Conversation Project: Housing and Belonging
Housing and homelessness is a visible and divisive issue in local media, in politics, and across different communities within our state. Many of us were experiencing housing instability and economic uncertainty even during the “boom” times before the current crisis. This conversation will explore common assumptions and perspectives about the experience of houselessness/homelessness and seek to answer the question, How do we decide who “belongs” in our community?
Conversation Project: Housing and Belonging
Housing and homelessness is a visible and divisive issue in local media, in politics, and across different communities within our state. Many of us were experiencing housing instability and economic uncertainty even during the “boom” times before the current crisis. This conversation will explore common assumptions and perspectives about the experience of houselessness/homelessness and seek to answer the question, How do we decide who “belongs” in our community?
Consider This Discussion Group: Humans, Land, and Animals
On Wednesday, May 29, join people from across the state for a free online conversation about Consider This: Humans, Land, and Animals, facilitated by Rozzell Medina. The discussion will take place on Zoom from 11:00 a.m. to 11:50 a.m.
Consider This: Humans, Land, and Animals
Join us at 7:00 p.m. on May 22 at Pendleton Center for the Arts for a conversation with Bobby Fossek, Erica Berry, and Wendy Bingham about living in community with animals and plants. Some animals and plants are welcomed by people, and others we reject or try to eradicate. How do we decide which living things belong, and what do these decisions show about our place on the land?
This live, onstage conversation is part of Oregon Humanities’ 2023–24 Consider This series, Fear and Belonging. To participate, please register here.
Conversation Project: Housing and Belonging
Housing and homelessness is a visible and divisive issue in local media, in politics, and across different communities within our state. Many of us were experiencing housing instability and economic uncertainty even during the “boom” times before the current crisis. This conversation will explore common assumptions and perspectives about the experience of houselessness/homelessness and seek to answer the question, How do we decide who “belongs” in our community?
Conversation Project: Housing and Belonging
Housing and homelessness is a visible and divisive issue in local media, in politics, and across different communities within our state. Many of us were experiencing housing instability and economic uncertainty even during the “boom” times before the current crisis. This conversation will explore common assumptions and perspectives about the experience of houselessness/homelessness and seek to answer the question, How do we decide who “belongs” in our community?
Rural Places
Stacey Rice talks to three older LGBTQ+ adults about living and building community in rural Oregon.
Pantoum for an Uncertain Future
Poem by Alyssa Ogi
Merciful Debt
Rosanna Nafziger on the implications of generosity, aid, and what we owe.
Conversation Project: Housing and Belonging
Housing and homelessness is a visible and divisive issue in local media, in politics, and across different communities within our state. Many of us were experiencing housing instability and economic uncertainty even during the “boom” times before the current crisis. This conversation will explore common assumptions and perspectives about the experience of houselessness/homelessness and seek to answer the question, How do we decide who “belongs” in our community?
Conversation Project: Housing and Belonging
Housing and homelessness is a visible and divisive issue in local media, in politics, and across different communities within our state. Many of us were experiencing housing instability and economic uncertainty even during the “boom” times before the current crisis. This conversation will explore common assumptions and perspectives about the experience of houselessness/homelessness and seek to answer the question, How do we decide who “belongs” in our community?
Conversation Project: Housing and Belonging
Housing and homelessness is a visible and divisive issue in local media, in politics, and across different communities within our state. Many of us were experiencing housing instability and economic uncertainty even during the “boom” times before the current crisis. This conversation will explore common assumptions and perspectives about the experience of houselessness/homelessness and seek to answer the question, How do we decide who “belongs” in our community?
Conversation Project: Can We Get Along?
Rodney King’s iconic question still resonates today. Despite decades of social justice movements, police brutality and divisions persist in the United States. COVID-19 has only added more challenges. How can we connect to each other during these times? What holds us back from connecting with each other? How do our personal experiences contribute to barriers, or and have the potential to break them down? Join facilitator Chisao Hata as she holds space to examine individual questions on race, cultural values, and what brings us together and what separates us.
