A portmanteau of “June” and “nineteenth,” the Juneteenth holiday - also known as Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, Liberation Day, and Emancipation Day, marks the day, in 1865, when a group of enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, finally learned that they were free from the institution of slavery. Join the Cambridge Public Library for a virtual special Juneteenth program, as we welcome poets Michael Warr and Chun Yu, creators of the Two Languages / One Community project, in celebration and recognition of the holiday, and what it means for us today to be free and united.Two Languages / One Community began as a workshop that uses writing and translation to facilitate the exchange of cultural and life experiences between Black/African Americans and Chinese communities. Often, isolated from each other, even though they live in the same neighborhood or work together. 

Chun Yu, PhD, is a bilingual poet, graphic novelist, scientist, and translator. She is the author of the award-winning memoir in free verse Little Green (Simon & Schuster) and a historical graphic novel in progress (Macmillan). She is a recipient of San Francisco Arts Commission grants and an honoree of the 2020 YBCA 100 award for creative changemakers. Chun holds a B.S. and M.S. from Peking University and a Ph.D. from Rutgers University and was a post-doctoral fellow in a Harvard-MIT joint program. 

Michael Warr recently received a 2021 San Francisco Artist Grant and the 2020 Berkeley Lifetime Achievement Award. His books include Of Poetry & Protest: From Emmett Till to Trayvon Martin (W.W. Norton), The Armageddon of Funk and We Are All The Black Boy.  He is a San Francisco Library Laureate and recipient of a Creative Work Fund award for his multimedia project Tracing Poetic Memory, PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature, Black Caucus of the American Library Association Award, Gwendolyn Brooks Significant Illinois Poets Award, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.