FALL 2021 I VOLUME 14 I ISSUE 1
Drinking to Cope As campus life returns with in-person classes, UO students discuss how the pandemic affected their experiences with alcohol.
Contents. 06 Drinking to Cope As the new school year approaches, students' relationships with alcohol may loook diffrent
14 Housing in the Heat Wave As summer temperatures rise, UO’s lower income students and alumni are demanding action.
19 Language is Culture An endangered language in northwestern Spain vies for a place in contemporary society after centuries of repression and marginalization.
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26 Dance as Xcape In a predominantly white community, Xcape Dance Academy is a safe space for marginalized individuals to come together and dance.
32 On Edge Wildfire trauma continues to impact people affected by the Holiday Farm Fire
38 "Black Girl from Eugene" Ayisha Elliott uses her podcast and programs to fill the void she felt growing up in Eugene.
43 A Fridge for every Neighborhood Eugene Community Fridge stocks free refrigerators around Eugene to fight food insecurity
Letter from the editor, As I write this, I wait patiently to start classes surrounded by living, breathing people and to hear laughter echo down campus hallways. I wait patiently to be in the newsroom again, sharing the stresses and delights of college with my peers. I wait patiently to have the human connection we all ache for after nearly two years of being cooped up at home. Ethos is a magazine dedicated to sharing snippets of diverse human experiences, depicting both joy and grief. Hopefully, we will all emerge from our apartment dungeons, scattered and nervous, to share our new takes on life with each other. To hear the latest campus gossip. To scream at football games. To hold each other’s hands as we confront climate change and racial injustice. When we enter this era of life, we should remember that we as people have changed. In Lily Sinkovitz’s cover story, Drinking to Cope, UO students share their newfound relationships with alcohol, ignited from a pandemic-related mental health crisis. The United States witnessed, and continues to witness, the horrifying presence of the climate emergency, with wildfires scorching Oregon’s lands and tearing through its rural communities. Noah Camuso’s On Edge, shows us the new reality of wildfire’s psychological effects, but also the beauty of human resilience. While the rural communities burned, low-income residents in Eugene suffered a record-breaking heat wave, proving that Oregon is unprepared for inevitable increasing global temperatures, as discussed in Jasmine Lewin’s Home in the Heat Wave. Though the last two years have been filled with too many sleepless nights and anxious days, people have banded together, reminding us all that the trials and tribulations of life don’t need to be experienced alone. In Nika Bartoo-Smith’s story Dance as an Xcape, Vanessa Fuller offers a safe space for BIPOC to dance through the pain of existing in our overwhelmingly white community. As we move forward into a new world, hopefully we can also see life through a new lens — one that values sharing our human experiences loudly and authentically. Ethos journalists will be here to capture it all. Ethos Editor-in-Chief Anna Mattson.
Email editor@ethosmagonline.com with comments, questions, complaints and story ideas. You can find our past issues at issuu.com/ethosmag and more stories,
including multimedia content, at ethosmagonline.com
Our Mission: Ethos is a nationally recognized, award-winning independent student publication. Our mission is to elevate the voices of marginalized people who are underrepresented in the media landscape, and to write in-depth, human-focused stories about the issues affecting them. We also strive to support our diverse student staff and help them find future success. Ethos produces a quarterly free print magazine full of well-reported and powerful feature stories, innovative photography, creative illustrations and eye-catching design. On our website, we also produce compelling written and multimedia stories. Ethos is part of Emerald Media Group, a non-profit organization that’s fully independent of the University of Oregon. Students maintain complete editorial control over Ethos, and work tirelessly to produce the magazine. Since our inception as Korean Ducks Magazine in 2005, we’ve worked hard to share a multicultural spirit with our readership. We embrace diversity in our stories, in our student staff and in our readers. We want every part of the magazine to reflect the diversity of our world. FALL 2021 | ETHOS | 3
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Editorial
VP of Operations Kathy Carbone
Editor in Chief Anna Mattson
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Creative Art Director Emma Nolan Designers Nick Guzman Kira Chan Illustrators Sophie Barlow Maya Merrill Nick Guzman
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Managing Editor Sam Nguyen Copy Chief Amanda Lurey Web Editor Caleb Barber Fact-Checking Editor Lauren Brown Associate Editors Ella Hutcherson Abby Sourwine Writers Nika Bartoo-Smith Cole Sinanian Noah Camuso Emma Slay Chloe Bryant Fact Checkers Jasmine Lewin Bentley Freeman Maris Toalson Kate Jaques Prentice Lily Sinkovitz
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A model poses with two 40-ounce beers taped to their hands. When classes turned to Zoom meetings and life at college meant masking up and avoiding other students, alcohol — the substance normally associated with social freedom — morphed into a remedy for the daily loneliness and stress of the pandemic.
