Story by Charmaine Ng
Photos by Tucker Leverton
Blaring rock-tinged beats mingle with excited chatter. With 15 minutes left, attendees continue to trickle in. Vashti Selix nervously unfolds a wrinkled sheet of notebook paper. “This is my first time performing,” the sophomore LGBTQA Volunteer Coordinator confides. “I don’t know if I’m going to use the mic. I use a lot of hand gestures.”
Fed up with marginalization and discrimination, 12 students of various backgrounds gathered Wednesday night in the Student Recreation Center Bonus Room to read aloud their poetry, letters, and thoughts. Why We Rage, an event sponsored by the UO Multicultural Center and ASUO Multicultural Advocate Alex Esparza , has existed as a traditional print publication, but emerged as a performance after only two weeks of planning. The format switched this year because “a lot of the emotion is lost in print,” Esparza says.
Esparza, who is also the LGBTQ’s co-director, and Rigo Hinojosa, co-director of the Multicultural Center and Internal Director of MEChA, opened the night with a shout-out to student unions. Although the event was advertised as sponsored by two entities, anything that arises from the EMU Basement is a collaborative effort.
From acoustic guitars to MacBooks, students used a number of ways to express themselves. The topics also varied: some spoke of unrequited love; some cried out against the sexualization of their skin color. In a soft, but determined, voice, junior Ryan Riddick sings: “Haters, hate away/because I’ve got heart/and that’s a great place to start/You’re only narrow and blind/and when I look at you, really look at you/I see nothing inside.”
Esparza closed with a spoken word piece referencing his loss in the latest ASUO elections. With every syllable striking the air in unfairness, he demands: “When the dream ended, when the vision was shattered, when our world, my world, your world, and our world was gone, where were these words? Where’d they leave us?”
Afterwards, Athens Boys Choir’s solo spoken word artist, Katz, took the stage. He immediately discloses, “I’m really queer and super transsexual. If you don’t know what that is, you’ll know in a minute.” Courtesy of a mind wired on Sweden time and the contents of a five-hour energy drink, Katz kept the atmosphere lighthearted and candid. Between a flurry of verses praising mindblowing sex and offering a solution to international violence, he diverged on tangents about murderous nightmares, yet the audience continued to shake in laughter.
As Multicultural Center staff members and remaining attendees pack up chairs, Selix looks relieved. “It was really nervewracking because it’s something so personal. I never planned [the first piece] for a group setting,” or even for her mother, who the letter was addressed to. During her second piece, Selix stumbled. While reaching for her notes, everyone encouraged her with resounding applause. “It was really reassuring,” she says.
With more attendees showing up than expected, Esparza envisions that next year’s Why We Rage will remain a performance event. When asked if Selix will step up in front of an audience again, she enthusiastically responds, “Of course!”
As she shared during her evening’s performance: “It’s time to be okay, and it’s time to push back. The conversations of the revolution are loud.” This Wednesday night event definitely proved that.

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