On May 30th The Vanport Mosaic will travel to Salem to participate to this historical event. 
Our collective is deeply grateful to Senator Jackie Winters and House Speaker Tina Kotek for their commitment to honor the experience of former Vanport residents and preserve this history for generation to come!

On Tuesday May 30th Senator Jackie Winters and House Speaker Tina Kotek are the Chief Sponsors of Senate Concurrent Resolution 21, memorializing the 69th anniversary of the Vanport Flood. 

Ceremonies for SCR 21 will take place at the Oregon State Capitol in Salem. If you would like to join, please meet outside the Chamber of the House or Representatives no later than 10:30am. Courtesies will be given during the House Floor Session followed by a vote on the measure by the members of the Senate during the Senate Floor Session. Following the close of the Senate Floor Session a reception will be held in the foyer outside the Senate Chambers on the second floor of the Capitol.

Please RSVP to AmyBeth Stevens at 503-986-1444 or email rep.tinakotek@oregonlegislature.gov.

May 24th, 9.45am
Portland City Hall

Please join Vanport Mosaic at Portland City Council on May 24th, and make history with us! Mayor Wheeler will proclaim May 30 to be Vanport Day of Remembrance in Portland, 69th years after a flood wiped out Oregon's second largest city. 

This has been such a wonderful community effort, and a perfect prelude to the The Vanport Mosaic Festival 2017l, May 26-29. Full program: www.vanportmosaic.org/thefestival

The proclamation will be shared again at the opening of the oral history screenings Lost City, Living Memories: Vanport oral histories: https://lostcity.eventbrite.com/
- on May 27th at 6.30pm, by Senator Jackie Winters, a flood survivor, at Vancouver Avenue First Baptist Church of Portland -- on May 29th at 6pm, by Commisioner Nick Fish at Irvington Covenant Church.

Vanport history will not be forgotten! The Vanport Mosaic community is thrilled to announce three major events we advocated for, enthusiastically supported, and we are now deeply grateful for:

• On May 2nd, 2017 Governor Kate Brown signed a Proclamation for Vanport Remembrance Day 
• On May 24th, 2017 Mayor Wheeler and Portland City Council will officially proclaim May 30th, Vanport Remembrance Day. (Join us!)
• And, finally, on May 30th, Senator Jackie Winters (a former Vanport resident and flood survivor. Watch our short documentary where she shares her memories) and House Speaker Tina Kotek are sponsoring a joint resolution, SCR 21, memorializing the 69th anniversary of the Vanport Flood.

Thanks to the former Vanport residents for sharing their memories for generations to come; to all the families, churches, and community groups who have been collecting and preserving these stories for the past decades; to the artists, writers and historians who have been keeping them alive.

Join us at The Vanport Mosaic Festival 2017, May 26-29, when we will read the Proclamation and will share copies with you all. Stories build community! 

Portlanders often ask: "Where was Vanport located?" The answer is: in our backyard! Join us on May 29th for Vanport Tours: The Site and its many Stories to explore the historic sites, now PIR/Delta Park. RSVP for our (free!) guided bus tours, or grab our newly produced map (yup! free as well!) of Vanport in 1943 superimposed over the current map, and walk on your own pace. And did we mention the bike tour? Check out The Vanport Mosaic Festival 2017 full program at: www.vanportmosaic.org

The Vanport Mosaic Festival 2017
VANPORT TOURS: THE SITES AND ITS MANY STORIES

Narrated bus and self-guided walking tours of the original Vanport site. The tour begins at the Expo Center, and loops through the PIR grounds. This route includes the sites of historic Vanport’s most important civic functions as well as residential areas. Additionally, the Building D lobby at Expo will offer brief presentations about Vanport’s lasting impact on our communities. 

This tour is FREE and open to the public. RSVP for bus tour here.

Bus tours are expected to last approximately 75 minutes. The self-guided walking tours will start anytime between 10:00 am and 2:00 pm, and last approximately one hour.

Locations:
Expo Center, Building D
2060 North Marine Drive Portland, OR 97217
and The Portland International Raceway

For questions: info@vanportmosaic.org or 971-319-0156.

 Organizations supporting the Tour include: The Vanport Mosaic, Columbia Slough Watershed Council, Port of Portland, Bureau of Environmental Services, Multnomah Drainage District, Expo Center, Metro, Portland International Raceway, and North Portland Neighborhood Services.

