The Oregonain (Portland, Oregon) 
October 18, 2006 

COUNCIL TACKLES ETHNIC, IMMIGRANT ISSUES
Diversity - Two proposals look to address inequity, gentrification and other obstacles
By Angie Chuang

In an event expected to draw many members of the city's ethnic communities, the Portland City Council will consider two proposals in a special evening session today that will address racial inequity and the barriers facing the city's new immigrants.

The first resolution would support formation of a human relations commission, whose charge could be as broad as addressing discrimination, the achievement gap and neighborhood gentrification.

The second was crafted in response to a series of conferences, public meetings and surveys of the immigrant and refugee communities in the past year. It creates a task force to define the obstacles facing immigrants.

"These two are very much, in spirit, related," said Carmen Caballero Rubio, director of community affairs for Mayor Tom Potter. "Diversity and community are huge cornerstones of the mayor's vision."

Group cut

In the early 1990s, Portland's earlier incarnation of a human relations commission was called the Intergroup Relations Committee, Rubio said. It became the Metropolitan Human Rights Commission and then was cut from the budget for commissions in 1997, becoming a program in the Office of Neighborhood Involvement. A few years later, it was cut entirely.

In the meantime, Seattle, Salem, Eugene, Medford, Washington County and many other area municipalities established similar commissions. The resolution text lists, among the issues the commission would address, inequity, discrimination, lack of access to government, disability discrimination, educational achievement gap and gentrification.

Rubio said this commission would be markedly different from those that preceded it. "We're starting fresh and we're going to take input from the community. We're moving away from just responding to incidents of discrimination and looking at more long-term systemic issues."

A task force

The second resolution, on the barriers facing immigrant and refugee communities, had its genesis in two conferences run by Bridgetown Voices, a collective of leaders from ethnic community groups, and The Latino Network.

Kayse Jama, a facilitator for those conferences, said 22 leaders came together in December and reached an important conclusion: "We were always called (by government officials) to participate in meetings and dialogues, but that was it. We leave, and we don't make sure that anything happens."

So a second gathering in August -- as well as a visionPDX grant to survey ethnic communities -- gave those leaders a chance to tell city leaders they wanted them to address a wide range of issues, from school dropout rates to day labor to police profiling.

Jama, founder and director of the Center for Intercultural Organizing, said he's pleased with the resolution, which establishes a task force and gives the group a year to identify specific barriers, propose solutions and report back to the council in a year.

"For us, that's an action item, with a deadline and a timelines," Jama said. "It puts the process on paper instead of just talking about it."

Rubio said the size and makeup of the task force will be determined later.

Angie Chuang: 503-221-8219; angiechuang@news.oregonian.com

©2006 The Oregonian