The People:
Dr. Molly Hiro
Molly Hiro has taught American literature at the University of Portland since 2005. She lives in a 115 year old house in NE Portland, one of the many white people who settled in this historically Black neighborhood in the last twenty years.
Grace Fortson
Grace Fortson was born and raised in Gig Harbor, Washington– two and a half hours north of Portland. She first moved to Portland to study Political Science and Global Affairs at the University of Portland in 2019. The University Park neighborhood, where UP sits, is only about five miles southwest of Vanport.
Vy-An Nguyen
Vy-An Nguyen was born in Portland, Oregon, and moved to Vancouver, Washington when she was about seven years old. She has been a student at the University of Portland since 2019 and is studying sociology with a concentration in criminology.
The Process:
This project is one of the many undergraduate research projects in the Public Research Fellowship at the University of Portland. The idea of public research is rooted in the belief that neither knowledge nor the research process should not be restrained to college campuses. In fact, communities with lived experience hold valuable wisdom and information that is often overlooked.
As the researchers endeavored to answer the central question of this project, focusing on the experiences of Black Portlanders was paramount. Indeed the literature of the Black Portland Renaissance offered rich insights to the connection of space and narrative in the displacement of Black people in Portland. Combining these insights with historical background research led to the findings that, especially for Black Portlanders, stories are intrinsically space based. As a result, this interactive StoryMap is intended to facilitate this understanding of the displacement of Black Portlanders, their stories, and the spaces where they take place.