Seventy-five years ago, on May 6, 1942, Japantown in Portland was empty of Japanese Americans by military decree. They joined 120,000 other Japanese Americans in ten hastily erected concentration camps across the United States. During The Vanport Mosaic Festival 2017 we will remember and reflect on this tragic chapter of our past.  Vanport Mosaic Festival: Gambatte Be Strong by Chisao Hata and Nikki Kojima Louis +  Lost City, Living Memories: Vanport oral histories  Full festival program: www.vanportmosaic.org/thefestival

The Vanport Mosaic Festival 2017
presents:
GAMBATTE BE STRONG
Staged reading created by Chisao Hata and NIkki Nojima Louis, directed by Chisao Hata

From Japantown to the Portland Livestock Exposition, from WWII concentration camps to the Vanport flood--the immigrant journey of the Japanese in Oregon is paved with stories of perseverance and courage. Gambatte Be Strong is an original reading of the little known stories featuring the return of Japanese Americans to Oregon after their incarceration during WWII.

With: Heath Houghton, Sumi Wu, Kim Bui, Jenna Yokoyama, 
Ken Yoshikawa, and Savira Kambhu

Two Performances:
Saturday, May 27, 2017 2pm
Sunday, May 28, 2017, 7pm

Admission:
Suggested - $25
Suggested General - $15
Suggested Senior/Disabled/Students $5

Location:
The Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center 5340 N Interstate Ave, Portland, OR 97217

Run time 1hr with no intermission
Box Office at IFCC open one hour before curtain
Please visit Vanport: The Surge of Social Change exhibit running in tandem.

The Vanport Mosaic Festival 2017 is around the corner!
We are so grateful for the excitement and heartwarming interest the event is receiving! Many of you are asking the following question: 

That is a heck of an event! How are you going to make it happen? And how can you offer 4 days of screenings, oral history recordings, theater, exhibit, an educational workshop, a reunion for former Vanport residents, narrated bus tours, self-guided walking tours with a map and an app, a bike tour with theater performances for free or low-cost to the public?

Here is our "secret": Abundance. Abundance of volunteers, abundance of funders, abundance of sponsors, abundance of partners. First and foremost, abundance of passion and idealism. And if this sounds terribly naive… well, it is, but it works! Last year our Inaugural Vanport Mosaic Festival, grounded on this unconventional “business” model, is a testament to the power of grassroot organizing and community engagement.

Watch this short documentary to get a glimpse of it:

On Memorial Day weekend, over 2500 Portlanders of all racial and gender identity, age, and socio-economic backgrounds gathered to explore the history of Vanport, the catalyst of the racial mosaic that now exists in Portland and the region. Sixty-eight years after the flood that destroyed what at its peak was Oregon's second largest city, we showed its former residents, now in their 80s and 90s, that their experience matters to us, and that we are not going to forget it.

This abundance-powered effort received a Spirit of Portland Award, a Columbia Slough Watershed Council Leadership Award, and an Oregon Heritage Excellence Award.

We will be honest. This year it’s been harder… Allowing yourself to be so idealistic and keep your hopes up in these difficult times where everything around us screams fear and scarcity has been a challenge. But now more than ever, we want to believe we can do it again. We can keep using the power of personal stories, arts, and dialogue to envisioning and building the community we wish to become.

---

Will you help us do it again? Will you join the growing network of funders, sponsors, donors and partners who are making this year’s festival possible, and help fill the gap we have left? Your tax-deductible contribution will prove, once again, that stories build communities. 

DONATE TO THE VANPORT MOSAIC FESTIVAL 2017

The Vanport Mosaic Festival 2017 presents
LOST CITY, LIVING MEMORIES: VANPORT THROUGH THE VOICES OF ITS RESIDENTS

Join us for TWO SCREENINGS of the latest short documentaries part of Vanport Mosaic on-going oral history project, now in its third year. Through archival footage, historic photographs, and compelling first-person narratives, this collection of community-produced short films creates a rich and elaborate “mosaic” of the vibrant community that made up the city of Vanport.  

Tickets are FREE, but seating is limited and RSVP is strongly recommended. Donations are gladly accepted at the door.

TWO SCREENINGS:
Saturday, May 27, 2017 6:30pm
Vancouver Avenue First Baptist Church, 
3138 North Vancouver Avenue, Portland, OR 97227
With special guest blues and gospel singer Marilyn T. Keller; Sen. Jackie Winter, flood survivor, reading the City Proclamation for a Vanport Day Of Remembrance; PCC Prof. James Harrison
RSVP: https://lostcitylivingmemories0527.eventbrite.com/

Monday, May 29, 2017 6pm
Irvington Covenant Church
4003 Northeast Grand Avenue , Portland, OR 97212
With special guest Shalanda Sims, director of Vanport, The Musical, performing a few songs from the play, and PCC Prof. James Harrison. Remarks by Nick Fish.
RSVP: https://lostcitylivingmemories0529.eventbrite.com/
 

A community-based initiative directed by Story Midwife Laura Lo Forti. Production Manager: Meredith Lawrence. In collaboration with A Fourth Act, the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication. Open Signal Portland Community Media.

