Street roots., February 27, 2015, Page 4, Image 4

Page 4
News
Street Roots • February 27-March 5, 2015
time ago, and now living in New York, I see
the same things happening in Brooklyn and
in Harlem.
I just have so many conversations about
how gentrification is happening. I’ve seen
gentrification happen right before my eyes
in my hometown as well as places that later
became home. This is something that is
happening across the nation and I think it’s
important to provide spaces for young
people to process how they feel about it. I
want teachers to have a resource too in
order to have discussions of race and class
and all th a t
S.H.: What made you decide to write the
story about two sisters?
R. W.: You know, it’s a real practical plot I
made it to show both sides of the argument,
both sides of the story, kind of. I don’t think
things are simple. It’s complicated, right? I
made it to show someone being for it and
someone being wary and against it. So
identical twin sisters showed being just like
someone and also being very different.
For Maya, the main character, there are
expectations that she has for herself and
people have for her, based on her
neighborhood, the school she goes to and
her family’s reputation. How do you break
way from that, be a part of a group, part of a
culture, but also have your own identity? It
was just a way for me to play around with
that and explore the messy things of
identity and loyalty — what it means to be
loyal to a community.
PHOTO BY D AV fD FLORES, COURTESY OF RENEE W A TSO N
Home, past and present
Portland-raised author Renee Watson has new young a d u lt book out about
growing up black in the increasingly white neighborhoods o f Northeast Portland
BY SARAH HANSELL
other books is set in Portland, this one really
college and never left In her four published
deals with the landscape o f the city, and
works, she has taken on Hurricane Katrina,
Portland as a city is a huge part o f the
the
Harlem
Renaissance
and
losing
a
parent
uthor Renée Watson grew up in
storyline.
— all with strong black girls at the center of
Portland and lived through the
the
story.
gentrification of her Northeast
R enee Watson:
TheNAACP
neighborhood. In 1990, more than 30
It’s interesting, I
Image
Award
percent of Portland’s black population lived
actually started
nominee is a writer in
in North and Northeast Portland.
writing the story
residence at public
By the time Watson was a senior at
"1
feaew the word pen-
when I was in high
schools and commu­
Jefferson High School in 1996, change was
trlflc
a
tio
w
1 had a© Kangwage
nity
centers
across
school. I didn’t know
moving in, and by 2010, that percentage was
the
country,
teaching
it would hecome a
lo
r
that,
bat
1
eaald
see
some-
halved.
creative writing and
th in g was ehaatpacfs 0 a M artin novel one day, it was
This month Watson released a young
just a short story for
adult novel, “This Side of Home,” and kicked theater. She also
la th e r K in g Jr. Baaleaard« and
writes for Rethinking
my English class. I
off the book tour here in her hometown,
K llila g sw o rth there used to
Schools and the
wrote it because my
visiting libraries and schools, including her
be a Fred K e je r that Is now a
Oregon English
Northeast Portland
alma mater, Jefferson High School. This
Journal
on
arts
and
police preolaet« > Whole Foods neighborhood was
Side of Home deals with the experiences of
education —
changing. I didn’t
opened np oa 1 5 th /y
identical twin sisters growing up in a
everything from sci­
know the word
gentrifying Portland neighborhood, much
ence literacy to how
gentrification, I had
the experience that Watson herself lived
to teach kids about
no language for that,
through.
police brutality
but I could see
And it couldn’t be at a more fitting time.
against
the
black
community.
something
was
changing.
On Martin Luther
Some of Portland’s now blackest
Coming back to Portland recently, she
King Jr. Boulevard, and Killingsworth there
neighborhoods jgjSt. Johns, Boise, Eliot and
said she “feels so loved” to be back in the
used to be a Fred Meyer that is now a
King - are poised on the brink of
place she grew up, sharing her book with
police precinct. A Whole Foods opened up
gentrification, says a study by Portland’s
the community. She hopes for her next
on 15th.
Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. And
project
to
be
a
book
of
poetry,
where
she
I started writing about these twin sisters,
with it, these neighborhoods risk pushing
writes about her own experiences as a black
and the complications of having new white
people of color out.
girl growing up in Portland.
neighbors that are looking to me for
Renée Watson saw this happen as a
friendships and relationships in school.
youth, and continues to see it in her new
Sarah Hansell: Although one o f your
Then I put that story away. That was a long
home in New York, where she moved for
STAFF W R ITE R
■
S. H.: North and Northeast Portland
populations of people of color, including S t ,
Johns, Boise, Eliot and King, are poised for
gentrification right now, and already are
becoming trendier places fo r people to live. Do
you think there are ways to avoid displacing
people o f color and poor people from these
neighborhoods?
R. W.: Yeah, absolutely. I think it has to
happen on many levels. People who own
property and the real estate folks who are
coming in and budding condos and
apartment complexes, I would hope would
be mindful of who’s already there and who
can afford these places. And there are a lot
of families in Northeast Portland, and I’m
noticing that a lot of the new things that are
built are for single people, so just the way
that the city is deciding what is built in
North and Northeast Portland show what
they care about. How do we create things
that are conducive for families?
win the book there’s a scene where Maya
realizes that people are just trying to make
a living and people are just trying to live in a
nice area, so she takes the first step to go to
one of the businesses and say, ‘Hey, we’re a
high school in your neighborhood, is there
any way we can partner with you?’ So I
think there are ways that businesses can
help with local schools and com-munity
organizations and make decisions that make
sense for the neighborhood.
S. H.: As an educator who uses creative
writing to help youth cope with trauma, what
are ways that we can teach youth about
tragedies like the ones in Ferguson and Staten
Island?
See WATSON, page 5