Moreau Center Social Justice Programs

Environmental Justice Immersion 2024

3/5/24 – Eloheh Farms

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We woke up bright and early today to prepare to visit Eloheh Farms.

As we learned the previous night, Eloheh Farms is an indigenous owned regenerative farm. What this means is that they use organic, non-gmo, open pollinated seeds which are then stored and kept to be replanted.

Eloheh is a Cherokee word which means harmony, wholeness, abundance, and peace. All of which are values which the owners, Randy and Edith Woodley, embody in their day-to-day lives. They’re truly such loving, welcoming people, and it was an honor to get to hear from them. One thing Randy said that stuck with me was how he believes indigenous practices, the ones used by the original caretakers of our land, are instrumental in helping to restore a hurting mother Earth, a perspective which I found insightful.

After getting a tour of the farm, we spilt up to work on the farm. Some tasks we accomplished included helping build a coop house, make compost, snip poison oak, or pull out Himalayan blackberry roots in my case. Some of the blackberry were growing right under the fence so it was difficult to get out, but you could say I got right to the root of the issue and preserved.

We finished with questions, getting to view their rather impressive seed collection, and reflection. All-in-all, the day felt highly successful, and I think I can speak for everyone when I say we learned a lot on the farm.

P.S. Shout out to the cats on the farm, they were the real stars of the show.

Grace Ireland

3/4/24: Artivism, Hoyt Arboretum, and Broken Treaties

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Today we met with J’reyesha and Santi at the Student Commons at PCC. We were formally introduced to each of them, their history in the environmental activism scene, what their current occupations were, and how they approach environmental Justice in communities around Portland. Specifically, they introduced to us Artivism, which is the use of art as a means to promote activism. J’reyesha highlighted a few of the projects she helped coordinate, such as the painting of electrical boxes to help brighten up communities. Afterwards, they introduced the activity we did, which were zines. Zines are a collection of different text and images to display particular message. Each of us created a singular page for our own zine using a variety of different magazines, focusing on what environmental activism meant to us. Once everyone finished, we glued each of our pages to the zine layout to finalize our art. 

After meeting with J’reyesha and Santi, we went to the Hoyt Arboretum to go on a hike. We encountered a variety of interesting plant life, including the only redwood to produce pinecones in the western hemisphere. 

Later in the day, we watched the documentary “Broken Treaties”. The documentary covered the extensive history of the colonization of indigenous Americans in the Pacific Northwest by White Americans and the American government. The documentary covered the numerous treaties in which indigenous tribes gave up their tribal land in exchange for resources and commodities. The resources and commodities were never provided due to the treaties never being ratified in Congress. Thus, indigenous American groups, tribes, or nations were forcefully migrated to unwanted land with no resources or commodities to help them survive.

Brandon Pham

3/3/24: The Braided River Campaign

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Today was the first day of the immersion and we got to spend the day with Sarah Taylor. She is a founder of the Braided River Campaign, as well as a midwife and a retired principal. 

Learning about the history of the development of the river was very interesting. I didn’t know that the Willamette River was originally a braided river with many shallow branches and nearby ponds that supported the local indigenous tribes. However, it was altered to be a deep, single channel river. Furthermore, the heavy industrial infrastructure that has been built up has severely polluted the river and contaminated much of the riverbed’s sediment, making it harmful to swim or eat many of the river organisms. 

It was also cool to see the gallery that Sarah Taylor and the Braided River Campaign created in the Lloyd Center. The gallery is full of the stories of many local marginalized people as well as interactive activities that address the local environmental and social justice issues. 

Much of the conversations we had with her have inspired me to try to do more and attempt to get UP more connected with the community and with current environmental justice issues in the area.

-Jenner Easland