Conversation Project: Housing and Belonging
Housing and homelessness is a visible and divisive issue in local media, in politics, and across different communities within our state. Many of us were experiencing housing instability and economic uncertainty even during the “boom” times before the current crisis. This conversation will explore common assumptions and perspectives about the experience of houselessness/homelessness and seek to answer the question, How do we decide who “belongs” in our community?
Conversation Project: Housing and Belonging
Housing and homelessness is a visible and divisive issue in local media, in politics, and across different communities within our state. Many of us were experiencing housing instability and economic uncertainty even during the “boom” times before the current crisis. This conversation will explore common assumptions and perspectives about the experience of houselessness/homelessness and seek to answer the question, How do we decide who “belongs” in our community?
CANCELED: Consider This with John Lee Clark and Jelica Nuccio
Due to late-breaking circumstances beyond our control, this event is canceled.
Jelica Nuccio and John Lee Clark are DeafBlind trainers in Protactile language, which emerged within the DeafBlind community. Nuccio is the founder of a Protactile training center in Monmouth, and Clark is an author and educator from Minnesota. In their teaching, writing, and community-building, Nuccio and Clark work toward full presence and deep connection.
Refuge
One family's experience with migration, border detention, and finding safety in Oregon. By Ana Maria Rodriguez with Nella Mae Parks
A Haven, A Refuge
Jaton Rash on the fine line between being sheltered and unsheltered.
A Reluctant Receiver: Summer, Love, and a Bicycle
Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt writes about experiencing youthful freedom on a hand-me-down bike.
Conversation Project: Housing and Belonging
Housing and homelessness is a visible and divisive issue in local media, in politics, and across different communities within our state. Many of us were experiencing housing instability and economic uncertainty even during the “boom” times before the current crisis. This conversation will explore common assumptions and perspectives about the experience of houselessness/homelessness and seek to answer the question, How do we decide who “belongs” in our community?
Conversation Project: Housing and Belonging
Housing and homelessness is a visible and divisive issue in local media, in politics, and across different communities within our state. Many of us were experiencing housing instability and economic uncertainty even during the “boom” times before the current crisis. This conversation will explore common assumptions and perspectives about the experience of houselessness/homelessness and seek to answer the question, How do we decide who “belongs” in our community?
Consider This with Father Greg Boyle
Join us for a conversation about community, belonging, and ending violence with Father Greg Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries.
Turkeys
Aileen Hymas writes about struggling to raise poultry and live her sustainable farming ideals.
Conversation Project: Housing and Belonging
Housing and homelessness is a visible and divisive issue in local media, in politics, and across different communities within our state. Many of us were experiencing housing instability and economic uncertainty even during the “boom” times before the current crisis. This conversation will explore common assumptions and perspectives about the experience of houselessness/homelessness and seek to answer the question, How do we decide who “belongs” in our community?
Housing and Belonging
Bringing Oregonians together to talk about home and housing in our communities
Conversation Project: Housing and Belonging
Housing and homelessness is a visible and divisive issue in local media, in politics, and across different communities within our state. Many of us were experiencing housing instability and economic uncertainty even during the “boom” times before the current crisis. This conversation will explore common assumptions and perspectives about the experience of houselessness/homelessness and seek to answer the question, How do we decide who “belongs” in our community?
We Will Be Here
Lana Jack writes about the mourning, resilience, and resistance of the Celilo Wy-am.
Unapologetically Afghan American
Yalda Asmatey writes about straddling two worlds: Afghanistan, the country of her birth, and the United States.
Me, Myself, and Us: Evolving Identity Beyond Labels
As a multimedia artist, MOsley WOtta uses personal, lived experiences to drive his explorations into identity, place, race, and care. Through examples from his recent work, which incorporates musical, visual, and immersive performance with discussion and dialogue practices, WOtta will guide participants in exploring how identity labels both inform our relationship to our communities—and how it can transform them.
