By Marie Gettel-Gilmartin, Fertile Ground Communications (written in 2021; updated for 2025)

Many of us grew up learning the myth of Native Americans teaching the struggling pilgrims how to survive and celebrating with a feast in 1621. But for most Native Americans, Thanksgiving is a day of mourning.

Thanksgiving is in fact a holiday of colonizers.

What actually happened on Thanksgiving?

As Claire Bugos writes in the Smithsonian, “Massacres, disease, and American Indian tribal politics shaped the Pilgrim-Indian alliance at the root of the holiday.” The settlers stole land, spread disease, and exploited resources from the Wampanoag tribe. Then King Philip’s War “devastated the Wampanoags and forever shifted the balance of power in favor of European arrivals.”

Each year, Native American people gather to honor their ancestors and the struggles of Native peoples on the National Day of Mourning. Thanksgiving serves as a reminder of the unjust treatment that Native Americans have continued to receive since the 1620 Plymouth landing.

What is Oregon doing to shift the narrative about native stories and honor native peoples?

• KOIN 6 celebrates Native American Heritage Month with “KOIN Storytellers: Indigenous Life in the Northwest,” highlighting powerful stories from across our Native community. The special features the Native American Youth and Family Center’s Oscar Arana, Representative Tawna Sanchez, and Paul Lumley, along with moving segments on Elders who survived boarding schools. Thanks to the incredible work happening every day across NAYA in affordable housing, accessible childcare, Indigenous food sovereignty, youth education, and economic development. You can watch the special here.

• NAYA hosts Culture Nights each first and third Wednesday nights. They also celebrated their 22nd annual gala and auction earlier this month. Follow and donate to this great organization, which serves over 10,000 community members from nearly 400 Tribes across the country.
• The Willamette Falls Trust offers a number of great resources, including Native-owned businesses, book recommendations, events, and more.
• The Portland Art Museum is showcasing several amazing Native artists, including Marie Watt (Seneca), Dyani White Hawk (Lakota), Gail Tremblay (Onondaga and Mi’kmaq), Nan MacDonald (Metis and Algonquin), and Silas Aittauq (Inuit), to name a few.
• Willamette University is featuring “Ancestral Dialogues: Conversations in Native American Art” on permanent view in the Confederated Tribes of the Grande Ronde Gallery.
• The World Forestry Center, in cooperation with Indigenous artists and the High Desert Museum, features “Sasquatch: Ancestral Guardians,” until January 4, 2026. Indigenous peoples have long been in relationship with and shared stories about sacred forest protectors, often called Sasquatch and Bigfoot.
• The Coalition of Oregon Land Trusts shared an incredible list of suggestions, “Five Ways to Celebrate Native American Heritage Month in Reciprocity, Not Just Symbolism.”
• Multnomah County Library is offering a series of opportunities, including Native Storytime and Edible Native American Plants on 12/2,
• Our member organization, the Native Arts and Culture Foundation, is a Native-led national organization committed to mobilizing Native artists, culture bearers, communities, and leaders to influence positive social, cultural, and environmental change. The foundation offers grants and funding to support Native artists in their creative endeavors.
• The Grand Ronde tribes have an excellent collection of tribal history curriculum videos for grades kindergarten to tenth.
• Oregon universities and colleges now offer financial assistance to members of the 574 federally recognized Tribes.
• The Oregon Department of Education rolled out a “Tribal History/Shared History” curriculum in 2020. Oregon schools now have historically accurate and culturally inclusive lessons about Native Americans. Oregon’s nine Tribes collaborated on this curriculum to banish stereotypes, myths, and inaccuracies.

What can we do in our organizations or at home to decolonize Thanksgiving?

• Think about what you eat for Thanksgiving dinner. How did these foods come to you? You can buy American Indian foods from local Tribes and businesses.
• Volunteer your services on Thursday, 11/27 or Sunday, 11/30 by helping out at Unthanksgiving events. Since 2021, NAYA has gathered community on the fourth Thursday in November, National Day of Mourning according to our Wampanoag relatives, to shift the narrative from a misleading colonial holiday toward one of mourning genocide and celebrating Indigenous survival. This year, they invite volunteers to join in honoring the land, uplifting Indigenous food sovereignty, and supporting the garden that nourishes our community year-round. Come lend a hand, learn, and stand in solidarity with Native peoples. Registration required.

