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April 16, 1997
Committed to cultural diversity.
Volume XXVII, Number 16
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Vietnam National Day
The Vietnamese community in Oregon
has planned a Vietnam National Day cel
ebration, and also to commemorate the
Twenty-Second Anniversary of the begin
ning of the Vietnamese refugee migration
to the United States. The event will be
held on Saturday, April 19, 1997 at the
Madison High School Auditorium, 2735
NE 82nd Avenue, Portland, Oregon from
1:00 pm to 4:00 pm. This year s program
will include: Portland City Commissioner
Jim Francesconi will read a Proclamation
from Mayor Vera Katz; a solemn and
traditional ritual ceremony paying tribute
to V ietnam 's Founding Father; speeches
from representatives of various Vietnam
ese associations; and a special cultural
show featuring Vietnamese dances and
music. For more information contact Paul
Kinh Duong at 823-3049.
Sign Up Now For Summer
Swim Lessons!
Mail-In Registration for Portland Parks
Summer swimming lessons has begun tor
the summer lessons offered at all Portland
Parks indoor and outdoor pools. Portland
Parks & R ecreation's Aquatic D epart
ment offers swimming lessons for every
age and skill level, including parent/in-
fant courses, pre-school lesstg s for chil
dren 3-5. youth lessons for children 6 and
older, and more. Portland Parks outdoor
p o o ls w ill o p en on M o n d ay , June
16th.Walk-in registration begins Satur
day, June 14th at your neighborhood
pool.For more information, or to request
yourcopy of Portland Parks SummerSwim
Schedule and registration form, call Port
land Parks at 823-5130.
Asian Youth
Leadership Conference
The City of Portland's Refugee & Im
migrant Program, the Portland School
District and Nike, Inc., have planned the
Fifth Annual Asian Youth Leadership
Conference, which will be held on: Thurs
day, April 17, 1997 at the Portland C om
munity College, Sylvania Campus, 12000
SW 49th Avenue, Portland. Oregon, from
8:30 am to 4:(M) pm. This one day confer
ence is planned as a community event
(please see the program attached). We are
expecting 250 to 300 sophomore and jun
ior students from high schools in the
Portland and Beaverton School Districts.
The goal of the conference is to foster the
development of leadership skills among
Asian students, and to help these students
cultivate their understanding and appre
ciation of the history, culture and contri
butions of different ethnic groups in the
United States. For more information please
contact Paul Kinh Duong at 823-3049.
Concerts in the Chapel
Series concludes
Warner Pacific College will present
Novum Chamber Singers as the featured
performance group for the final concert of
the 1996-97 "Concerts in the Chapel"
series. April 19 at 7:30 p.m., according to
Dr. Walter B. Saul, director o f the series.
Concerts are held in the Schlatter Chapel
on the WPC campus, southeast 68th and
Division. Tickets will be available at the
door or in advance by contacting Series
Director Dr. Walter Saul, 788-7476. Tick
ets are $6 ($4 for students and seniors or
$15 for family admission). For more in
formation contact Erwin Boring, (503)
788-7487.
McIver State Park
Benefit Trail Ride
Oregon Equestrian Trails in associa
tion with Oregon State Parks will be hav
ing a benefit trail ride at McIver State Park
Sunday. April 20, 1997 from 10:00 am to
4:00 pm Riders will be encouraged to
donate $5.00. All proceeds from this ride
will go toward new equestrian facilities
and the continued maintenance o f this
beautiful park.
SU B M ISSIO N S; C om m unity
C alendar in fo rm a tio n w ill be given
p rio rity if dated two weeks
before the event date.
SHOucflse
merican Choreographers Show
case has 1 2 upcoming perfor
mances on M ay 9 -1 1 and 14-
1 8 ,1 9 9 7 at the Portland Center for the
Performing Arts.
A
American Choreographers Showcase is
an annual series showcasing new works by
American choreographers, now in its sev
enth year o f sponsorship by Phillip Morris
Companies, Inc., will be featuring new works
by T rey M cIn ty re, B ebe M iller, Paul
Vasterling & James Canfield.
Trey M cIntyre, choreographic associate
and dancer with Houston Ballet, will cho
reograph his first work for Oregon Ballet
Theatre. M cIntyre has produced works for
numerous companies, including New York
City Ballet’s prestigious Diamond Project.
Paul Vasterling, ballet master o f Nash
ville Ballet, has created and staged more
than a dozen ballets for Nashville Ballet,
Milwaukee Ballet, Classical Ballet ot Mem
phis, and Ballet Pacifica. He will choreo
graph a new work exploring gender rela
tionships, which is set to Vivaldi’s I he Four
Seasons.