DRINKING TO COPE As the new school year approaches, students’ relationships with alcohol may look different.
T
Written by Lily Sinkovitz I Photographed by Collin Bell I Illustrated by Maya Merrill
he night before his 9 a.m. business exam, Colton Bourne decided to have a drink with friends. He spent the day like most others — in and out of Zoom classes, finishing assignments and studying for his test. Recently, having a drink felt like a way to unwind and feel good after a monotonous, stressful day. But what started as one drink soon turned into multiple. Bourne woke up the next morning, his head fuzzy and pounding, half an hour late to his exam. He jumped out of bed, grabbed his computer and logged onto Zoom. His heart raced as he tried to make up for lost time. Bourne ended the exam with a 40% after only being able to complete half of the questions. His grade in the class dropped by almost a full letter as a result. “It was absolutely a wake-up call,” Bourne says. “I was drinking so much on the weekdays, where I wasn’t in the past, and that would cause me to wake up the next day late in the afternoon and then realize that I missed Zoom classes.” Bourne says that he only drank on the weekend with friends before the pandemic. But after almost a year of isolation, he found himself with a bottle in hand far more frequently. He had always prioritized school, but now, he says, that was growing increasingly difficult. Bourne is one of many people around the nation facing what the American Psychological Association predicted would be a second pandemic — mental health. Just months
into the spread of COVID-19 in 2020, it warned that the high levels of stress, feelings of depression, and loneliness of this era could have long-term health consequences. A year into the pandemic, a 2021 American Psychological Association survey revealed that among reports of sleep disturbances, poor diets and a lack of exercise, many were turning to substances. Gen Z adults were the most likely to report that their mental health had deteriorated, and nearly one in four adults who were surveyed said they drank more to manage Covid-related stress. In a year plagued by uncertainty and doubt, Bourne realized he began drinking more often to cope. Health experts at the University of Oregon say he wasn’t the only one. “There was definitely concern about the escalation of use,” says UO health expert Dr. Toni Forbes Berg. “Whenever there are those strong shifts and stress, anxiety, depression and trauma, those of us in the AOD [Alcohol and Other Drugs] field know that quite a lot of folks will be looking for a way to cope. And substances are a method of coping for a lot of folks.” Forbes Berg is the lead Alcohol and Other Drugs counselor at the University of Oregon counseling center and the director of the Collegiate Recovery Program. As the pandemic’s impacts grew increasingly grim, Forbes Berg says, counselors knew students would need their services. Bourne says that before the pandemic, he never saw alcohol as a coping mechanism. Typically, after stressful days at school
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"as the pandemic hit and we were stuck at home, I think it became more of a way to just deal with the stress" or when he felt particularly restless, he would head to the gym, hang out with friends or get outside. That changed when the University of Oregon transitioned to online classes in March 2020, and Bourne went home to southern California. He spent the initial months of lockdown isolated with his family, bored and often apprehensive. Having a few drinks became a way to ease stress and pass the time, he says. “Prior to the pandemic, I viewed drinking as just part of being social,” Bourne says. “But as the pandemic hit and we were stuck at home, I think it became more of a way to just deal with the stress.” After nearly seven months of lockdown at home, Bourne returned to Eugene in September 2020. He was thrilled to move to his first apartment off-campus and hopeful that returning would restore a sense of normalcy. However, as UO moved forward with online classes and limited activities on campus, Bourne realized that a return to pre-pandemic life was far from reality. His feelings of uncertainty and stress never subsided — now they were compounded by schoolwork. Despite being back in his beloved college town, he often felt isolated. “Drinking, you kind of just tend to forget about the chaos and the reality of the world that we’re living in right now, especially with the last year,” Bourne says. “As time went on and we realized that this is going to be a whole year of online classes, I think alcohol kind of became more of an outlet to just forget about the reality of that situation that we’re in.” A return-to-campus survey conducted by Ohio State University found that many students were grappling with the same uncertainty Bourne was feeling. Even as pandemic re-