“My Heart Belongs Where the Trees Are”
Community Storytelling Fellow Bruce Poinsette explores Black placemaking in Eastern Oregon.
Stretching Toward the Sun
T. Nguyen writes about moving from Vietnam to Eastern Oregon
Mëshatàm Lënapehòkink: I remember the land of the Lenape
A photoessay by Joe Whittle about finding joy and mourning on four journeys home.
We're Here for Each Other
Jennifer Perrine writes about how Oregonians of color are building relationships in the outdoors.
The Civic Love Ride
Civic love has been described as "one’s love for society, expressed through a commitment to the common good. It is a belief in the idea that we’re all better off, when we are all better off." Join Oregon Humanities on a ride to various places where civic love blossomed, thrived, flailed, and failed. We will hear from people who demonstrate a commitment to civic love, including special guests from Albina Vision Trust, Street Books, Albina Music Trust, and North Star Civic Foundation. Throughout the ride, we'll connect with each other utilizing the National Public Housing Museum's 36 Questions for Civic Love, which were created to help us all rise in civic love. Civic-love-themed prizes and tunes are sure to sweeten the deal. We'll begin at Lovejoy Fountain Park, south of the SW 3rd and Harrison Portland Streetcar stop. The ride will last approximately two hours, including presentations and conversations, with about four miles of mostly flat traveling. We'll end at Dawson Park (1 N. Stanton St.) with an optional post-ride hangout.
The Father I Remember
Hoang Samuelson writes about her family's story and the quiet care of her father.
Conversation Project: Housing and Belonging
Housing and homelessness is a visible and divisive issue in local media, in politics, and across different communities within our state. Many of us were experiencing housing instability and economic uncertainty even during the “boom” times before the current crisis. This conversation will explore common assumptions and perspectives about the experience of houselessness/homelessness and seek to answer the question, How do we decide who “belongs” in our community?
Conversation Project: Can We Get Along?
Rodney King’s iconic question still resonates today. Despite decades of social justice movements, police brutality and divisions persist in the United States. COVID-19 has only added more challenges. How can we connect to each other during these times? What holds us back from connecting with each other? How do our personal experiences contribute to barriers, or and have the potential to break them down? Join facilitator Chisao Hata as she holds space to examine individual questions on race, cultural values, and what brings us together and what separates us.
Conversation Project: Housing and Belonging
Housing and homelessness is a visible and divisive issue in local media, in politics, and across different communities within our state. Many of us were experiencing housing instability and economic uncertainty even during the “boom” times before the current crisis. This conversation will explore common assumptions and perspectives about the experience of houselessness/homelessness and seek to answer the question, How do we decide who “belongs” in our community?
Conversation Project: Housing and Belonging
Housing and homelessness is a visible and divisive issue in local media, in politics, and across different communities within our state. Many of us were experiencing housing instability and economic uncertainty even during the “boom” times before the current crisis. This conversation will explore common assumptions and perspectives about the experience of houselessness/homelessness and seek to answer the question, How do we decide who “belongs” in our community?
Conversation Project: Housing and Belonging
Housing and homelessness is a visible and divisive issue in local media, in politics, and across different communities within our state. Many of us were experiencing housing instability and economic uncertainty even during the “boom” times before the current crisis. This conversation will explore common assumptions and perspectives about the experience of houselessness/homelessness and seek to answer the question, How do we decide who “belongs” in our community?
Housing and homelessness is a visible and divisive issue in local media, in politics, and across different communities within our state. Many of us were experiencing housing instability and economic uncertainty even during the “boom” times before the current crisis. This conversation will explore common assumptions and perspectives about the experience of houselessness/homelessness and seek to answer the question, How do we decide who “belongs” in our community?
Learn more and register for this event at cocc.edu/seasonofnonviolence.