James C anfield's new work. Charmed
Quarek, will be set to an original score and
will adapt qualities o f funk into balletic
dance.
Bebe Miller, artistic director of Bebe Miller
-When Miller's on stage, you can't take
your eyes o ff her; no one else has her
funky poetry. Mysterious yet startlingly
real thoughts seem to shape her
gestures. Sometimes she looks like a
shaman telling the area around her to
shush; sometimes she looks like a
wayward child."
-Th e Village Voice.
Company, has received an NEA Grant to
create her second new work for Oregon Bal let
I heatre. She choreographed A Certain Depth
oil leart, Also Love for Oregon BalletTheatre’s
1994 ACS, and has also created works for
‘ Artists included at the American Choreographers Showcase include Bebe Miller
(above), James Canfield (Top left), and Paul Vasterling (bottom left).
many other major companies, including Bos
ton Ballet and Alvin Ailey Repertory' En
semble. Ms Miller will also set The Hendrix
“No Parking” at DRUG HOUSE
in L ee P eki . man
f arrests, court orders and tres
pass agreem ents c a n 't shut
down activity at a drug house,
maybe “no parking” signs can do it.
I
That is the experiment now under way in
the 4700 block of Northeast Mallory Street,
where "no stopping or parking" signs were
installed on January 3. It is the latest effort
to control illegal activity at 4715. home ot
Elnora Young, the subject o f neighbors'
complaints since 1992.
"This is the first time I can recall that
w e’ve used this tactic," Marsha Barbour of
the Portland Police B ureau's Neighborhood
Response Team says. "It makes a statement
that this kind o f activity w on't be tolerated."
The signs make enforcement easier be
cause the police do not have to catch dealers
in the act of selling drugs; merely being on
the street makes them subject to ticketing or
towing. Moreover, James Harding o f the
bureau’s Drug and Vice Division says, it
makes visitors “stick out like a sore thumb.
O f course, it also means that other residents
are restricted from parking in front o f their
own houses. Barbour says that prior to instal
lation her bureau called residents ot the block.
"Some people didn't return our calls," she
says. "The ones who did said they were willing
to do anything to ge, rid of the problem.'
Two of them, James and Elizabeth Kent,
have been complaining about activity at the
house by Young’s sons Bruce and Edwin,
their families and others since 1992. Eliza
beth Kent says she has seen heroin sold
openly from the front porch, visitors driving
into and wrecking residents' cars, shootouts
in the streets, and acts o f prostitution per
formed on the Kents’ front lawn. It took
awhile to get the police to take them seri
ously, she says, but their persistence eventu
ally paid off in undercover missions and
drug-related arrests.
Last spring the police and city attorney’s
office threatened to invoke the city's speci
fied crime property and chronic nuisance
ordinance, which allows them to order a
property vacated for a year if it has been the
subject o f repeated complaints to the police.
Young agreed to evict her sons and other
relatives. In return, neighbors and others
offered to perform some long overdue re
pairs on the house. I he Kents friend Ray
Leary o f Self-enhancement, Inc., provided
new locks for the house. Unfortuntely, Eliza
beth Kent adds, the next day all the people
Young had agreed to evict "had new keys in
their hands.”
So it went. Last September, before judge
Donald Londer, Young agreed to a “stipu
lated judgement” agreeing to keep her sons
out o f the house on pain o f losing it. (On that
occasion, her relatives drove her to court in
a stolen car.) In December the city was back
in court complaining o f violations ot the
agreement. "We could have ordered the place
vacated, but no one wants to do that to an old
lady,” Harding says.
Instead, judge Anna Brown ordered in-
stallation o f the signs.
How are they working? Neighbors still
complain that “problem” relatives are still
showing up in violation of the court order
“ If you’re talking about what the law says
then yeah, it's still being disobeyed.” James
Kent says. “ But in terms o f addressing the
issues we set out to address, the nuisance
issues are no longer there.”
“The flavor is so different,” Elizabeth
adds. It is even better for Young, she says.
"Before, she was a prisoner in her own
house. Now she can invite her friends over
Harding attributes the improvement to "a
number o f things. The biggest thing was that
the neighbors were so tenacious. I he com
plaints they brought in were very factual,
very eloquent"
Kent says reaching this point was harder
than it should have been, that too much con
sideration was given to Young. "It Elnora s
house had been in the west hills or Irvington,
this wouldn’t have been allowed to happen,
he says. "There’s the feeling that in inner
northeast this sort o f thing happens.”
Despite the years o f problems, he says, he
never considered moving out “There are
some things you have to take a stand on. on
this is one o f them,” he says. "I grew up here
and I'd call it a great neighborhood. We re
five minutes from everything. Gentrification
has taken place, but fortunately there’s a
good mix o f people We don't want to see
good people move out. The people who are
causing the problems, they have to go."