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strictions began to ease and students from around the nation returned to college campuses, the mental health crisis not only persisted but may have worsened. Conducted between August 2020 and April 2021, the survey found that 71% of the 1,072 Ohio students surveyed said they were experiencing burnout in the spring, up from 40% in 2020. The use of alcohol as a coping mechanism rose from 15% to 18%. A report by the National Alliance on Mental Illness indicates that this issue is relevant to universities around the country, not just Ohio State. “We have to have a lot of grace and compassion for the coping aspect of it,” says Dr. Forbes Berg. “Even with folks that just seem to be partying more, there’s always that question in the back of my mind of how much of this is ‘I just want to party more because I have more free time,’ and how much of that is ‘everything that’s happening in the world is really weighing me down, and I am looking for relief from that.’” Health experts around UO started offering teletherapy, made arrangements for in-person visits when possible and set up virtual self-help resources to adjust for students shortly after the pandemic started. But Forbes Berg says maintaining strong coping mechanisms was difficult for many. Substances were easily accessible when other coping tools were not. She says that would be especially challenging for a particular group: her students in recovery. “It was an absolute disruption to the community,” says B. Scott, whose name is a pseudonym to protect his identity. “It was really, really hard for a lot of people in recovery, regardless of how long they’ve been around.” Scott is a recent UO graduate student and a recovering alcoholic. He’s a current member of Alcoholics Anonymous and was affiliated with UO’s Collegiate Recovery Center.
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Scott’s journey to recovery began over a decade ago at a different university. There, he says, he struggled in silence for years until meeting others who were also working through addiction at an Alcoholic Anonymous meeting. Scott arrived at the University of Oregon as a graduate student dedicated to sobriety. He formed a community with other students in recovery when he began attending weekly AA meetings held on campus. When COVID-19 hit, Scott says, those in recovery were faced with an all-too-familiar feeling of loneliness. The typical AA meetings held on campus moved online, and Scott says this was exemplary of just one aspect that made recovery more difficult for many. Zoom had removed a critical interpersonal connection he found essential to his own sobriety. “A lot of people just disappeared,” Scott says. “The person who used to come every week started coming every two weeks and then every month. You just didn’t really see them anymore, and then it’s like six months go by.” Without the typical in-person presence on campus, Scott says, these meetings and other resources were more difficult for students to find and access, particularly for those new to asking for help. From his own experience, Scott knows that talking about struggles with substances can already be difficult. Alexis Drakatos, the coordinator of Substance Abuse Prevention at UO’s Office of the Dean of Students, hopes to change that narrative. In the wake of students returning to campus this fall, Drakatos, Dr. Forbes Berg and others involved with substance abuse prevention have been determined to normalize a conversation about substances. Drakatos says her team looks for ways they can spread helpful information about substances through talking with students. During the pandemic, her team tried their best to support the UO community by inviting students to send in their concerns over social media and offering remote workshops to help students identify healthy coping mechanisms. “One of the challenging things about this work, even aside from the pandemic, is that substance use, especially really chronic or heavy use, is seen as so normalized in college students,” Drakatos says. “It can be really tough to help students identify what problematic use is.” Drakatos says these long-held norms were a concern over the past year, especially once many students returned to Eugene while doing remote learning. While the prevention team’s support is vital, Drakatos says that it can only go so far. She has to rely on students themselves to implement a standard of a healthy relationship with substances.