• Visit the Indigenous Marketplace at SE Uplift on 11/28 and 29 and support Native artists and craftspeople.

• Visit Blackfish Gallery’s collaboration with NAYA, a holiday market on December 6.

• Buy from Oregon’s Native artists and performers, as we shared in this article from 2022.
• Visit the “We Are the Land” public art installation in Portland, a collaboration between the City of Portland and indigena (an Indigenous storytelling cooperative), the City Arts Program, Regional Arts and Culture Council, Multnomah County, and Metro.
• Learn which Tribes are native to Oregon.
• Donate to and follow local Native American organizations, such as the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, the  Native American Youth and Family Center, and Wisdom of the Elders.
• Visit Native-owned farms and restaurants around the state and buy from Native-owned businesses.
• Plan an Oregon vacation to celebrate Indigenous Oregon by visiting Travel Oregon’s website.
• Listen to perspectives on thanksgiving from Wampanoag youth or watch a brilliant Native American film.
• Unlearn myths with your kids. The Portland Public Schools website has some excellent resources. Read books about Thanksgiving by indigenous authors, such as Catherine O’Neill Grace’s 1621: A New Look at Thanksgiving and Joseph Bruchac’s Squanto’s Journey: The Story of the First Thanksgiving. Or use this great hands-on activity from Teaching Tolerance. Get adult book suggestions from firstnations.org.
• Support contemporary Indigenous struggles by learning about the #LandBack movement and current land struggles faced by the Mashpee Wampanoag people. The U.S. Department of Arts and Culture has a virtual resource pack on its Honor Native Land page.
• Find out what your community is doing to support the Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women’s crisis.
• Follow the work of indigenous-led organizations such as Native American Rights Fund, Illuminatives, National Congress of American Indians, and the American Indian College Fund...or organizations here in Oregon.

Arts and culture are two of the best ways to honor Native Americans and decolonize Thanksgiving, as we’re reminded by Joy Harjo, U.S. Poet Laureate and board chair of the Native Arts and Culture Foundation:

“We’ve come to a point in the world of great challenge, but also great opportunity, in which to revise and revitalize our communities. How do we do that? It always comes back to the arts, because arts revitalize, they tell us who we are, they tell us where we’re going and where we’ve been. Art makes connections on a deep soul level; it connects us in a way beyond words.”
-Joy Harjo

We can still be thankful while acknowledging the harm done to Native peoples by this holiday. To decolonize Thanksgiving, we need to examine our history to begin the healing process.

The Coalition acknowledges the many Tribes and bands who call Oregon their ancestral territory, including: Burns Paiute; Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw; Confederated Tribes of Cow Creek Lower Band of Umpqua; Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde; Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians; Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs; Confederated Tribes of Umatilla Indian Reservation; Coquille Tribe; and Klamath Tribes. We honor the ongoing relationship between the land, plants, animals and people indigenous to this place we now call Oregon. We recognize the continued sovereignty of the nine federally recognized Tribes who have ties to this place and thank them for continuing to teach us how we might all be here together.

The post Decolonizing Thanksgiving in Oregon 2025 appeared first on Cultural Advocacy Coalition of Oregon.

By Marie Gettel-Gilmartin, Fertile Ground Communications (written in 2021; updated for 2024)

Many of us grew up learning the myth of Native Americans teaching the struggling pilgrims how to survive and celebrating with a feast in 1621. But for most Native Americans, Thanksgiving is a day of mourning.

Thanksgiving is in fact a holiday of colonizers.

What actually happened on Thanksgiving?

As Claire Bugos writes in the Smithsonian, “Massacres, disease, and American Indian tribal politics shaped the Pilgrim-Indian alliance at the root of the holiday.” The settlers stole land, spread disease, and exploited resources from the Wampanoag tribe. Then King Philip’s War “devastated the Wampanoags and forever shifted the balance of power in favor of European arrivals.”

Each year, Native American people gather to honor their ancestors and the struggles of Native peoples on the National Day of Mourning. Thanksgiving serves as a reminder of the unjust treatment that Native Americans have continued to receive since the 1620 Plymouth landing.

What is Oregon doing to shift the narrative about native stories and honor native peoples?