A taste of Tomorrow’s Computing
o f a huge P C -th e Intel exhibit celebrates the
nteractive exhibit allows visitors
excitement o f computing, highlighting the
at “America's Smith-sonian" to
25th anniversary of Intel’s own contribution
explore how PC's have changed
to modern history: the introduction o f the
the world-and check out w hat's in store
microprocessor.
for the future of computing.
I
A 14-foot-tall computer monitor, a coffee
cup the size o f a hot tub and a talking
microprocessor all greet visitors at a unique
interactive exhibit that has recently arrived
in Portland, Oregon. Intel Corporation, a
C orporate Partner in the S m ithsonian
Institution's 150th anniversity celebration,
is mounting this virtual "Honey, I Shrunk
The Kids" technology exhibit as part o f the
w o rld 's la rg e st tra v e lin g e x h ib itio n .
"America’s Smithsonian,” which opened in
Portland on April 3.
Designed to allow people to see, touch
and experience the power of personal com
puting—and even to walk through the inside
"Our exhibit allows visitors to get to know
computing on a whole new level, said Dr.
Andrew S. Grove, Intel's president and chief
executive of ficer. "The personal computer has
come a long way since its roots as a calculating
device. I, is becoming the tool we use to
com m unicate—using words, pictures and
sounds—with our families, friends and col
leagues around the world. This exhibit allows
Intel to share with people across the country
our excitement about computing technology
and the potential it holds for us all
Visitors to intel's 3000-square-foot ex
hibit embark on a thrilling multimedia jo u r
ney through the history o f key innovations.
from the printing press through today's most
powerful Intel microprocessor They walk
into and explore the 14-foot-tall PC, sur
rounded by giant circuitry that pulses and
glows with energy. Here they meet the "brain
o f the modern computer, the microproces
sor. Through animated special effects, the
microprocessor comes to life, welcoming
visitors and introducing them to people from
all walks o f life who use computers every
day, including teachers and students.
The centerpiece o f the exhibit is an envi
ronmental theater housing a presentation
entitled “More Than You Ever Imagined ”
Once inside this "electronic fantasy” envi
ronment. the audience becomes part o f a
whirlwind investigation into the computer
revolution Their host: Chip, the Micropro
cessor. Their destination the past, present
and future o f the Information Age.
Project, originally created for her company in
1991. on D9 Dance Collective in Seattle-a
group of all women dancers.
Secause We
Remember
Iris Court Resident
a Silent Witness
yra was a student at Portland
Community College and the
mother of tw o boys, one of
whom witnessed her murder. Her body,
with 1 7 stab wounds, was found on
the kitchen floor of her apartm ent.
Her former boyfriend was convicted
of murder and sentenced to 2 5 years
In prison. Kyra Simone Woods, age 2 4
died on April 1 6, 1 9 9 4 .
K
The Iris Court Resident Council, the
H o u sin g A u th o rity of P o rtla n d ,
AmeriCorps, and the Oregon Coalition
Against Domestic and Sexual Violence
will hold a tree planting ceremony to
honor Silent Witness Kyra Woods. The
ceremony will take place on Friday, April
18 at 10:30 am at Iris Court, 300 N.
Sumner in North Portland.
Kyra Woods, who lived at Iris Court, is
one o f 18 Oregon women who have been
selected for the Silent Witness Exhibit.
These women, who were murdered as a
result o f domestic violence, are immortal
ized in statue form. The statues are in
scribed with a description of each woman’s
story I he Silent Witness Exhibit travels
throughout Oregon.
AmeriCorps members, with the help of
HAP’s maintenance staff, will plant a
Japanese Snow tree and also install a
plaque in front o f the Iris court Resident
Council’s office. I he plaque reads:
Kyra Woods 1 0 / 1 / 6 9 - 4 / 1 6 / 9 4
Because We Remember
OCADSV and AmeriCorps
April 1 8 . 1 9 9 7
AmeriCorps members have been work
ing closely with the Oregon Coalition
Against Domestic and Sexual Violence
for community outreach on issues o f do
mestic violence. AmeriCorps Coordina
tor Renee Watson-Taylor, who had met
Krya Woods earlier while volunteering at
IrjsCourt, developed the memorial project
The Iris Court Resident Council will pro
vide refreshments for the event.
A 51 -unit low-income housing develop
ment, Iris Court is part of the Housing
Authority of Portland. I he Iris Court Resi
dent Council is made up of residents con
cerned about the quality ot life in the com
munity The council plans activities, works
with agencies, and develops programs.