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‘City of Roses’
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Volume XLV
Number 20
www.portlandobserver.com
Wednesday • May 18, 2016
Established in 1970
Committed to Cultural Diversity
photo by M ark W ashington /t he p ortland o bserver
Damaris Webb (from left), Laura Lo Forti and S. Renee Mitchell meet outside the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center to promote the inaugural Vanport Mosaic Festival,
coming May 27-30 to the IFCC and other venues. A series of events, including theater, poetry, ilm and a reunion of former Vanport residents will pay tribute to the history
and cultural signiicance of a city that brought African Americans and others to Portland for work during World War II before being lost to a Memorial Day lood 68 years ago.
Celebrating a
history, culture
and legacy
Last year, when three women artists came together to
discuss their separate Vanport-related projects, they had
no idea where their shared interest would lead. Still, the
talking continued, historians, educators, and other artists
joined the conversation, former Vanport residents ex-
pressed excitement, and eventually, the word “festival”
was put on the table.
Vanport
Mosaic
The three artistic co-directors “story midwife” Laura Lo
Forti, theater artist Damaris Webb, and S. Renee Mitchell,
a former columnist for The Oregonian are now responsi-
ble for curating a series of events, including theater, poet-
ry, ilm, academia and a residents’ reunion, to celebrate the
history of Vanport, once the second-largest city in Oregon
that at its peak had more than 40,000 residents.
“We have to amplify the silent stories of the past, and
listen intentionally so we can better understand who we
are, and why the city of Portland is how it is today,” says
Webb. “If we don’t celebrate and engage with these living
stories now, they’ll be gone forever.”
This coming Memorial Day marks the 68th anniversa-
ry of the Vanport Flood, which destroyed Vanport, a city
whose historical impact remains largely unknown, espe-
cially to the thousands of new residents who have recently
moved into the metro area.
This year’s inaugural Vanport Mosaic Festival, sched-
uled for May 27-30, seeks to educate the public on the his-
tory, culture, and legacy of Vanport, which brought togeth-
er a mix of races across the country to work in Portland’s
shipyards during World War II.
C ontinued on p age 15