Made possible by the generous support of Oregon Community Foundation, Oregon Arts Commission, Kinsman Foundation, Oregon Historical Society, Portland State University, The City of Portland, Portland Development Commission, Business for a Better Portland.

The Vanport Flood parallels the more recent Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans. The Vanport Mosaic Festival 2017 invites you to American Summer Squash & Hercules Didn't Wade in the Water, two new one-act plays about the American Dream, displacement, and Hurricane Katrina from the African American perspective. Full festival program and tickets at: www.vanportmosaic.org

The Vanport Mosaic Festival 2017
AMERICAN SUMMER SQUASH
by Don W Glenn, directed by Jocelyn Seid

and

HERCULES DIDN’T WADE IN THE WATER
by Michael A Jones, directed by Damaris Webb

Staged readings of two new one-act plays about the American Dream, displacement, and Hurricane Katrina from the African American perspective. 

Six Performances:
Friday 5/26th 7pm
Saturday 5/27 7pm
Sunday 5/29 2pm
Friday 6/2 7pm
Saturday 6/3 7pm
Sunday 6/4 2pm
*curated post show conversation following Sunday 5/29 matinee

Admission:
The Price of the Ticket - $25
Suggested General - $15
Suggested Senior/Disabled/Students $5

Location:
The Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center 5340 N Interstate Ave, Portland, OR 97217

Run time 2hrs 30 minutes with one intermission, Box Office at IFCC open one hour before curtain.
Please visit Vanport: The Surge of Social Change exhibit running in tandem with this performance.

with
La’Tevin Alexander, Anthony Armstrong, Arlena Barnes, Kenneth Dembo, Jasper Howard, Eric Island, Rickey Junior, Anya Pearson*, Seth Rue*, Andrea Vernae & Damaris Webb

Stage Management: Jory Bowers* & Judith Yeckel, 
Costume Design: Wanda Walden, Technical Direction: Lara A. Klingeman

From  The Negro In Portland: A Progress Report 1945-57  - City Club

Thrilled to host Priced Out- With Oregon Humanities community dialogue as part of The Vanport Mosaic Festival 2017! Seating is limited so grab your tickets!

The Vanport Mosaic Festival 2017
presents

PRICED OUT
Producer Cornelius Swartz and Editor/Co-Producer Eric Maxen

An excerpt of the new documentary Priced Out: Gentrification in Portland, Oregon, An Upcoming Film that gives an investigative and personal look at how skyrocketing housing prices displace Portland’s black community and reshape the city. 

This will be followed by a facilitated dialogue on community and housing hosted by Oregon Humanities. 

Screening:
Sunday, May 28, 2017, 11 am-12:30 pm

Admission:
Suggested - $5

Location:
The Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center 5340 N Interstate Ave, Portland, OR 97217

The Vanport Mosaic Festival 2017 presents:
THE VANPORT EDUCATION WORKSHOP
May 27th, 2017
11:30-3:00 p.m.
PCC Cascade Campus Terrell Hall Auditorium, 705 North Killingsworth Street - Portland, OR 97217
FREE! Registration is required as space is limited. You can register here.

For questions, please contact Vanport Mosaic Education Program Coordinator: Greta Smith gresmith@pdx.edu 

In response to the increasing number of inquiries we have been receiving from educators who want to explore the transformative history of Vanport with their students, The Vanport Mosaic offers its first workshop to share multidisciplinary tools and opportunities for curriculum development for formulating lesson plans.  

This year’s festival themes of migration, housing, and displacement are central to the workshop, as well as the question of how unresolved issues with race-based displacement reverberates through future generations.

Educators will have the opportunity to attend three different sessions offered in the disciplines of history, geography, and arts & humanities:

Teaching Vanport through History: 
This interactive workshop prepares you for teaching about Vanport, a significant episode in local and national history. Learn how to craft a 15-30 minute lesson that wows students and helps them gain a new insight and appreciation for our history. 

Lead by James Stanley Harrison, professor emeritus of History at Portland Community College where he has taught since 1993. He is currently working on a book about the wartime housing project of Vanport.

The Landscape of Vanport: 
This workshop will focus on how to use both the past and present day landscape as an opportunity to study a local geography project. The sample assignment will expand on the creation of “learning opportunities” around both human/cultural or physical geographies of the location and place we know as Vanport City, Oregon. 

Lead by Heather McAfee, who teaches geography at Clark College and serves as chair of the Geography Department. 

Vanport through the Creative Lens: 
This workshop will spark ideas about teaching Vanport through creative responses to film and images and will provide several writing prompts and assignment ideas.

Lead by Melissa Favara, a writer and educator who lives in Portland, Oregon and teaches English at Clark College in Vancouver, Washington. She writes and publishes creative nonfiction and essays and curates the 1,000 Words reading series.