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A model poses with two 40-ounce beers taped to their hands. This image is based on the college drinking game “Edward 40 Hands:” a game where participants have two 40-ounce beers taped to their hands, which can only be removed after they finish drinking both. FALL 2021 | ETHOS | 11
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"After the initial shock and sorrow of isolation began to wane, Mcelyea discovered that her newfound free time might be good for her" She says that’s already happening for many students. Inrecent years, Drakatos has noticed that students have become more open about mental health and conversations around sustainable habits. She predicts it may have had a positive impact on some students’ drinking habits. This was true for Anne Mcelyea, a senior at UO, who says that quarantine was a pause she didn’t realize she truly needed. For her first two years on campus, Mcelyea thought her drinking habits were a part of the normal college culture. She studied hard throughout the week and was involved in various extracurriculars. But while school was a priority, the weekdays truthfully seemed to feel like a drag. What Mcelyea really looked forward to began on Fridays. “It felt like we had all this stress of school, and the whole point of the week was making it to the weekend,” she says. And more often than not, she says, those weekends revolved around drinking. Mcelyea says that her pre-pandemic lifestyle halted when she left campus in March of 2020 to live with her family. Spring term continued virtually, and she got her retail job back in the coming months. But the weekends, as she knew them, were gone. After the initial shock and sorrow of isolation began to wane, Mcelyea discovered that her newfound free time might be good for her. She wanted to develop a routine to prioritize her health. One of the first things to go was alcohol. “I think that the binge drinking that we do in college really isn’t normal. And I don’t think that it should be normalized,” Mcelyea says. “My mentality around drink-
ing has changed a lot, and I also think that happened for my friends too.” She started getting into healthy habits, like exercising every day and eating healthy. Mcelyea says that by the time she decided to move back to Eugene last July, social gatherings became more prevalent and that she saw an all-too-familiar drinking culture reemerging in Eugene. While Mcelyea hasn’t completely quit drinking, she says her habits have changed significantly. Now, she says she redefined the importance of alcohol in her social life and can discern for herself when enough is enough. Bourne says he’s trying to do the same. In the wake of returning to campus for in-person classes this fall, Bourne says he’s determined to rediscover his healthy habits. “Right now is the most normal life’s been in a while,” Bourne says. “I’ve been prioritizing having a schedule, waking up early, going to the gym and getting my priorities done on time. I can push alcohol to the side to a time where it’s actually appropriate.”
HELP IS OUT THERE Crisis Intervention and Support 541-346-3216 University Counseling Services 541-346-3227
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As summer temperatures rise, UO’s lower income students and alumni are demanding action. Written by Jasmine Lewin I Illustrated by Maya Merrill
L
isette Harris reaches into her freezer for a handful of ice cubes. The cool air that rushes out provides momentary relief from the stifling heat of her apartment, but she shuts the door quickly, concerned about an already high electricity bill. Causing further worry is the heat’s effect on her beloved cat, Calcifer, who has retreated under the bed in search of shade. Reaching her hand out, Harris rubs his dark fur with an ice cube, hoping to offset the sweltering discomfort. The rest of the ice is dropped in his nearby water bowl, where it melts rapidly, gone in an instant. Eugene’s recent summer heat waves were a scorching wakeup call after years of increasingly hot summer temperatures in the Pacific Northwest. The city of Eugene surpassed its all-time heat record on June 27 with a blistering 111 degrees, and lower-income residents, especially University of Oregon students and alumni, found themselves individually unprepared for the extreme temperatures and systemically unsupported by local infrastructure and institutions. The suffocating heat sent many into a panic as they desperately attempted to keep themselves and their loved ones cool to avoid any heat-related illnesses. According to the Energy Information Association, about 87% of U.S. homes nationwide have air conditioning installed. But according to Oregon’s largest medical research group, Kaiser Permanente Foundation Northwest, fewer than two-thirds of households in Oregon are equipped with air conditioning. Without the help of often costly cooling resources and technologies, people in the region are not prepared to withstand the extreme temperatures coming their way. “The weather a few weeks ago was absolutely insane compared to what I thought it would be like,” Harris says of the June 27 heat wave. As an out-of-state student at UO, she ex-
