Oregon's new Second City

I was reading this blog post today from blog called "Beaver Boundary" congratulating the city of Eugene for reclaiming its spot as Oregon's second largest city from the state's capital city of Salem, according to population estimates by Portland State University. According to PSU's preliminary estimates, Eugene had 153,690 residents on July 1 and Salem had 151,895.

"Kudos to the people of Eugene, who have once again saved the state of
Oregon from relative embarrassment by reclaiming its status as the
second-largest city from Salem. The populations of each city hover around
150,000, and the vibrantly crunchy Emerald City has just recently outpaced the
drab and dull Cherry City in growth. ... Even if you prefer Salem for cultural or provincial reasons, you may root for a faster-growing Eugene if your politics are left-of-center. Of course, Eugene is a liberal haven that almost always supports Democrats ...."

Forgive me, but the cultural factors are hugely important. Liberals maybe be well practices at talking a good game about issues like appreciation of other cultures, but it's not quite the same thing as true cultural/ethnic/racial diversity.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2003 population estimates, Oregon is 86.6 percent white. Salem is slightly more diverse than the state as a whole at 83.1 percent white. Portland, the state's largest city is not surprisingly more diverse than the state average at 77.9 percent white. Eugene, that bastion of liberalism, is less diverse than the state as a whole with 88.1 percent of the city's residents defined as white.

Portland's ethnic diversity comes from Latinos (6.8 percent) blacks (6.6 percent) and Asians (6.3 percent). Salem's diversity is largely because of the Latinos (14.6 percent) and 7.9 percent who report "other" ethnicity. Other races represented are Asians (2.4 percent), American Indian or native Alaskan (1.5 percent) and black (1.3 percent).

Latinos are also the largest minority in Eugene at a whopping 5 percent. The next largest group is Asian at 3.6 percent, 2.2 percent "other" races and 1.3 percent black.

White men, of which I am one, can be very empathetic or sympathetic to women and minorities, but it doesn't mean we can truly identify with the issues that are important to them. In order to have a diversity of views and ideas representing the cultural views of the state's residents and slowly growing minority population, Oregonians need to make sure minorities are at the table where and when decisions are made. This is growing increasingly important for Latinos in Oregon, as the largest minority group in the state at 8 percent of the overall population. This doesn't qualify as direct evidence, but I suspect the 2003 estimate of Salem's population being just about 15 percent Latino is low. If you want to see the future of the city, just look at the faces of the children getting on school buses any weekday morning in the city. That number will continue to rise in Salem and cities large and small throughout the state. Like it or not, immigration reform or not, the Latino train is on the roll.

As the father of a teenage daughter who has Latino heritage on her mother's side of the family, I want to make sure there are people who will not only hear her voice but seek out her and her family's opinions on the issues shaping the future of this state. Better yet, I want her and her family providing some of the leadership on those issue.

One other thing about which I would remind residents of Portland, Eugene, Salem -- or whatever city who want to play the population numbers game -- is that if you live by the numbers, you may get overwhelmed by them. The face of Oregon, whether liberal or conservative, is getting browner by the day. If Portland State's 2007 population estimate is accurate (3,745,455 Oregonians statewide) and Latinos still make up at least 8 percent of the population (and that number is probably low), then that means there are about 300,000 Latinos in the state. That's roughly equivalent to the populations of Eugene and Salem combined or more than half the population of Portland.

Oregon's new second largest community, by shear numbers, is populated by people with brown eyes and brown hair, amigos.

I love Ann Curry even more now

I learned something new today while watching the "Today" show. They were talking about the torrential rains and pounding Oregon and the Pacific Northwest on there this morning. Matt Lauer mention that news anchor Ann Curry was from Oregon and had family here.

I didn't know that.

It turns out Ann Curry grew up in Ashland.

When I was studying journalism here in the mid 1980s, Ann Curry was not the household name she is today. Of course from just seeing her on TV every day, I wouldn't have expected her to be. If anything I would have assumed she is younger than I am.

Back in my youth when I was an aspiring journalist, Curry had just left Portland's KGW TV. I found out that she spend some time, as I have, in Southern California. Unfortunately, I also discovered the Curry also is a Duck, a graduate of the University of Oregon. But I will try not to hold that against her.

But I guess the thing I see as most thrilling is not how Curry serves as an inspiration to people like me, as a fellow Oregonian and journalist, but how she may serve as an inspiration to people like my daughter. It could not have been easy to be a child and young woman of mixed race (Curry's mother was Japanese) growing up in Southern Oregon.

It gives me hope that my daughter, as a half-Latino young woman, will have every opportunity to overcome the prejudice that still exists in the world and achieve whatever she strives to achieve.

Curry is a good role model for women.

Oregonians
Today show
Ann Curry
Mixed race

Do you think these guys vote?

The story starts off like a opening line of a joke, but there's nothing funny about it.

Four guys are sitting at a bar talking politics. The men at the small Eastern Oregon watering hole are talking about President Bush's nominee for chief justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts.

One man said he didn't know a court outsider could be appointed chief justice. He thought one of the existing justices had to move to take that job.

Another of the quartet said, "I think one of them that's on there should move up."

I was pleasantly surprised to hear that these rural blue collar workers were interested in current affairs, so I listened in on their conversation. It was the next man's comments that took me aback.

The man interjects: "You don't want that nigger."

I was stunned. I haven't heard a white man use that work in a public place in a long time, particularly one who didn't even bother to speak in hushed tones. As I sit their trying to pick my jaw up off the bar, the man goes on.

"Look what happened in New Orleans," the bigot said, referring to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and specifically New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, "with a nigger in charge."

The three men sitting with the man laughed.

There it was. The N-word, thrown right out there on the bar.

I was stunned, to say the least.

My heart sank even lower when a few minutes later my brother walked into the bar and greeting those same men at the corner of the bar. I was soon to learn my brother works with two of the men, two of the laughers, not the epithet spitter, not that it matters much.

I couldn't believe that the N-word could be tossed around so casually in my old hometown. It shouldn't have shocked me probably, since that's the same place I heard that word for the first time. But I had hoped the passage of time and societal enlightenment had come to my home town while I was away. Perhaps that was too much to hope for.

To add to the shock, a couple of days later I had the privilege to be introduced to the owner of the restaurant and bar by my brother. I wondered if the owner, and African American man knew his white patrons were tossing around the N-word, making fun of blacks in positions of leadership, when the proprietor was not around.

I hope the bar owner gets rich off the bigoted fucks, and they end up drunk and destitute on a street corner someday. Someday soon.

Bigotry