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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (April 3, 2003)
Robinson Theatre April 11, 12, 17, 18, 19, 25, 26 - 8 PM April 13 - 2 PM Matinee benefit performance for SASS Call 484-9791 ext. 314 for benefit tickets UO Tickets: 346-4363 Hult Center: 682-5000 UT Box Office: 346-4191 JAMES BATEMAN Nights of performances ‘I am a person.’ –Elliotte Cook diversity horizon. Springfield High School has a human rights club for students that packs a classroom with its meetings. Lane County Circuit Court Judge Cindy Carlson coordinates the Eugene chapter of Oregon Uniting, where interracial groups of 12 to 15 people communicate for six weeks in a weekly two-hour meeting. In these meet- ings, people can come together to build trust, which eventually leads to open com- munication, and eventually understanding. Greg Rikohoff says that some issues of discrimination stem from avarice, that peo- ple don’t want to share the resources of the community. But Elliotte Cook says, “I am a person.” This seems to sum up the general sentiment of all the people I talked to for this story: It isn’t special treatment or the lion’s share of resources that they seek; rather it is to be normal, pedestrian members of the community. The people in this story are only the tip of the iceberg: Latin, Asian, even Samoan communities all exist in this town. Is Eugene ready and willing to have them stay and flourish? Home My favorite place in Eugene is the five o’clock No. 37 bus, packed as it is with stu- dents going home to Westmoreland student housing on 18th and others heading home from work. There are Japanese women in urban outfits and clunky shoes; Chinese men in white button-down shirts and high- water slacks in gray or brown. There are 14 APRIL 3, 2003 Middle Eastern women wearing sparkly gold jewelry and East Indians with skin and hair as dark as mine. There are punk rock kids with orange mohawks and pierced faces. A man in a North Face Gore-Tex raincoat balances two paper bags of groceries on his lap. There is a woman with a violin. Babies and children ride in tow with young parents; elderly folks teeter and shuffle on canes or walkers to the seats that people give up for them. At the back of the bus, three teen-aged boys in baggy Tommy Hilfiger and Ralph Lauren Polo discuss in their best city talk the “chick in Civics who is fine.” They pro- nounce it “foyne” and they sound like rap stars on MTV. There are four black men behind me, tall and very dark. They speak energetically, sometimes all at once. I don’t know the lan- guage, but it hints at some French and the lilt of something Caribbean. I think they are discussing classes or exams. It sounds like, “Tra la la, tra la la, tra la la, microbiology, tra la la . . .” The bus whooshes to a stop at Westmoreland and I stand waiting for a place in line to get off. One of the black men stops in the aisle and gestures broadly with an extended arm for me to go ahead. I smile and he smiles back. I love the No. 37 because it feels like the potential of Eugene, where people are different, yet safe and inconspicuous; it feels like a home where I could stay forever. ew