pected typical Oregon rain and clouds paired with only a few days of high temperatures. “I genuinely had no idea it would ever be like that in Eugene.” Harris says that all the buildings have air conditioning in her home state of Texas, so people don’t worry about overheating as much. During the recent heat wave in the Pacific Northwest, she says, it was actually about 30-35 degrees cooler in Houston. Harris had never been in 111-degree weather that early in the summer. The World Weather Attribution Group reported that the occurrence of such intense heat waves was “virtually impossible” without climate change, citing that greenhouse gas emissions made the event at least 150 times more likely to occur. Though the exact mechanisms that led to 2021’s record-breaking heat waves are unknown, present theories point to a link between heat waves and climate change. Scientists stress that these environmental extremes aren’t going away and that soon they may not even qualify as anomalies anymore. UO alum Ezra Samuels, who graduated in 2021, quickly set out to find an air conditioning unit as the heat wave arrived. After searching multiple stores, they had no such luck. Samuels says local stores were unequipped to handle the sudden surge in demand for air conditioning units and that devices sold out rapidly. They also checked online and saw that units available online were so sought after that prices skyrocketed past $600 and into the thousands. “Folks tend to not care about those of us who don’t have a lot of money,” Samuels says. People always assume that Samuels’ parents help them pay for their housing because of their age, but they’ve been paying their own rent since they turned 18. Samuels says that they cannot afford the $800 a month
As summer temperatures become more and more dangerous due to climate change, the need for accommodation and public policy change is imminent.
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student housing that has amenities like a dishwasher and air conditioning — and, as a result, has lived in “really sketchy houses that were kind of falling apart.” Primary air conditioning is uncommon in local apartment buildings as well, with only the most expensive options, like major apartments near campus, advertising it as an amenity. American Community Campuses owns three student apartment complexes located on Franklin Boulevard, all of which have air conditioning. Units start at $600 for shared bedrooms, and the price steadily increases, averaging $1,078 per unit and topping at $1,629 for a private apartment. Alongside an array of other amenities, the apartments advertise air conditioning and rooftop swimming pools — a stark contrast to less expensive unfurnished housing like the properties offered by local rental company Chinook Properties, which averages $562 per unit. Students and alumni who cannot afford the steep prices of luxury apartments face dangerous health hazards. Poor air circulation can also cause heat-related health issues, and public planners and construction workers didn’t anticipate the intense heat that the Pacific Northwest would face. UO alum Abigail Hall, who graduated in 2020, says her apartment in Eugene had “zero AC and zero circulation.” As a result, she says she suffered low-grade heat exhaustion most days during the summer, which manifested as increased body temperature, brain fog and constant fatigue. Hall took up the issue with her leasing center, who brushed off her concerns. “They were like, ‘Oh, well you face east, so you get sunlight all morning,’ and ‘You’re on the fourth floor and heat rises, so yeah, it’s going to be hot. Maybe get a fan?’” But even with a fan and numerous damp washcloths, Hall was unable to escape the heat and the hazards it posed to her health. Buri McDonald, the communications specialist at local medical network PeaceHealth Oregon, expressed concerns about the impact of the heat waves on the public’s health. “Between June 25 and June 27, 2021, Emergency Departments at PeaceHealth hospitals in Springfield and Eugene saw about 15 cases of heat-related illness,” she says. “That’s much higher than normal.” The online PeaceHealth information library says that hyperthermia (a high body temperature) can develop quickly in extremely hot environments and small spaces with poor ventilation and circulation. Additionally, “people who live in cities are especially vulnerable to illness during a heat wave because heat is trapped by tall buildings and air pollutants,” PeaceHealth reports. The Lane County Climate Advisory Committee reports that average summer temperatures will increase 10-12 degrees by 2100. These hotter temperatures will disproportionately af-
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fect the health of vulnerable populations, including the very young, elderly and families in poverty. The projected increase in temperature has prompted a need to reassess infrastructure and cooling resources by the local government. Eugene-based climate strategist Mark Nystrom reports that the local Board of Commissioners is currently drafting the Lane County Climate Action Plan. “Housing is definitely an issue throughout the county,” Nystrom says. “Our next plan will be focused on building climate resilience, which will include the built environment and many other things.” In this context, climate resilience refers to identifying and implementing strategies that will help the community adapt to a changing climate. A large aspect of the climate resilience plan zeroes in on local buildings and energy, reviewing energy used in Eugene’s residential, commercial and industrial buildings. The intent is to reduce energy use in existing buildings and new construction, expand the use of renewable energy and prepare buildings for climate change.