Conversation Project: Housing and Belonging
Housing and homelessness is a visible and divisive issue in local media, in politics, and across different communities within our state. Many of us were experiencing housing instability and economic uncertainty even during the “boom” times before the current crisis. This conversation will explore common assumptions and perspectives about the experience of houselessness/homelessness and seek to answer the question, How do we decide who “belongs” in our community?
Learn more and register for this event at cocc.edu/seasonofnonviolence.
Conversation Project: Are You Safer Outside?
During the COVID-19 pandemic, outdoor spaces have taken on new significance as we struggle to address the need for connection without the health risk that now comes with enclosed places. While some of us may be rediscovering parks and trails that we once took for granted, others may be feeling the stressors of unwelcoming or inaccessible outdoor areas more than ever before. Join facilitator Mareshah “MJ” Jackson to discuss what makes an outdoor space a “safe” space. How does one’s identity intersect with security in a park, on a trail, or on a patio? In what ways have our perceptions of these spaces changed since the pandemic and recent protests, and how may they change in the years to come? This conversation is a chance to reflect on the role open spaces play in our lives and how our perceptions may differ from each other’s.
Conversation Project: Can We Get Along?
Rodney King’s iconic question still resonates today. Despite decades of social justice movements, police brutality and divisions persist in the United States. COVID-19 has only added more challenges. How can we connect to each other during these times? What holds us back from connecting with each other? How do our personal experiences contribute to barriers, or and have the potential to break them down? Join facilitator Chisao Hata as she holds space to examine individual questions on race, cultural values, and what brings us together and what separates us. This Program is presented with Multnomah County Library as part of Everybody Reads 2022. Learn more at multcolib.org.
Conversation Project: Housing and Belonging
Housing and homelessness is a visible and divisive issue in local media, in politics, and across different communities within our state. Many of us were experiencing housing instability and economic uncertainty even during the “boom” times before the current crisis. This conversation will explore common assumptions and perspectives about the experience of houselessness/homelessness and seek to answer the question, How do we decide who “belongs” in our community?
Conversation Project: Housing and Belonging
Housing and homelessness is a visible and divisive issue in local media, in politics, and across different communities within our state. Many of us were experiencing housing instability and economic uncertainty even during the “boom” times before the current crisis. This conversation will explore common assumptions and perspectives about the experience of houselessness/homelessness and seek to answer the question, How do we decide who “belongs” in our community?
Housing and Belonging
Housing and homelessness is a visible and divisive issue in local media, in politics, and across different communities within our state. Many of us were experiencing housing instability and economic uncertainty even during the “boom” times before the current crisis. This conversation will explore common assumptions and perspectives about the experience of houselessness/homelessness and seek to answer the question, How do we decide who “belongs” in our community?
Housing and Belonging
Housing and homelessness is a visible and divisive issue in local media, in politics, and across different communities within our state. Many of us were experiencing housing instability and economic uncertainty even during the “boom” times before the current crisis. This conversation will explore common assumptions and perspectives about the experience of houselessness/homelessness and seek to answer the question, How do we decide who “belongs” in our community?
Land Conservation: Roots, Realities, and Reimaginings
Join Katie Voelke, executive director of North Coast Land Conservancy, as she discusses NCLC’s work to protect Oregon's coastal lands. In this two-part workshop, Katie will walk participants through the organization’s own path of relearning the racist history of land conservation in the US and the ways that conservation, through the land trust’s tools of ownership, has perpetuated Indigenous land loss.
Land Conservation: Roots, Realities, and Reimaginings
Join Katie Voelke, executive director of North Coast Land Conservancy, as she discusses NCLC’s work to protect Oregon's coastal lands. In this two-part workshop, Katie will walk participants through the organization’s own path of relearning the racist history of land conservation in the US and the ways that conservation, through the land trust’s tools of ownership, has perpetuated Indigenous land loss.
Posts
Readers write about Possession.
Flowers for Block 14
Holly Hisamoto on reckoning with race, erasure, grief, and belonging at Portland's Lone Fir Cemetery.
