This is a recording of a live Confluence event.

In “Parallel Lives Along N’chi-Wana ,” Native American Elder, Storyteller, and Educator Ed Edmo, and former professor Lani Roberts speak about growing up in The Dalles during the 1950s. Ed is Shoshone Bannock, Nez Perce, and Yakama and lived at the fishing village at Celilo Falls until it’s inundation in March 1957. Lani grew up six miles away just outside The Dalles, a descendant of a 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,” in Seeing Color: Indigenous People and Racialized Ethnic Minorities in Oregon.