Part-time professor and Sacramento Bee reporter Steve Magagnini will be giving a lecture based on the series he wrote about the Hmong community in Sacramento, at noon Monday in Hinde Auditorium.

The lecture is part of the Sacramento State Multi-Cultural Center?s “The Year of Unity,” a celebration dedicated to presenting a diverse look at all different cultures and a variety of ethnic issues.

Leonard Valdez, director of the Multi-Cultural Center, is one of a dozen people who have helped put this celebration together.

“I think we were looking at a variety of issues and the way certain communities are presented, and Steve has done a lot of reporting on different cultures, in this particular case the Hmong community,” Valdez said.

Magagnini has covered ethnic affairs and race relations for The Bee since 1994 and has been a part-time professor at Sac State since 1988.

He recently earned one of journalism?s most prestigious awards for distinguished writing about diversity from the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

The series, “Orphans of History,” that won Magagnini the award was published over three days in September by The Sacramento Bee.

“I don?t think any reporter has written as many stories about the Hmong as I have,” Magagnini said. “I?m fascinated by people of different cultures with different perspectives ? there?s always another layer to the onion.”

Magagnini has been honored for his series, “Lost Tribes,” the story of modern California Indians, and has won numerous awards for ethnic reporting, including second-place awards for minority affairs reporting in the Best of West contest and investigative reporting from the California Newspaper Publishers Association, according to an article from The Sacramento Bee.

Magagnini lectures frequently on the stories he has done and the cultures he has studied.

“I?m just going to talk about how I got on these stories (Hmong series) and how the reporting evolved for about 25 minutes and then take questions,” Magagnini said.

“The Year of Unity” continues through May with Fred Ho and Kalamu Ya Salaam: “Afro-Asian Arts Dialogue,” April 3; Raul Yzaguirre: “Partnership in the Community of Color,” May 1, and African Film Series III: “Otomo,” time to be announced.