"On September 29, 1942 the Oregonian ran a front-page  headline that read "New Negro Migrants Worry City" and another Oregonian article reported that some Whites complained that the Kaiser Specials were "bringing in an army of Negro workers" that "Portland didn't want."... Shortly thereafter the Oregonian reported Mayor Earl Riley's claim that Portland can absorb only a minimum of Negros without upsetting the city's regular life."

Excerpt from "A Menace to the Neighborhood": Housing and African Americans in Portland, 1941-1945 - by Rudy Pearson
Oregon Historical Quarterly
Vol. 102, No. 2 (Summer, 2001), pp. 158-179
Published by: Oregon Historical Society

On April 26th a small Vanport Mosaic representation traveled to Newberg to receive an Oregon Heritage Excellence Award for

The Vanport Mosaic Festival 2016, a groundbreaking, grassroots effort that utilized a multi-disciplinary approach through creative partnerships to bring Oregonians together to learn and talk about Vanport’s history.

We are so honored and humbled to see our collective effort acknowledged with such a prestigious and meaningful recognition! And it was truly inspiring to learn about the work that individuals, community groups, and local institutions are doing throughout Oregon to preserve local history.

Truly, this award is to the former Vanport residents and their families, the community groups, churches, teachers, historians, activists, artists, who have been silently preserving small and large pieces of this important history, so that at last, almost 70 years from the flood, we could assemble this rich and complex mosaic.

With gratitude,
The Vanport Mosaic Team

Happy Women's Day to glass-ceiling breaker and history maker Sen. Jackie Winters! Today, as we're celebrating girls and women of the past and present from around the world -- Vanport Mosaic wants to honor the remarkable women who lived in Vanport, and shared their stories of strength and resilience with us.

Check out this short video to get a taste of last year Vanport Mosaic Festival, and get in touch at info@vanportmosaic.org if you are interested in becoming a sponsor for 2017 Festival (May 26-29): 4 days of theater, oral history screenings, tours, exhibit, educational workshop, former residents' reunion, to honor the community that was formed in Oregon's second largest city, and commemorate the flood that wiped it out in 1948.

Photo by: Meredith Lawrence

If you are looking for a meaningful way to celebrate Black History Month and you are in the Portland area, join a community celebration for Mrs. Thelma Glover's 99th birthday, on Sunday 19th, 3pm, at the historic Billy Webb Elks Lodge in Portland. You can still honor her from afar, by contributing to a crowd fund to help paying her medical bills. She lives by herself, and recently suffered a fall.

Ms.Thelma, as she prefers to be called since it makes her feel young, is a former Vanport resident. Last October we captured her memories as part of our on-going oral history project, and since she expressed the wish to see some photos of the city where she and her husband started their life together in 1943, we brought her the whole exhibit "Vanport: The Surge of Social Change" we co-curated with Oregon Black Pioneers for last year Vanport Mosaic Festival! Watch her story, Step By Step, and you will understand why everyone falls in love with this remarkable lady.

There is more to her story, of course. She is one of the last-living people who were displaced by the Emmanuel Hospital expansion (that was never realized...) in 1970s. The Oregonian recently published a great article and video about this painful chapter of her life. Check out the article HERE !

Did we mention there is a crowd funding initiative for Ms. Thelma?

The Vanport Mosaic Team

Vanport Mosaic is thrilled to host a StoryWork Facilitation workshop, taught by StoryCenter director Joe Lambert and co-facilitated by our own story midwife Laura Lo Forti. "Holding a space for deep listening and transformational learning is sometimes a calling, but it is also a skill that can be learned and assessed. This two-day workshop offers participants tools and practice in facilitating StoryWork. More than ever, we need our helping professionals, our teachers, and our leaders to understand how to listen and support the emergence of voice." 

Thank YOU for contributing to a successful run of LEFT HOOK during the Fertile Ground Festival of new works. This staged reading, although not a full production, was highly polished, powerful and moving, especially because it featured such a strong and talented cast under the fine direction of Damaris Webb, once a boxer herself. The icing on the cake was a post-show panel discussion by a group of honored guests who had either been involved in the world of boxing or who played an important role in the community such as the founder of the Portland Black Panthers. Here is a photo of most of the cast of LEFT HOOK, which will see a full production at the Vanport Mosaic Festival in 2018.

Vanport Mosaic has been selected for the Columbia Slough Watershed Council 2016 Achievement and Leadership Award! We are so honored, and filled with gratitude for the continuous support from so many organizations and individuals. Now more than ever we are committed to tell stories that build communities. 

Get your tickets for performances (01/20-22) at Festival's Box Office

http://www.broadwayworld.com/portland/article/BWW-Preview-9-Shows-Im-Excited-About-at-Fertile-Ground-2017-20170109#