Growing Up In Portland

Growing up in Portland, Oregon was always something that made me feel very lucky, and it still does today. Both of my parents also grew up in Portland and they wanted my brother and I to experience what they had as middle-class, white Portlanders. Just like all aspects of life, as I grew older and left Portland to come to the University of Oregon in Eugene I began to question certain things about the place that I grew up and kept near and dear to my heart. As a young white man growing up in Portland, I felt very comfortable, often seeing only white people that look like me. But as I learn more about the history of Portland, Oregon and the racism that comes along with it, I began to question my feelings about the place I call my hometown. According

I realized that all of the construction, renovation, and improvements being made to the city were actually happening at a nation-leading pace. The constant construction and renovation also paralleled Portland’s national popularity that has been growing for the past decade, making many longtime Portland residents pleased with what they were seeing. My mother is a perfect example of someone who truly appreciates what gentrification brings to the city of Portland. She loves food and trying new local restaurants, old historic buildings given new uses such as boutique shops or cafés, or even just strolling around the streets on the Eastern side of Portland watching the interesting and unique passers by. All of these things are just a few reasons why my Mother loves Portland, and what makes it her own. One article from slate.com provides a great description of the feeling you have when visiting Portland in 2017, “Across Portland’s Albina district, chic cafes advertise pour-over coffee and delicacies such as blueberry basil donuts. On Mississippi Street, hollowed-out school buses and roadside stands sell vegan barbecue and bacon jam empanadas. The street signs read “Historic Mississippi,” a nod to the area’s century-old roots, but it’s increasingly difficult to find spots that don’t evoke the decidedly ahistoric hipster vibe that now makes Portland famous”(slate.com). Gentrification is

Just like all of the United States as a whole, Oregon has a history filled with racism. The state of Oregon banned black people from living, working, or owning property in the state until the year 1926; this is when the construction of African-American communities began in Portland. According to the Troubled Waters in Ecotopia Lecture from class, black Portlanders during the 20th century began working in the railroad industry, first with the construction of the railroads, then as sleeping car porters. The African-American population was small, yet lively, and they settled and built a tight-knit community in the North Portland neighborhood named Albina. This was during a time that is now referred to as “The Great Migration”, this period was characterized by millions of African-Americans leaving the segregated, Jim Crow South and moving to other parts of the United States such as the Northeast and the West Coast. The Great Migration gave a small boost to the local black populations, but it was still not an easy process to build Albina into successful, safe, and well-known community. Segregation was not mandated by law such as other parts of the United States, but it was enforced through racially restrictive covenants that came hand-in-hand with property deeds. Here is an example of one of these covenants that was shown in the Troubled Waters in Ecotopia Lecture, “No