Ed Edmo and Lani Roberts speak at The Dalles High School on Sunday

Ed Edmo, a tribal member and storyteller, and Lani Roberts, a retired ethics professor, will speak at The Dalles High School Auditorium, Sunday, Nov. 10 in an event sponsored by Confluences. Doors open at 3 p.m. and the event starts at 3:30 p.m.
Roberts grew up six miles away just outside The Dalles, a descendant of an early settler family. Although they grew up in the same area and are the same age, their lives were lived in parallel fashion because of the differences in their ethnic heritage. During their childhoods, signs in the windows of businesses read, “No dogs or Indians allowed.” Their juxtaposed stories give a full picture of rural Oregon and the parallel lives they led along the N’chi-Wana River. They are both authors of the chapter “Celilo Falls: Parallel Lives Along N’chi-Wana,” titled “In seeing color: Indigenous People and Racialized Ethnic Minorities in Oregon.”
In the chapter, retired professor Roberts and elder and educator Edmo write about their shared, yet separate experiences growing up in The Dalles during the 1950s. Edmo is Shoshone Bannock, Nez Perce, Yakama and Siletz and lived at the fishing village at Celilo Falls until its inundation in March 1957.

Poet, storyteller, actor and clay artist Edmo uses puppets to tell Indian legends to children and adults — helping people learn to laugh again. Since 1981, Edmo has traveled to colleges, pre-schools, trade shows, pow-wows, and more as a Native Consultant. In 1984, Edmo earned top prize at the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center One Act Play Festival for his play, “Through Coyote’s Eyes: A visit with Ed Edmo.” He is also the author of “A Nation Within.”
Roberts (Ph.D., B.A., Philosophy, University of Oregon) was a faculty member in the Philosophy Department at Oregon State University from spring 1989 through spring 2011. She has now retired and moved east of the Cascades, back home to the Columbia Gorge where her family settled in the 1860s. During her time in the Oregon State University Philosophy Department, Roberts directed the Graduate Program, coordinated the Applied Ethics Certificate, and directed the Peace Studies Program. She was a founding member of Faculty and Staff for Peace and Justice at OSU, and a member of AFAPC (Association of Faculty for the Advancement of People of Color).

Lani Roberts

“I grew up in a house built by my great-great grandfather in 1868. The land upon which the house and cherry orchard were located was deeded as a homestead. This acreage, like much of the North American continent, was considered empty and unused by the immigrating Europeans. I grew up with just this conception but learned later that the local Native peoples had ceded millions of acres in the mid-Columbia area in an 1851 treaty. In addition to the cherry orchard, the Roberts family had also homesteaded a wheat and cattle ranch running alongside the Deschutes River, lost to the family in the Great Depression.

“My great-grandfather served in the Oregon Legislature in the 1920’s and the room at the back of the Congregational Church sanctuary, opened for overflow crowds on Christmas and Easter, is dedicated to him as well. I was the fourth generation of my father’s family to graduate from The Dalles High School. My roots are deep in the mid-Columbia region.”

Ed Edmo

“I was born on the Duck Valley Indian Reservation in Owyhee, Nevada in 1946. My grandparents lived at Celilo, a fishing village located at the falls for about 15,000 years.

Celilo was a central seasonal gathering site for tribal people throughout the northwest, walking in from what is now southeastern Idaho, the Spokane area, Burns and the Washington and Oregon Coasts to fish, trade and socialize. We traded dentillium shells, buffalo products, Wocas (roots) and stories. My Grandma was Nez Perce; my Grandpa was Yakama. I guess that Mom wrote Grandma and they made a plan that we’d all visit. It’s been a long visit! We moved to the River when I was six months old.

“My home is the river. The river was a welcome playmate which never had to be called in for supper. The sound of the river is soothing to my ears, like a lullaby. The river was always a friend. We have been on the River for a long, long, long time, fishing, root digging, hunting and trading along “N’Che Wana,” “The Big River,” as we called the Columbia River. There were legends about white people coming.”