the day of Diversity Monologues, you find an energy unmatched by many other on-campus events. You see hundreds of chairs ready for students, staff, faculty, and Spokane community members to fill, a stage propped with couches, a table, stacks of books, and two microphone stands—setting the tone to the audience to prepare themselves to find comfort in the discomfort. Next to the stage stand two tall curtains on both sides, where the eight students selected to share their stories stand in a circle, restoring the strength in one another through the power of their words and the courage they hold to put their lives out there.

Diversity Monologues focuses on giving students from underrepresented backgrounds a platform for speaking their truth to power. Over the course of the last seven years, Diversity Monologues has been hosted by UMEC (Unity Multicultural Education Center). The authenticity has never been lost and the support from the audience that is felt by participants is undoubted. The Diversity Monologues is about the power of storytelling and sharing narratives as a mechanism for building bridges and creating a culture of empathy and compassion across the Gonzaga community.

This year, the theme for Diversity Monologues is Radical Hope. Centered in Junot Diaz’s open letter to Querida Q, Diaz explains how radical hope is the “best weapon against despair, even when despair seems justifiable; it makes the survival of the end of your world possible. Only radical hope could have imagined people like us into existence. And I believe that it will help us create a better, more loving future.” Rooting ourselves in the belief that radical hope needs to be at the core of igniting one another to bring change, we hope that participants and guests at Diversity Monologues will empower themselves to do their part in supporting those in the margins.

This year’s Diversity Monologues will be held on Wednesday, March 28, at 7 PM in the Hemmingson Ballroom.