"I genuinely had no idea it would ever be like that in Eugene"
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“I just think it’s something that should’ve been focused on a lot during last fall so we could figure most of it out before winter and summer,” Harris says, adding that she hopes the city will genuinely make residential temperature regulation a priority so people won’t have to suffer through another heat-soaked summer. This summer’s climate-change-induced heat waves pushed some UO students and alumni to identify the necessary actions to stay safe at home in the coming years. And young Eugene residents are not without ideas for solutions. Harris wants required air conditioning in apartment buildings and leased homes. Samuels would like UO to provide cooling centers and to fundraise for students to get portable air conditioning. Samuels also wants legal parameters for public safety set, specifically regarding how much local retailers can raise prices of fans and air conditioning units during a surge in demand. As summer temperatures become more and more dangerous due to climate change, the need for accommodation and public policy change is increasingly necessary. “It would be really wise of Eugene to make some decisions on helping residents here in the future,” Harris says. “Because if things keep going the way they have been, the next few summers will probably be worse.”
Written by Cole Sinanian I Photographed by Amalia Birch I Illustrated by Nick Guzman
Language is culture
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Lling u a ye Cu l t u r a An endangered language in northwestern Spain vies for a place in contemporary society after centuries of repression and marginalization.
N
ight comes slowly in Asturias. In Oviedo, the region’s capital, situated near the coast of the Bay of Biscay in northwestern Spain, the summer sun doesn’t set until close to 10 p.m. Around 7 p.m., low gray clouds roll in, blanketing the surrounding green mountains and accentuating the illuminated spire of the 1200-year-old Cathedral of San Salvador at the hilly city’s center. As the hours pass and the sky darkens, the narrow streets fill with hungry Ovetenses meandering their way to their favorite restaurants and sidrerias — drinking establishments that serve Asturian sidra, an alcoholic cider made from the region’s 500 varieties of sour apples. They stay until well past midnight, chatting, drinking and smoking with friends after a long day of work. As in each of Spain’s 17 autonomous communities, a shared cultural experience is an integral part of the regional identity. And, like its cuisine, art or architecture, Asturian culture is intimately entwined with the local Asturian language. Subtle reminders of the language’s influence are scattered throughout
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Oviedo. Many of the restaurants and sidrerias that line the city’s pedestrian-only avenues have restrooms marked “homes” and “muyeres,” Asturian for “men” and “women.” During lunch hour, which lasts from 1 to 3 p.m., one might catch a group of paisanos (native Asturians) inside a packed cafe, shouting “me presta!” (“I like it!”) to their waiters as they hunch over their steaming bowls of fabada — a rich Asturian bean stew that’s slow-cooked with chunks of bacon and blood sausage. At a checkered-floored rock ‘n’ roll bar along Oviedo’s youth corridor, customers are greeted upon entry by a lifesize photograph of Joey Ramone with a white surgical mask taped over his mouth. Pasted next to Ramone is a cardboard speech bubble that says, “pon la mascarilla, no me seas fatu,” a Spanish-Asturian hybrid sentence meaning, “don’t be dumb to me, put on your mask.” But the ancient language of Asturiano — or Asturianu as it is spelled in Asturian — has fought an uphill battle in recent years to maintain its relevance in a country where
The Lagos de Covadonga are two lakes that sit high in the Picos de Europa mountains about a 30-minute drive from the town of Covadonga. The beautiful green landscape is covered with cows, sheep and goats which roam the mountains and create a symphony from the clanging bells around their necks.