• The Native American Youth and Family Center (NAYA)  celebrated Culture Night on Wednesday, November 20, where families and community members came together to participate in beading, singing, crafting, intertribal drumming, and dancing.
• Our member organization, the Native Arts and Culture Foundation, is a Native-led national organization committed to mobilizing Native artists, culture bearers, communities, and leaders to influence positive social, cultural, and environmental change. The foundation offers grants and funding to support Native artists in their creative endeavors.
• The Five Oaks Museum in Beaverton centers descendant communities in their storytelling. Visit the museum to learn about the Kalapuya Tribe and Kalapuyan land thanks to guest curator Steph Littlebird Fogel and other Native American experts.
• Cowlitz Tribal member Suzanne Donaldson and CEO of Donaldson Consulting LLC is sharing compelling facts, challenging stereotypes, and shedding light on important issues on LinkedIn each day during November, Native American Heritage Month.
• The Grand Ronde tribes have an excellent collection of tribal history curriculum videos for grades kindergarten to tenth.
• Oregon universities and colleges now offer financial assistance to members of the 574 federally recognized Tribes.
• The Oregon Department of Education rolled out a “Tribal History/Shared History” curriculum in 2020. Oregon schools now have historically accurate and culturally inclusive lessons about Native Americans. Oregon’s nine Tribes collaborated on this curriculum to banish stereotypes, myths, and inaccuracies.
• The Oregon Food Bank honors the National Day of Mourning, acknowledging that Native Americans experience food insecurity at a staggeringly high rate and some of the most anti-Native policies happened in Oregon.
• The University of Oregon’s Native American Student Union hosted “Thanks But No Thanks-giving: Decolonizing an American Holiday” in 2020 and 2021, where they discussed ways to show gratitude while decolonizing the holiday.

What can we do in our organizations or at home to decolonize Thanksgiving?

• Think about what you eatfor Thanksgiving dinner. How did these foods come to you? You can buy American Indian foods from local tribes and businesses.
• Visit the Native Arts and Culture Foundation on Friday, November 22 or Saturday, November 23 to attend “Citizen Fellow: Art as Archive and Memory,” a sampling of the past 15 years of the foundation’s work and perspectives.
• View the Five Oaks Museum‘s current exhibit, Replenish the Root: Six Centuries of Gathering Under the Oaks, which explores the Oregon white oak savanna ecosystem that once flourished in the Tualatin Valley under Kalapuyan stewardship. They offer free educator tours.
• Stand with the Portland Native community by attending Unthanksgiving events with NAYA at Wapato Island Farm on November 23 and the NAYA Garden on November 28. Register in advance.
• Attend the Grand Ronde Restoration’s public powwow on November 23. The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde will celebrate the 41st anniversary of the Grand Ronde Restoration Act, which in 1983 restored the tribe’s federal recognition. Grand entry will be at 1 p.m. and 6 p.m. for the powwow, which will take place at Spirit Mountain Casino.

  
  

• Support Indigenous artists and entrepreneurs at the Indigenous Marketplace in downtown Portland from November 15-December 31 or in Oregon City on November 23-24; the Native American Youth and Family Center’s Winter Native-Made Marketplace on Dec. 14-15 at Lloyd Center; or Eugene Native American Arts & Crafts Makers on December 1, 14, or 15.
  
  
• Take your children to Native Story Hour on November 27 at the Capitol Hill Library in Southwest Portland. The event will feature songs and books from Native cultures, and is open to people of all ages. The event is supported by the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde.
• Buy from Oregon’s Native artists and performers, as we shared in this article from 2022.
• Visit the “We Are the Land” public art installation in Portland, a collaboration between the City of Portland and indigena (an Indigenous storytelling cooperative), the City Arts Program, Regional Arts and Culture Council, Multnomah County, and Metro.
• Learn which Tribes are native to Oregon.
• Donate to and follow local Native American organizations, such as the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, the  Native American Youth and Family Center, and Wisdom of the Elders.
• Visit Native-owned farms and restaurants around the state and buy from Native-owned businesses.
• Plan an Oregon vacation to celebrate Indigenous Oregon by visiting Travel Oregon’s website.
• Listen to perspectives on thanksgiving from Wampanoag youth or watch a brilliant Native American film.
• View the Oregon Historical Society’s “Oregon is Indian Country” traveling exhibit at Pacific University until December 1, 2024, before it’s moved from circulation.
• Unlearn myths with your kids. The Portland Public Schools website has some excellent resources. Read books about Thanksgiving by indigenous authors, such as Catherine O’Neill Grace’s 1621: A New Look at Thanksgiving and Joseph Bruchac’s Squanto’s Journey: The Story of the First Thanksgiving. Or use this great hands-on activity from Teaching Tolerance. Get adult book suggestions from firstnations.org.
• Support contemporary Indigenous struggles by learning about the #LandBack movement and current land struggles faced by the Mashpee Wampanoag people. The U.S. Department of Arts and Culture has a virtual resource pack on its Honor Native Land page.
• Find out what your community is doing to support the Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women’s crisis.
• Follow the work of indigenous-led organizations such as Native American Rights Fund, Illuminatives, National Congress of American Indians, and the American Indian College Fund...or organizations here in Oregon.