Essential but Excluded
Carolina Gómez-Montoya writes about the precarious and disempowered place adjunct instructors occupy in institutions that have come to depend on their labor.
My Parents’ Exes
Cartoonist Kane Lynch interviews his parents’ former partners about how their lives intersected.
The Struggles That Unite Us
Eric K. Ward reflects on how the idea of the urban-rural divide only serves to separate us.
The Privilege to Raise Our Voices
Melissa Hart writes about her mother, her daughter, and finding meaning in protest across generations.
One Country Again
Astrid Melton reflects on her East German identity after the fall of the wall and reunification.
People, Places, Things
Berenice Chavez photographs her mother.
The Air I Breathe—2014
Ifanyi Bell writes about growing up tolerated and underestimated in Portland in the 2014 “Quandary” issue.
Our Most-read Stories of 2019
Our readers' favorite articles and videos from the past year explore housing and exclusion, hidden histories, race, gender, and poverty.
Challenging Questions for Oregonians
At the 2019 Portland Book Festival, we asked attendees to share some challenging questions for fellow Oregonians.
The Summer Games
Jennie Hartsock shares her search for community in Corvallis and how a game helped her find her friends.
Neither Here nor There
Kiki Nakamura-Koyama writes about her struggle to fit in across continents and how she is empowered to change that experience for her students.
Across the Divide
Andie Madsen interviews three Oregonians who grew up in rural areas and moved to Portland about their relationships to their rural identities.
Black Mark, Black Legend
Intisar Abioto writes about uncovering the lineage of Black artists in Portland.
Relearning Home
Mark Putney writes about finding belonging in a Willamette Valley hazelnut orchard after leaving the wilds of Kodiak, Alaska.
Letters from Home
Letters from four Oregonians about the places where they live, from our 2018 Dear Stranger project.
Looking Forward, Looking Past
An excerpt from Emilly Prado's upcoming story about undocumented and mixed-status families living in Oregon.
Acceptance
Shilo Niziolek writes about the impact of Marylhurst University's closure on its students.
Conversation Project: What Does It Mean to Be American?
Join this conversation led by facilitator Ellen Knutson to share your ideas about what it means to be American and hear others’ ideas, to identify differences and points of connection that may lead us toward the ideal stated in our nation’s motto: E pluribus unum, out of many, one.
Conversation Project: Won't You Be My Neighbor?
How Relationships Affect the Places We Live
Conversation Project: Won't You Be My Neighbor?
How Relationships Affect the Places We Live
Conversation Project: Won't You Be My Neighbor?
How Relationships Affect the Places We Live
Deep Roots
Samantha Bakall writes about how Mudbone Grown, an urban farm in North Portland, offers celebration and community in the face of Oregon's white-dominated agriculture industry.
Conversation Project: Beyond Invitation
How Do We Create Inclusive Communities?
White Man's Territory
Kenneth R. Coleman writes about the exclusionary intent behind the 1850 Donation Land Act in this excerpt from his book, Dangerous Subjects: James D. Saules and the Rise of Black Exclusion in Oregon.
Conversation Project: Where Are You From?
Drawing on the diverse histories and backgrounds of participants, Kerani Mitchell leads a conversation that asks what makes us Oregonian and how can we create inclusive communities.
Finding Our Way Amidst the Unhoused
A community conversation on homelessness, transiency, the housed and unhoused in Southern Oregon. Facilitated by Adam Davis of Oregon Humanities and Ryan Stroud of CommuniTalks.
Conversation Project: Beyond Invitation
How Do We Create Inclusive Communities?
Unclaiming the Land
Melissa Madenski writes about leaving her home of forty years and what binds us to the places in our lives.
Conversation Project: Beyond Invitation
How Do We Create Inclusive Communities?
Conversation Project: A Place to Call Home
Exploring Housing in Oregon
Conversation Project: Where Are You From?
