Street roots., December 22, 2017, Page 7, Image 7

Street Roots • Dec. 22-28, 2017
News
between the Port of Portland and the city to
begin industrial development on West
Hayden Island, saying it would cause
unacceptable damage to salmon habitat. It
was two years before the plan was canceled.
Later that same year, the city and port
announced another joint plan, this time to
bring unit trains full of propane through the
port. That plan was canceled in early 2015
after significant public and tribal opposition.
There’s also been criticism that the city
officials don’t have any guidance or
protocols on how to implement the city’s
policy around tribal engagement.
Street Roots talked with Laura John to
discuss her new position and what it can
accomplish for the Native community.
Stephen Quirke.: What was it like
growing up in Portland?
Laura John.: I grew up in a really great
era in Portland. We had a close-knit robust
tribal community. I attended the Native pre­
school, which was up and running in the late
70s. It used to be located in a house across
from where the Convention Center is now. I
really had a great community. There’s a
group of us that all grew up together. We’ve
known each other our whole lives. I think
Portland’s got a very amazing history when
it comes to our Native community here, that
most people don’t know about.
S.Q.: Can you explain more about that?
L.J.: Portland has been a place where
Native people have relocated, whether it
was for jobs, may have been through the
relocation program in the '50s and ’60s,
PHO TO
B Y D IE G O
D IA Z
w h e n a lo t o f y o u n g N ative p e o p le -
th ro u g h th is fe d e ra l p ro g ra m - le ft th e ir
re s e rv a tio n c o m m u n itie s a n d c am e to
Portland. And a lot of those families are still
here, and raise their families, their children
and their grandchildren here.
brtland’s new tribal liaison talks about her new role fostering
rnimunication between the city and the native community
BY STEPHEN QUIRKE
S T A F F W R IT E R
verywhere you are, Indians have
b e e n .... Every hill, every creek, every
meadow, every forest, every inch of
the Willamette River bank in this city has a
story of its connection to the indigenous
peoples who lived here.”
This was a small piece of the testimony
delivered to Portland City Council two years
ago by the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish
Commission’s Jeremy Fivecrows (Nez
E
lat day - Oct. 7 - the city voted
timously to begin celebrating Indigenous
>le’s Day to honor the history and
ival of its indigenous peoples who lived
id around present-day Portland for more
12,000 years. Portland today has the
h largest urban Indian population in the
:ed States.
his September, Governor Kate Brown
junced that the state of Oregon would
brate Indigenous People’s Day in honor
ivocacy work from the Klamath Tribes
th Council.
his month Portland announced its own
oric step. On Dec. 14 Mayor Ted
jeler hired the city’s first full-time tribal
Laura John (Blackfeet/Seneca) is a life­
long Portland resident with more than 20
years of work in the Native community. As a
professional scientist, policy analyst and
social worker, John brings a new perspective
to a position that could become a model for
how cities across the country work with
Native Americans.
The tribal liaison position was created last
year to implement a formal relationship
between Portland government officials and
Native communities of Portland, as well as
the government officials of surrounding
tribal governments. That relationship
sprung out of the cooperative work of
cleaning up the Portland Harbor Superfund
Site. The city’s first tribal liaison, Patricia
Davis Gibson, was hired in August last year
on a part-time basis. During that time she
helped Portland pass a resolution in support
of the Standing Rock Sioux in their Dakota
Access Pipeline protests, hand delivering
the resolution to the tribal council on behalf
of the city. Her position sat vacant for nearly
a year, from January to mid-December, after
Ted Wheeler was elected mayor.
Portland has had definite issues meeting
its tribal obligations in recent years. In 2012
the Yakama Nation and the Columbia River
Inter-Tribal Fish Commission opposed a plan
We’ve got a number of other regional
organizations that are based out of Portland,
like Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish
Commission, we have Affiliated Tribes of
Northwest Indians. ...
S.Q.: Is Portland unique in having its own
fully funded liaison?
L.J.: Absolutely. Over the past week that
I’ve been in the position I’ve been looking at
some examples of the work that’s being
done by tribal liaisons in other cities. I’ve
found a handful of examples, and the level of
work, and even the status of that employee,
whether they’re full-time or part-time,
varies.
My hope is that Portland can be an
example for other cities in how to have a
tribal liaison position. We’re a model for
other cities in other ways, and I think that
we should be the model for the work of a
tribal liaison as well, in engaging with tribes
and Native communities.
S.Q.: What does the job of a tribal liaison
entail? Is it simply to communicate and
coordinate between the city and tribal
governments and urban organizations? Is that
the gist of ft?
LJ.: That’s part of it. The other part is
I’m looking internally at where support can
be provided. I went to look at the
opportunity of developing and providing
trainings based on basics - Tribal
Sovereignty 101, Oregon Tribal History 101
- to make sure that folks that are in bureaus
Page 7
where this is relevant, that they understand
background. And they understand why it’s
important, and why tribal consultation is
important.
S.Q.: Would this just be for the city, or
would the public be involved in some way?
L.J.: What I was just talking about was
referring to the city - internally - as some
type of required training, no different than
an equity training.
For the public, that’s another piece of the
work... What needs to happen to elevate and
increase visibility of the Native community
here, and the tribes of the area? Is that
putting more information out there on
significant spaces in the Portland area?
Fishing sites? There’s a concrete plaque in
Waterfront Park that says “Indian Camp”
and it has a date on it, but there’s no placard
as to what that means. And if you went past
it, you wouldn’t know it was there.
So (we can be) elevating visibility and
looking at how Portland can tell the story of
tribal people in a better way throughout the
city, whether it’s a park location, like
Waterfront Park, or whether it’s art, naming
of spaces, things of that nature.
The other piece of my work is to establish
the Native American Advisory Commission.
That was something that community
members and tribal leaders were asking for,
so I’ll also be working on that.
S.Q.: There are people from quite a few
tribes living in Portland. Does that create
complexity as fa r as government obligations
and services are concerned, with people
represented by tribal governments all over the
country?
L.J.: Yeah. A nd w h a t’s b e au tifu l a b o u t
P o rtla n d - an d th is is tr u e fo r o th e r c itie s
out there - is that complexity. You have
people that are from tribes that are
traditionally or historically from this area,
and you have folks that are from tribes that
are from across the country, and even into
Canada. Each person that comes here has
their unique story, their journey of how they
came, and how their family came to
Portland. And each one is important, and
has value.
You also have the tribes in the area. And
Portland, like a lot of other urban areas out
there, are near tribes that experienced
termination. I think it’s great that the tribes
like Grand Ronde, Siletz, others, that they
have been able to be re-instated ... and you
see their presence here in the city as well,
which is great, and adds more beauty to our
community and our presence here.
S.Q.: Historically there’s been a lot of
racism in the region (and of course in the
country at large). Growing up here in
Portland, did you see racism against Native
people, whether institutional or otherwise?
L.J.: I think because I had only lived here,
I wasn’t really aware as a younger kid of the
racism. I had learned about the impact of
redlining on Native families here in
Portland, so their lack of access to being
able to decide where they want to live, to
buy a home. I would take it a little bit
further, and describe it as being invisible,
and stereotyped. As I got into my teen years
and into my adult years, a lot of times my
experience is that people will think I’m
Hispanic, or they think I’m Asian, they’ll
See TRIBAL LIAISON, page 11