Castilian Spanish has become the dominant language of business, politics and education. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization classifies Asturian as “definitely endangered” on its Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger, meaning that most children born in Asturias no longer learn the language as their mother tongue. As the number of native speakers dwindles, Asturian writers and educators fight deeply-rooted social stigmas to save a language that they see as essential to preserving the cultural legacy. Xulio Viejo Fernández, a writer who publishes novels and poetry in Asturian and a researcher in the University of Oviedo’s linguistics department, has experienced the clash between Spanish and Asturian firsthand. He says a power imbalance exists between the two languages because many of the community’s citizens, particularly those living in urban areas, view Asturian as an improper way of speaking — fit only for casual conversation among rural farmers. “It’s this idea that Asturian is an inferior language,” he says. “That it’s the property of ignorant, uneducated people.” Viejo grew up in Oviedo, where he was raised by Asturian parents who immersed him in Asturian language and culture at home while he learned Spanish in school. He says that growing up, he quickly realized the prejudice
against Asturian speakers through interactions with his teachers and classmates. He recalls being insulted by a teacher in front of his class for answering a question in Asturian and being bullied on the playground by other students for speaking his native tongue. “If one’s in school and they let slip an Asturian expression,” he says, “they might be punished by their teacher or, more commonly, like in my case, ridiculed in front of the entire class.” Viejo says he remembers teachers who’d mockingly address students in Asturian for speaking the language in class, usually in a sarcastic tone of voice meant to elicit laughter from the other students. He says he’s also heard testimonies from older Asturians, who were students decades prior to him, who claim they were physically abused by their teachers when they used Asturian vocabulary. Teachers would slap children’s ears, hit them on the hand with rulers and force them to stand for the duration of the class, he says.
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During Viejo’s years in primary school in the 1970s and 1980s, he says it was common for teachers to condescendingly correct students who swapped Spanish words for Asturian — like the Asturian term “ye” in place of the Spanish term “es” (both words meaning “is”). “The correction could be more or less friendly,” he says. “But other times, they’d make a fool of the child by presenting him to his classmates as ignorant or backward.” This was more common in the past, he says, but the effects of this prejudice are still felt today. Instances like these are one of the reasons why the Asturian language is at risk of disappearing entirely, according to Viejo. Many native Asturian speakers grow up speaking the language at home but quickly internalize a feeling of shame as a reaction to the way non-speakers sometimes perceive it, leading them to abandon their language entirely. In larger cities, he says, nearly all business and education is conducted in Spanish, meaning that native Asturian speakers must be able to speak perfect Spanish if they want to find a job. Additionally, public schools in Asturias primarily offer classes in Spanish, aside from a few that offer elective courses in Asturian, so anything that deviates from proper Spanish spelling and pronunciation is considered wrong. Ramón d’Andrés Díaz, a professor at the University of Oviedo’s Spanish philology department and a member of Oviedo’s Academy of the Asturian Language, says the majority of native Asturian speakers — which he defines as anyone who learned to speak the language as a child — are older people who live in rural areas and earn their livings through blue-collar jobs in industries like fishing or agriculture. He says that as time goes on, the Asturian spoken among native speakers is increasingly influenced by Spanish through the borrowing of vocabulary and sentence structure, which he says is a threat to its preservation as a distinct language. “It is a recessive language that exists unevenly with Spanish,” d’Andrés Díaz says. “Its use among young people is declining, and it is in danger of disappearing.” According to d’Andrés Díaz, the decline of the Asturian language began with the Castilian conquest of Asturias in the 14th century. At the time, the Kingdom of Castile — which eventually gave way to the current autonomous community of Castile and Leon, located directly to the south of Asturias — was one of the most powerful monarchies in the Iberian Peninsula and was beginning to expand its reach into the neighboring regions. Castilian politicians and wealthy elites brought their language and customs with them as they settled in Asturias, a process which d’Andrés Díaz refers to as “castilianization.”
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As t ur ias, Spain
Castilian Spanish continued its spread throughout the ruling class during the following centuries but did not have the same effect on the general population, he says, leaving Asturian to be forever associated with the lower rungs of the social ladder.
Viejo sees the Asturian government’s failure to officialize its language as partially a result of a weaker societal connection in Asturias between the language and the community’s sense of cultural pride compared to other autonomous communities.
