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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 26, 2018)
Street Roots • an. 26-Feb. 1,2018 O p in io n Looking back, as a milestone approaches pening a box packed and sealed for 20 described the exhaustion of moving on while years, I lifted out issues of Burnside coping with disabilities - a familiar description V - X Cadillac foxed with age, my byline on two decades along. And in yet another the front pages. The mastheads included a interview, a Burnside Cadillac vendor told me sketch of a shopping cart containing a bedroll, she was. selling papers outside Powell’s to homage to what was colloquially referred to as purchase a new tent after losing everything in a “Burnside Cadillac.” a sweep. Criminalizing homelessness has long I dug out cassette tapes of interviews, a fax exhausted and traumatized people on the * (yes faxes!) to a city streets. commissioner, city Late in 1998 I moved to the East Coast to documents and phone study poetry with a mentor, Carolyn Forche, messages from who connected my loves of poetry and Burnside Cadillac investigative journalism. She had written a editor Sharon Pearson collection of poetry, “The Country Between By Raid Sand sending me off on Us,” that, through lyric poetry, bore witness H M nH assignments. to the civil war in El Salvador. Most of the I am in my second subsequent two decades, I have lived out my month as executive aspirations as a poet, always with an director of Street Roots, but my tenure with investigative bent, which has looped me back the newspaper arcs back 20 years earlier to topics of homelessness and economic when I was a staff reporter for the Burnside injustice through my poetry, art and Cadillac, the street newspaper run by Sharon community organizing. Pearson that transformed into Street Roots in In 1999, Street Roots continued the work of 1999. the Burnside Cadillac in the same office at In my mid-20s, while I worked a mix of jobs 12th and Morrison. And in the poetic history - waiting tables, serving coffee - 1 was always that comprises Street writing. I had Roots, one of Israel been raised by Bayer’s earliest roles two journalists: was that of “resident my mom, a poet.” Salem Now, after Israel’s correspondent long tenure as for the director of Street Oregonian; my | Roots, !, come back.Jp fit - s till a s t r e e t dad, Salem newspaper, but now a bureau chief for robust weekly sold by United Press 170 people, and firmly International. I lodged in the civic joke now that imagination of our journalism was city. my babysitter. , Executive Editor After school,-1 Original copies o f The Burnside Cadillac from 1998. Joanne Zuhl has watched news The newspaper was the precursor to Street Roots. guided Street Roots crawl over the into an award-winning wire in the state newspaper committed to intrepid social justice capitol basement where my father filed his reporting and connected to the international stories. I tagged along while my mom street newspaper movement conducted interviews. I sat next to courtroom But still, as in the early days as Burnside artists and sketched witnesses while my mom Cadillac, Street Roots takes the old model of covered trials. the print newspaper and makes it new and News was something that was always urgent. happening, made all over the world. It was up Why? Our city sidewalks are still a place to us to tell i t Who do we listen to? How do where news is exchanged. Street Roots makes we know how to listen? How do we tell the democratic claims on our public spaces. Who stories of our times? The Burnside Cadillac introduced me to the do we listen to? How do we know how to listen? How do we tell the stories of our news of the streets. I remember Sharon times? The news is ours to write and read. Pearson as warm and tough. She absorbed me And through our vendor program, Street quickly into the Burnside Cadillac masthead Roots insists on the value of human as “staff reporter,” and sent me off on interaction. Poverty may separate some of us assignments - police oversight, illegal from others, but at Street Roots, we produce a camping, criminalization of homelessness, newspaper to bring us all together. affordable housing, a union contract for Do you have memories of the Burnside farmworkers. I remember the office on Cadillac? Were you involved with Street Roots Southwest 12th Avenue and Morrison Street as smoke-filled, but I’m not sure if pressrooms during its early days? Did you know Sharon Pearson? I’d love tp learn your memories. from movies cloud m y memory. Next year marks the 20th anniversary of I look back over some of the stories I wrote Street Roots (and add a few years before that interviewing folks Who were homeless, which for its life as the Burnside Cadillac). We want frequently involved their experiences of sweeps. One man accounted for items a fellow to tell the big story of our newspaper and its vendors. Please email me at kaia@streetroots. camper lost: “He had bicycles, he had a bunch org if you have a story to share. We want to of antique coins, just everything he had know what you remember. accumulated for years.” Another man I 1 DIRECTOR^ - DESS K aia Sand is the executive director o f Street Roots. You can reach her at kaia@streetroots. org. Follow her on Twitter @mkaiasand Page 3 . ••••. ■ ■ VMteb If you would like M jw ? ' j j something contact Executive Editor Joanne Zuhl at 503-228-5657, joanne@streetroots.org. We ask that alt submissions include the author’s name and contact information, if available. ■ ■ 1 I 11 I ■ Street Roots 1 ; 211 NW Davis St. : Portland, OR 97209 £ £ 1 9 1 H J 503-228-5657 Fax:503-227-3117 www.streetroots.org www.news.streetroots.org . Hours: 7:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Mon.-Fri, 7:30 a.ro.~2 p,m. Sat. and 7:30-1 p.m. Sun. Advertising Interested in advertising in Street Roots? Email Andrew Hogan at andrew@streetroots.org Staff Executive Director Kaia Sand Executive Editor Joanne Zuhl joanne@streetroots.org V e n d o r P r o g r a m d ir e c t o r Cóle Merkel cole@streetroots.org D evelepm eitt'W m ^A nd rérR^àm ""' andrew@streetroots.org Senior Staff Reporter Emily Green Operations Director Sarah Beecroft Program Assistant Caelin Miltko, Jesuit Volunteer Vendor Assistant Scott Jackson, Alex Gillow-Wiles Development Assistant Rosemary Wilson Editorial Producer Monica Kwasnik Reporters Sarah Hansell, Leonora Ko, Emilly Prado, Jared Paben, Amanda Waldroupe, Stephen Quirke, Helen Hill , Diego Diaz, Arkady Brown Desmond Hardison Board of Directors Chairman Brad Taylor Vice-Chairman Rachel Langford Treasurer Heather Stadick Secretary Dan Jones Directors Michael Anderson, Sandra Hahn, John Brown, Nets Johnson and Alison Hallett Volunteers Jan Bayer, John Barker, Stacey Heath, Anjali Rathore, Zoe Klingmann, Dan Jones, Dennis Hogan, Monica McKune, Susan Wolfe, Lucas Hawthorne, Thomas Buell Jr., Jason Cohen, Doug Spangle, Susannah Kamala, Jon Raymond, Diana Richardson, Paul and Madeline Gefroh, Mary Anne Joyce, Brooke Anderson, Gillian Floren, Mark Oldani, Bianca Butler, Alex Cherin, Jenny Farres, Evan Firsick, Camber Hansen-Karr, Miranda Woods, Henry Brannan, Megan Smith, Helen Hill, Mary Emerson, Brooke Anderson, Kathleen McFall, Robb Hengerer, Bronwyn Miles, Maile Yeats-Rowe, Erin Parsons, Bridget Brown, Faye Powell, Jon Raymond and Megan Pickerel-Winer. If you're interested in volunteering with Street Roots, please submit a volunteer application at streetroots.org/volunteer. Or you can call for more information at 503-228-5657. ‘