Arts and culture are two of the best ways to honor Native Americans and decolonize Thanksgiving, as we’re reminded by Joy Harjo, U.S. Poet Laureate and board chair of the Native Arts and Culture Foundation:

“We’ve come to a point in the world of great challenge, but also great opportunity, in which to revise and revitalize our communities. How do we do that? It always comes back to the arts, because arts revitalize, they tell us who we are, they tell us where we’re going and where we’ve been. Art makes connections on a deep soul level; it connects us in a way beyond words.”
-Joy Harjo

We can still be thankful while acknowledging the harm done to Native peoples by this holiday. To decolonize Thanksgiving, we need to examine our history to begin the healing process.

The Coalition acknowledges the many Tribes and bands who call Oregon their ancestral territory, including: Burns Paiute; Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw; Confederated Tribes of Cow Creek Lower Band of Umpqua; Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde; Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians; Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs; Confederated Tribes of Umatilla Indian Reservation; Coquille Tribe; and Klamath Tribes. We honor the ongoing relationship between the land, plants, animals and people indigenous to this place we now call Oregon. We recognize the continued sovereignty of the nine federally recognized Tribes who have ties to this place and thank them for continuing to teach us how we might all be here together.

The post Decolonizing Thanksgiving in Oregon 2024 appeared first on Cultural Advocacy Coalition of Oregon.

By Marie Gettel-Gilmartin, Fertile Ground Communications (written in 2021; updated for 2023 with items in blue text)

Many of us grew up learning the myth of Native Americans teaching the struggling pilgrims how to survive and celebrating with a feast in 1621. But for most Native Americans, Thanksgiving is a day of mourning.

Thanksgiving is in fact a holiday of colonizers.

What actually happened on Thanksgiving?

As Claire Bugos writes in the Smithsonian, “Massacres, disease, and American Indian tribal politics shaped the Pilgrim-Indian alliance at the root of the holiday.” The settlers stole land, spread disease, and exploited resources from the Wampanoag tribe. Then King Philip’s War “devastated the Wampanoags and forever shifted the balance of power in favor of European arrivals.”

Each year, Native American people gather to honor their ancestors and the struggles of Native peoples on the National Day of Mourning. Thanksgiving serves as a reminder of the unjust treatment that Native Americans have continued to receive since the 1620 Plymouth landing.

What is Oregon doing to shift the narrative about native stories and honor native peoples?

• The Native American Youth and Family Center (NAYA)  and the Native community celebrate a worldwide social event, Rock Your Mocs, by wearing moccasins to unite, celebrate tribal individuality, and honor ancestors and indigenous peoples worldwide (Nov. 12-18 this year). Search #ROCKYOURMOCS to check out the collection of photos.
• Our member organization, the Native Arts and Culture Foundation, is a Native-led national organization committed to mobilizing Native artists, culture bearers, communities, and leaders to influence positive social, cultural, and environmental change. The foundation has provided $14 million in 594 grants to 394 Native artists and organizations in 34 different states and the District of Columbia. Their center opens monthly for a tour, where you can connect with their community of Native makers and cultural innovators.
• The recently rebranded and reopened Five Oaks Museum in Beaverton is now centering descendant communities in all storytelling work. Visit the museum to learn about the Kalapuya Tribe and Kalapuyan land thanks to guest curator Steph Littlebird Fogel and other Native American experts. 
• The Grand Ronde tribes have an excellent collection of tribal history curriculum videos for grades kindergarten to tenth.
• Oregon universities and colleges now offer financial assistance to members of the 574 federally recognized Tribes.
• The Oregon Department of Education rolled out a “Tribal History/Shared History” curriculum in 2020. Oregon schools now have historically accurate and culturally inclusive lessons about Native Americans. Oregon’s nine Tribes collaborated on this curriculum to banish stereotypes, myths, and inaccuracies.
• The Oregon Food Bank honors the National Day of Mourning, acknowledging that Native Americans experience food insecurity at a staggeringly high rate and some of the most anti-Native policies happened in Oregon.
• The University of Oregon’s Native American Student Union hosted “Thanks But No Thanks-giving: Decolonizing an American Holiday” in 2020 and 2021, where they discussed ways to show gratitude while decolonizing the holiday.