Exploring What Makes Us Oregonians
Conversation Project: Beyond Invitation
How Do We Create Inclusive Communities?
Conversation Project: Beyond Invitation
How Do We Create Inclusive Communities?
Conversation Project: Beyond Invitation
How do you know if a space is inclusive and accessible for all, and is such a goal even possible? What do you do about the tension between people who have different needs to feel included? Join Rachel Bernstein to explore what it takes to make the shift from invitation to inclusion.
Conversation Project: Beyond Invitation
How Do We Create Inclusive Communities?
Field Work: People in Motion
The University of Oregon’s Wayne Morse Center explores borders, migration, and belonging.
To Heart Mountain
Alice Hardesty travels to see the site of a World War II prison camp that her father designed.
Conversation Project: Beyond Invitation
How Do We Create Inclusive Communities?
Conversation Project: Where Are Queer People Welcome?
A majority of Americans now accept gay and lesbian relationships, but the queer population is made up of a diversity of communities and experiences. Are all queer people accepted, tolerated, and embraced everywhere? Join facilitator Jill Winsor in a discussion that explores how the complexity of the queer community intersects with the spaces and communities that surround us.
An (Underground) American DREAMer: From Undocumented to Wall Street to Immigration Advocacy
A keynote address by immigration and education rights advocate Julissa Arce. This program is made possible in part by a Responsive Program Grant from Oregon Humanities.
Conversation Project: How Do We Create Equitable Spaces Within Our Public Lands?
Educator Gabe Sheoships leads a discussion about what a relationship with nature means, how we can provide inclusive and equitable spaces within our public lands and natural areas, and how we can begin to work toward healing relationships with our land.
Conversation Project: Where Are Queer People Welcome?
A majority of Americans now accept gay and lesbian relationships, but the queer population is made up of a diversity of communities and experiences. Are all queer people accepted, tolerated, and embraced everywhere? Join facilitator Jill Winsor in a discussion that explores how the complexity of the queer community intersects with the spaces and communities that surround us.
Conversation Project: Beyond Invitation
How Do We Create Inclusive Communities?
Conversation Project: Beyond Invitation
How Do We Create Inclusive Communities?
Conversation Project: A Place to Call Home
Exploring Housing in Oregon
Conversation Project: Beyond Invitation
How Do We Create Inclusive Communities?
Conversation Project: Beyond Invitation
How Do We Create Inclusive Communities?
Conversation Project: What Does It Mean to Be American?
Given the differences of race, ethnicity, place, religion, wealth, language, education, and ideology that exist in the US, what are the things that unite us a nation?
Conversation Project: A Place to Call Home
Exploring Housing in Oregon
Conversation Project: A Place to Call Home
Exploring Housing in Oregon
Conversation Project: A Place to Call Home
Exploring Housing in Oregon
Conversation Project: Where Are Queer People Welcome?
Join facilitator Jill Winsor in a discussion that explores how the complexity of the queer community intersects with the spaces and communities that surround us.
Conversation Project: A Place to Call Home
Exploring Housing in Oregon
Conversation Project: What Does It Mean to Be American?
Given the differences of race, ethnicity, place, religion, wealth, language, education, and ideology that exist in the US, what are the things that unite us a nation?
Conversation Project: Where Are You From?
Exploring What Makes Us Oregonians
Conversation Project: Beyond Invitation
How Do We Create Inclusive Communities?
Finding Home at the Mims
From the 1940s to '60s, the Mims House was a safe place to stay for African Americans traveling through Oregon. Now it’s a gathering place for the Black community in Eugene. Video by Nisha Burton.
My Brother's Keeper: "Kicked Out"
This fall, Four Rivers Cultural Center in Ontario will present "My Brother's Keeper," a series of eight documentary film screenings exploring the lives of marginalized peoples and issues such as mental health, addiction, and mass incarceration. Each screening will be followed by a presentation and Q&A session by a local nonprofit or government agency.
