Item C: City Council Priority Issue - Communities of Color Meeting Debrief

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Communities of Color Meeting – Table #10 Note taker: Ann Muller Facilitator: Laura Yergen Participants: Elizabeth Andrade Colt Gill Jan Oliver Rev. Arthur Shankles Mercia Silva Dennis Taylor Facilitator invited participants to introduce themselves and begin the discussion by sharing their concerns. One person has lived in Eugene 53 years. Jobs are his main concern. Jobs for minorities and others are not available; work for people of color is not available. Many college students have to leave for employment. Another is from Brazil, and has been here two months to learn English. She would like to listen to the discussion. Another said he is here to learn from listening about how to be more inclusive. Eugene needs to be a place where families can live and grow. Eugene can be the community he believes it has the capacity to be. Another has been here 16 years, and is originally from El Salvador. She has also lived in New York. She is a single parent and works at LCC. When she came to Eugene, she worked as a volunteer for social service agencies. She has seen the needs of the minority community. Now she works as a recruitment analyst for LCC. People in the communities of color need to know the system in order to assimilate and be successful in a job and career. Also, we need to be more proactive in educating the whole community on immigration issues. Many people don’t understand. We are going backwards on diversity issues. Another works at the UO, with 25 years of employment. She has been to one of the participant’s church. She reared 3 children here, and has 4 grandsons. She also lived in Eugene before she got her UO job. Jan also has lived in Sacramento to be in a community that wasn’t predominately white; she lived in the black community there. There are lots of challenges in Eugene. There are lots of conversations about people of color who have left; about how horrible it was for them here. Some stayed. There is a sense of lost opportunity by not acknowledging the tenacity of people who stayed, worked hard in the community, and hooked kids up with positive opportunities here. It’s like studies of why kids go wrong; we should study what makes kids go right. What makes it work for the people who stayed? Are they idiots? We made a conscious decision to stay, and get jobs and work in the community. It wasn’t easy, but she has no regrets. This is an untapped conversation. What can we learn from them? Communities of Color 45 July 12, 2006