What can we do in our organizations or at home to decolonize Thanksgiving?

• Think about what you eat for Thanksgiving dinner. How did these foods come to you? You can buy American Indian foods from local tribes and businesses.
• Stand with the Portland Native community by attending Unthanksgiving gardening events on November 23-25. UnThanksgiving has expanded to three organizations this year: NAYA Community Garden, Prismid Sanctuary, and Wapato Island Farm. Wear attire appropriate for the weather and for gardening, bring gloves, a water bottle or thermos to keep you hydrated, and tools. Registration is required and can be found here: https://forms.gle/5kn8yW4AtWFSaGVt8 
• Support Indigenous artists and entrepreneurs at the Indigenous Marketplace events on Nov. 24-26 or Dec. 6-8 and the Native American Youth and Family Center’s Winter Native-Made Marketplace on Dec.  9-10 at Lloyd Center.
• Buy from Oregon’s Native artists and performers, as we shared in this article from 2022.
• Visit the “We Are the Land” public art installation in Portland, a collaboration between the City of Portland and indigena (an Indigenous storytelling cooperative), the City Arts Program, Regional Arts and Culture Council, Multnomah County, and Metro.
• Learn which Tribes are native to Oregon.
• Donate to and follow local Native American organizations, such as the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, the  Native American Youth and Family Center, and Wisdom of the Elders.
• Visit Native-owned farms and restaurants around the state and buy from Native-owned businesses.
• Plan an Oregon vacation to celebrate Indigenous Oregon by visiting Travel Oregon’s website.
• Listen to perspectives on thanksgiving from Wampanoag youth or watch a brilliant Native American film.
• Rent the Oregon Historical Society’s “Oregon is Indian Country” traveling exhibit for free through 2023. It’s displayed in the City of Eugene from Nov. 27-Dec. 3, 2023.
• Unlearn myths with your kids. The Portland Public Schools website has some excellent resources. Read books about Thanksgiving by indigenous authors, such as Catherine O’Neill Grace’s 1621: A New Look at Thanksgiving and Joseph Bruchac’s Squanto’s Journey: The Story of the First Thanksgiving. Or use this great hands-on activity from Teaching Tolerance. Get adult book suggestions from firstnations.org.
• Support contemporary Indigenous struggles by learning about the #LandBack movement and current land struggles faced by the Mashpee Wampanoag people. The U.S. Department of Arts and Culture has a virtual resource pack on its Honor Native Land page.
• Find out what your community is doing to support the Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women’s crisis.
• Follow the work of indigenous-led organizations such as Native American Rights Fund, Illuminatives, National Congress of American Indians, and the American Indian College Fund...or organizations here in Oregon.

Arts and culture are two of the best ways to honor Native Americans and decolonize Thanksgiving, as we’re reminded by Joy Harjo, U.S. Poet Laureate and board chair of the Native Arts and Culture Foundation:

“We’ve come to a point in the world of great challenge, but also great opportunity, in which to revise and revitalize our communities. How do we do that? It always comes back to the arts, because arts revitalize, they tell us who we are, they tell us where we’re going and where we’ve been. Art makes connections on a deep soul level; it connects us in a way beyond words.”  -Joy Harjo

We can still be thankful while acknowledging the harm done to Native peoples by this holiday. To decolonize Thanksgiving, we need to examine our history to begin the healing process.