My Brother's Keeper: "Papers: Stories of Undocumented Youth"
This fall, Four Rivers Cultural Center in Ontario will present "My Brother's Keeper," a series of eight documentary film screenings exploring the lives of marginalized peoples and issues such as mental health, addiction, and mass incarceration. Each screening will be followed by a presentation and Q&A session by a local nonprofit or government agency.
Conversation Project: What Are You?
Mixed-Race and Interracial Families in Oregon’s Past and Future
Conversation Project: A Place to Call Home
Exploring Housing in Oregon
Conversation Project: Beyond Invitation
How Do We Create Inclusive Communities?
Conversation Project: A Place to Call Home
Exploring Housing in Oregon
Conversation Project: What Does It Mean to Be American?
Given the differences of race, ethnicity, place, religion, wealth, language, education, and ideology that exist in the US, what are the things that unite us a nation? How do we understand what it means to be American and what we hold valuable?
Conversation Project: Where Are Queer People Welcome?
A majority of Americans now accept gay and lesbian relationships, but the queer population is made up of a diversity of communities and experiences. Are all queer people accepted, tolerated, and embraced everywhere?
People Aren’t Illegal
Photographer Ezra Marcos Ayala reflects on the making of “To Live More Free”
Reaching Back for Truth
Gwen Trice has spent the last fifteen years uncovering her father’s legacy and the history of Oregon’s Black loggers, who lived and worked in Wallowa County at a time when Oregon law excluded Blacks from the state.
A City's Lifeblood
As efforts to clean up Portland Harbor begin, the communities most affected by pollution see a chance to reconnect to the Willamette River. By Julia Rosen
Your Cultural Attire
Conversations about appropriation sometimes miss the complexity of culture. An article by Zahir Janmohamed
Who is Not at the Table?
Filmmaker Ifanyi Bell reflects on the making of “Future: Portland 2”
Vanport Mosaic Festival
Theater, documentaries, historic exhibits, lectures, and tours will explore will explore the history and legacy of Vanport. Oregon Humanities is a cosponsor of this event.
"Priced Out" Screening and Dialogue
Watch an excerpt from the film and then join the discussion about how rising housing prices are displacing Portland's black community. Oregon Humanities is a cosponsor of this event.
Conversation Project: Where Are You from?
Exploring What Makes Us Oregonians
Conversation Project: Where Are You from?
Exploring What Makes Us Oregonians
Conversation Project: Where Are You from?
Exploring What Makes Us Oregonians
Walk On
An innovative program connects physical activity and memory to improve the health of Portland communities affected by change. An article by Marty Hughley with photos by Tojo Andrianarivo
What They Carried
The things four refugees brought with them when they came to Oregon. Story by Caitlin Dwyer, photos by Kim Oanh Nguyen
Conversation Project: Where Are You from?
Exploring What Makes Us Oregonians
Conversation Project: You're In or You're Out
Exploring Belonging
Conversation Project: Where Are You From?
Exploring What Makes Us Oregonians
Conversation Project: Where Are You from?
Exploring What Makes Us Oregonians
Conversation Project: Where Are You From?
Exploring What Makes Us Oregonians
Conversation Project: You're In or You're Out
Exploring Belonging
An Oregon Canyon
Produced by Sika Stanton and Donnell Alexander for Oregon Humanities, this film reveals the story of a canyon in Jefferson County, Oregon that was renamed for John A. Brown in 2014, one of the first Black homesteaders in Oregon.
Making Peace with Chaos
Author Zahir Janmohamed and photographer Tojo Andrianarivo profile student refugees living and thriving in Portland despite uncertainty.