The Coalition acknowledges the many Tribes and bands who call Oregon their ancestral territory, including: Burns Paiute; Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw; Confederated Tribes of Cow Creek Lower Band of Umpqua; Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde; Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians; Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs; Confederated Tribes of Umatilla Indian Reservation; Coquille Tribe; and Klamath Tribes. We honor the ongoing relationship between the land, plants, animals and people indigenous to this place we now call Oregon. We recognize the continued sovereignty of the nine federally recognized Tribes who have ties to this place and thank them for continuing to teach us how we might all be here together.

The post Decolonizing Thanksgiving in Oregon appeared first on Cultural Advocacy Coalition of Oregon.

Q: Which Oregon town hosted Debbie Reynolds, cast, and crew for the “Halloweentown” movie 25 years ago this summer?

A: St. Helens!

To this day, thousands flock to St. Helens every fall to visit filming locations and relive Halloweentown memories. The Columbia County Museum Association (CCMA) participates in the festivities in support of local tourism. It displays movie props and maintains a free interactive walking tour of filming locations for both Halloweentown and Twilight.

The museum in St. Helens is fully run by volunteers who are committed to its mission: to collect, display, preserve, and safeguard artifacts, ephemera, photographs, and research about Columbia County history.

“We are moving the museum from its present location in the historic Columbia County courthouse to another historic building that’s being renovated and restored, the John Gumm Building,” explained Les Watters, who grew up in St. Helens and has been museum curator since 2005.  “The new venue is more updated, appropriate, and accessible for displaying our collection. We’ll be able to share programs and exhibits we can’t today.”

The John Gumm Building will offer more space, accessibility, and environmental control protections for their collections. In the current building, the museum is located on the third floor without an elevator. This causes accessibility challenges to visitors and volunteers, and it also makes it difficult to move collections and bring and remove items for exhibits.

The museum staff and board are not sure how they will complete the project without CREF funds. They want to remain hopeful the project will go forward as designed. With occupancy planned for 2024, the project will continue without the funding, but on a more limited basis.

Traveling via the Oregon Trail, many pioneers landed in Columbia County. Preceded by explorers and trappers, they settled on the ancestral territory of the Chinook, Clatskanie and other tribes and bands, which relied on the Lower Columbia River for food, transportation, trade, medicine, and cultural and spiritual rituals. Preserving and sharing their rich and complex histories with residents and visitors is invaluable in creating a thriving cultural environment in Oregon.

We hope the Oregon legislature understands the value of funding volunteer-driven organizations like the Columbia County Museum Association and keeping history alive for Oregonians.

The post Keeping Columbia County’s history alive appeared first on Cultural Advocacy Coalition of Oregon.

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is celebrating #PRIDE with an exciting new play, open through October! Buckle up for a musical story about Julie d’Aubigny—a queer 17th-century rule-breaking, sword fighting, opera-singing transgressor of boundaries. It’ll be loud, it’ll be rowdy, and it’ll be hilarious! Qui Nguyen sets this irreverent take on French history somewhere between the realms of superheroes and comic books and asks what it means to bust through your prescribed roles into who you truly are. Revenge Song: A Vampire Cowboys Creation, will run until October 14 in the Allen Elizabethan Theatre. More info here.

IT‘S RAINING LOVE!

Introducing Oregon’s only augmented reality mural, launching June 25!

One of our board members, Crystal Meneses, is organizing a mural that will literally sing the voices of the Portland Lesbian Choir, Portland Gay Men’s Chorus, and Maybe Community Singers.

The June 25th event block party includes drag queens, a PRIDE flash mob, and a chance to meet the composer and the muralists.

Listen to Crystal talk about the project and find out more details.

Advances in LGBTQIA+ History in Oregon

We’ve chosen to highlight advances in queer culture instead of the many laws and other discriminatory efforts to marginalize the community.

Before colonizers formed the Oregon Territory, Native LGBTQ people were already living in Oregon. When Lewis and Clark arrived, they were told about two young indigenous men who left the tribe to set up their home together. A woman in the Kutenai tribe dressed like a man and had a “wife.”

1892: Marie Equi joined her high school girlfriend, Bessie Holcomb, on a homestead along the Columbia River. She would become one of Oregon’s first gay and suffrage activists and one of the first 60 Oregon women to become a physician. Equi and Holcomb lived in Portland and raised a daughter together.

1930: Darcelle (aka Walter Cole), the oldest drag queen performer on the West Coast, is born in Portland.

1970: The Portland Gay Liberation Front was born.

1971: After being fired for her sexual orientation, Peggy Burton was the first to file a federal civil rights suit. The case lasted four years, but the court ruled her dismissal was wrongful.

1972: Oregon became the fourth state to repeal its sodomy laws.

1973: Rep. Vera Katz introduced the state’s first gay rights bill, which failed to pass by two votes.

1974: Kristan Knapp and Naomi Little bear established Portland-based Ursa Minor Choir, perhaps the first gay choir in the country. Members Steve Fulmer and Sparky Lindsay later founded the Portland Gay Men’s Chorus and Portland Lesbian Choir.

1975: Portland’s first outdoor pride celebration!

1977: The Imperial Sovereign Rose Court of Oregon, Oregon’s oldest LBGTQ organization, is founded.

1980: Portland Gay Men’s Chorus is founded.

1983: Just Out!, an LBGTQ+ publication, is founded by Jay Brown and Renee LaChance.

1986: Portland Lesbian Choir is founded.

1987: A state executive order banned discrimination based on sexual orientation.

1989: Soromundi Lesbian Chorus of Eugene and triangle productions! Are founded.

1990: Portland Gay Symphonic Band and Portland Pride Band are founded.

1992: Quaker activist Bonnie Tinker founds the Love Makes A Family nonprofit.

1993: Rose City Swing was founded.

1996: Basic Rights Oregon forms.

1997: Portland Queer Film Festival is founded.

1989: Drag entertainer Lady Elaine Peacock founded Peacock Productions and began running Peacock in the Park and other programs.
2000: Confluence Willamette Valley LGBT Chorus founded in Salem.

2004: Multnomah County attempted to issue some of the first gay marriage licenses in the country.

2007: Governor Ted Kulongoski signed the Oregon Family Fairness Act, recognizing domestic partnerships, and the Oregon Equality Act, which protects LGBTQ people from discrimination.

2007: QDoc: Portland Queer Documentary Film Festival (QDoc) founded, the only festival in the U.S. devoted exclusively to LBGT documentaries.

2007: Rep. Tina Kotek kissed her wife Aimee on the house floor in response to Oregon granting same-sex couples the benefits of marriage.

2008: Sam Adams becomes the first openly gay mayor of a major U.S. city (Portland).

2014: Same-sex marriage is legalized is Oregon.

2014: Bridging Voices, a youth chorus for gay, straight, and questioning youth, is formed.

2015: Oregon became the third state to ban performing conversion therapy on minors.

2016: Governor Kate Brown becomes the nation’s first openly bisexual governor.

2016: Oregon circuit court ruled that residents could legally change their genders to non-binary, “the first ruling of its kind in the U.S.” according to the Transgender Law Center.

2017: A bill passed abolishing the requirement for transgender people to publish their names in newspapers before they can undergo a legal change of sex on government documents.

2017: Transpose PDX, Portland’s first transgender and nonbinary choir, and Portland’s Queer Comedy Festival are founded.

2018: Eugene Gay Men’s Chorus and Northwest Queer Chorus are founded.

2019: Gov. Brown signed an executive order to add gender identity to a policy prohibiting state agencies from engaging in unlawful discrimination.2019: Representative Karin Power introduced a bill to amend a law that equated “transvestites” with pedophilia.

2020: Darcelle celebrated his 90th birthday and still performs six shows a week at the club that bears his name.

2022: Pride parades are back! Canby holds its first Pride parade.

The post Celebrating PRIDE in Oregon! appeared first on Cultural Advocacy Coalition of Oregon.

Did you know we still have racist place names littered across the state?

Oregon has 12 places with “negro” in the title, and 55  with “squaw,” a racist term to describe Native American women. Many of these places used an even more racist term, the n-word, until the 1960s.

In 2020, “Negro Ben Mountain” in Jackson County was renamed “Ben Johnson Mountain” to honor the Black man who operated a blacksmith shop near Ruch, Oregon. You can see the name change proposals being considered by the Oregon Geographic Names Board on their website. For example, they are considering a proposal by the Cow Creek Band of the Umpqua Tribe of Indians to rename “Big Squaw Mountain” in Douglas County to “Dumont Butte.”

In 2021, three geographic features in Jackson County once called Dead Indian Mountain, Creek, and Soda Springs were renamed for the Native Latgawa people, who lived in this area for more than a thousand years.