Sunday, Laundry Day
Every quarter counts in subsidized senior housing. An essay by Josephine Cooper
Slow Ascent
A Chinese American woman searches for belonging in the country of her grandparents. An essay by Jessica Yen
"I'm Not Staying Here Another Day"
A conversation about the Great Migration with Isabel Wilkerson and Rukaiyah Adams
The Gift of a Known World
Oregon Humanities magazine editor Kathleen Holt on the power--and privilege--of rooting oneself to places
Just People Like Us
Writer Guy Maynard on a little-known history of a Southern Oregon community during World War II where prisoners of war were more welcome than US military of color
A Tremendous Force of Will
A conversation about the Great Migration's and the civil right movement with Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Isabel Wilkerson
Not Built for Ghosts
Writer Helen Hill on consequences she faced after leaving her beloved home in the hands of others
You'll See Me Tomorrow Because
A prose poem by Anis Mojgani
Rootedness
An essay by Brian Doyle
Whose State Is This?
Journalist Brent Walth on how legal measures targeting Latino Oregonians reflect fears of change.
Community in Flux
The long-persecuted Roma people begin to speak out. By Lisa Loving
David and Goliath
Remembering a friend from a hospice house. An excerpt from What the Dying Have Taught Me about Living: The Awful Amazing Grace of God by Fred Grewe, an Oregon Humanities Talking about Dying community discussion leader.
Group Therapy
Copping out at an uptown slumber party. An essay by Dionisia Morales
This Is Not Just a Cloud
Embracing grief in the wilderness. An essay by Michael Heald
Posts
Readers write about Safe
Perhaps, Perhaps
Bobby Arellano on waiting for an alcoholic father to stand up
Future: Portland
Civic leaders describe the loss of Portland's strong black communities and the hope of restoring them in the future in a video by Ifanyi Bell.
A Temporary Insanity
Torn between the pull of family and the pull of home. An essay by Gail Wells
The Air I Breathe
Filmmaker Ifanyi Bell writes about growing up underestimated in Portland
Small Man in a Big Country
Native language is just the first thing an immigrant family abandons in order to become American. An excerpt from Little Big Man: In Search of My Asian Self by Alex Tizon
Clowns for Christ
Norina Beck writes about losing her faith and finding her nose.
On the Bench
Not starting and starting again. An essay by Brian Doyle
Who's Minding Your Business?
A conversation with writer William T. Vollmann on privacy, surveillance, and hope
Mark My Words
Linguist Edwin Battistella on pronouns and the myth of a "me generation"
The Thing with Feathers
Joanna Rose on a writer's road trip gone wrong
You Remind Me of Me
Parent and child, strange and baffling creatures that are part, yet no part, of each other. An essay by Daniel Rivas
Posts
Readers write about "Me"
Belonging and Connection
Bette Lynch Husted on imperfect small-town life in Pendleton.
On the River
Debra Gwartney on learning to love the isolation of her adopted home on the McKenzie River.
Why We Stay
Monica Drake on raising a family in an urban neighborhood instead of a more serene but less vibrant rural place.
A Hidden History
Walidah Imarisha on revealing the stories and struggles of Oregon’s African American communities.
One America?
A conversation between Gregory Rodriguez and Tomas Jimenez about American identity, race, immigration, and ideology.
Being Brown
Bobbie Willis Soeby on when skin lies and when skin tells the truth
Soldiers' Stories
Photographer Jim Lommasson collaborates with war veterans on a gallery exhibit and book project that look at life for soldiers after returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Where Are You From?
Connecting to the places where we live. An essay by Wendy Willis
The Newcomers
The boundaries between "what was" and "what is." An essay by Dionisia Morales
The Olde Towne Team
For sports fans, it's more than just a game. An essay by Guy Maynard
The Image and Act of Communion
Editor's note
Legally White
Muslim immigrants vie for citizenship in the early twentieth century. By Kambiz Ghaneabassiri
Second-Chance Family
Rajneeshpuram has come and gone: what keep believers bound to one another? By Marion Goldman
Neverland
The striking difference between travel and escape. An essay by Apricot Irving
Far from Home
The history and future of Slavic refugees in Oregon. By Susan W. Hardwick