Oregon Black Pioneers, an organization in Salem, is identifying and commemorating sites with African American historical significance. The organization works through the Oregon Geographic Names Board, an affiliated partner of the Oregon Historical Society, to replace antiquated and racist terminology in state place names. Replacing racist road names throughout Oregon, though, will require many more years of investigation and lobbying.

In February Deb Haaland, our first Native American U.S. Secretary of the Interior, announced the department would be removing the racist and misogynist slur “squaw” from 660 national landscape features. Oregon State University recently unveiled a new study, “Words Are Monuments,” which assessed the origins of more than 2,000 place names throughout 16 national parks. When Haaland announced the name change plan, Oregon was already ahead of the other states, with 12 proposed name changes.

Did you know anyone in Oregon can formally propose a name change for a geographic feature? The Oregon Historical Society has more information on that process. Changing the racist names in our state is just one small step toward reconciling with our history of racism and bigotry.

The post Fixing Oregon’s racist place names appeared first on Cultural Advocacy Coalition of Oregon.

On March 28, 1942, Minoru Yasui was arrested in downtown Portland for breaking the 8 p.m. curfew that targeted Japanese Americans during the war.

Born to Japanese immigrants and raised on a farm in Hood River, Min became the first Japanese American member of the Oregon State Bar.

From anti-Asian discrimination to a system of legalized racial oppression

In the late 1800s people of Asian descent began immigrating to the west coast to work. Laws prohibited them from bringing their family members and becoming citizens. Extreme hostility and racism had been brewing for decades before the second world war.

A few days after Pearl Harbor, Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt of the Western Defense Command developed a plan to put all Japanese Americans into military custody. To argue his case, he prepared a report with rumors of sabotage that were later revealed to be false. Although the United States was at war with Germany, Italy, and Japan, only Japanese Americans were treated as enemy aliens.

In February 1942, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which authorized the military to move people they viewed as threats into concentration camps. The order did not specify any ethnic group, but DeWitt used it to institute curfews for Japanese Americans.

Protesting against injustice

Min Yasui, then 25, thought the curfew was unconstitutional and unfair, so he challenged it by walking in downtown Portland after 8:00 p.m. When a police officer refused to arrest him, he went to the Second Avenue police station and asked to be arrested.

The day after Min’s arrest, DeWitt had given the order to evacuate Japanese Americans to concentration camps.

Approximately 122,000 men, women, and children were incarcerated without charges, two-thirds of them American citizens. Three cases challenged the incarceration, but it wasn’t until Dec. 18, 1944 when Mitsuye Endo’s case finally won and Japanese Americans could be released. Unfortunately, most could not return to their homes, properties, and livelihoods…all had been taken from them.

Min and his family went on to become activists for equity and justice. In 2015 President Obama presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom (posthumously) to Min, the first and only Oregonian to receive the country’s highest civilian honor.

Honoring Min

Oregon passed legislation to create a permanent Minoru Yasui Day on March 28, the day Min intentionally violated the curfew. In 2016 Governor Kate Brown signed the legislation into law.  In May 2021, the Japanese American Museum of Oregon reopened in its new location, featuring the Multnomah County jail cell in which he had spent where he spent nine months in solitary confinement.

Eighty years later, on March 26, 2022, the Minoru Yasui Legacy Project celebrated his legacy with a program, “Taking a Stand Against Racism and Discrimination.” Speakers Eric Ward (Western States Center), Kerry Tymchuck (Oregon Historical Society and on CACO’s board), and Deepa Iyer (Strategic Initiatives, Building Movement Project) spoke about historical discrimination and the current racism and violence faced by Asian Americans and others. The program honored Min’s youngest daughter, Holly, who passed in 2021. You can view the event on YouTube.

Inspiring young people

Each year the Minoru Yasui Legacy Project sponsors an essay contest. This year the prompt focused on people who took a stand against racism and discrimination. Congratulations to the essay contest winners!

We hope you’re inspired to learn more about this heroic Oregonian who fought for equality and justice for all. You can learn more about him at www.minoruyasuilegacy.org/.

Written by Marie Gettel-Gilmartin with assistance from Peggy Nagae, cofounder of the Min Yasui Legacy Project

The post Minoru Yasui: An 80-year Legacy of Taking a Stand Against Racism and Discrimination appeared first on Cultural Advocacy Coalition of Oregon.