“This process affected the social use of the language throughout the 20th century,” d’Andrés Díaz says. “It’s what makes Asturian a minority language today.”
“In other territories, there was a much stronger sense of nationalism linked to the language as a way of establishing their autonomy,” he says. “But in Asturias, we were more repressed in that sense; there was never a nationalist consciousness that strong like in Catalonia or the Basque Country.”
After the death of Francisco Franco — who ruled Spain under a fascist regime from the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939 until his death in 1975 — and Spain’s subsequent transition to democracy, some of the country’s autonomous communities officialized their local languages as a way to assert their cultural identity, Viejo says. In an effort to homogenize Spanish society, Franco’s fascist government made Spanish the nation’s only official language and heavily repressed the use of local regional languages, like Asturian, Basque, Galician and Catalan, imposing censorship laws to discourage the publication of songs, art and literature in anything other than Spanish. The Spanish constitution has since granted official status to any local language that receives official status from its respective autonomous community’s government, at which point it becomes a required subject in public school curriculum. According to d’Andrés Díaz, this is the case for Basque, Galician and Catalan, but not Asturian because the Parliament of Asturias has yet to designate Asturian as one of the community’s official languages. “It’s still possible,” d’Andrés Díaz says, “But it must first be approved by the Asturian Parliament, and the Asturian Parliament has never wanted to approve it.”
He also says that in the wake of the country’s 2008 financial crisis, the government’s priority has been more focused on economic recovery rather than cultural and linguistic preservation, meaning that the officialization of the Asturian language relatively carries less weight. Viejo says close to one-third of the Asturian population can speak the language, which is about 300,000 people. However, he says this number can be misleading because every Asturian speaker uses the language differently. Some speak only at home with their families, while others grew up speaking the language but stopped as they got older, meaning they can understand the language but struggle to speak fluently. Viejo says some abandon the language in their youth due to social pressures outside the home, then regain a sense of pride for their Asturian identity during adulthood and begin speaking it again to their Asturian friends and family members. While northern Spain’s history has forced some native Asturians away from their mother tongue, the language survives partly through elective courses taught in Asturian public schools. Alba Carballo is a native Asturian speaker and
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Besides its language, food and landscape, Asturias is also known for its cows. An Asturian Mountain cattle eats from the side of a tree beside one of the Lakes of Covadonga as visitors rest under the shade. These cows are so famous in Asturias that gift shops in Oviedo are filled with magnets, cups and stuffed souvenirs of the animal.
former student of Viejo’s who currently teaches Asturian language and literature classes at a public high school in Gijón, an industrial coastal city about 15 miles north of Oviedo. Students in Asturias are required to learn a second language in school, so, Carballo says, many of them choose to learn Asturian because it’s closer to them and their heritage than languages from other countries. “Most of them say that they want to learn more about the culture and that they want to learn what their ancestors lived through,” she says. “They want to keep the flame of the Asturian language alive.” Carballo says that out of 400 students at the school she teaches at, there are currently about 90 students taking her Asturian classes. While there is little variation between rural and urban areas in the number of students who take Asturian language classes, she says that younger, elementary school-aged students are learning Asturian than older students. Carballo says this could result from parents encouraging their children to switch to more “useful” languages, like French, German or English, as they get older. To Viejo, the Asturian culture cannot exist as it is without the Asturian language. While art, literature, cuisine, architecture and other cultural artifacts will have a place in society regardless of how many people can still speak the language, it’s the language that gives a human voice to the shared cultural experience. “It’s all one part of the same experience,” he says. “Language is culture, and culture is language. You cannot separate them.” Like Viejo, Carballo says that Asturian culture cannot exist as it does today without a segment of the population actively speaking the language. The language, she says, provides a living reminder of the ways things once were: a testament to the history of modern-day Asturias. “It’s keeping the culture alive,” Carballo says. “Losing the language would be to lose an intangible heritage.”
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Dance as an Xcape In a predominantly white community, Xcape Dance Academy is a safe space for marginalized individuals to come together and dance. Written by Nika Bartoo-Smith I Photographed by Ilka Sankari
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room full of people move their hips, stomp their feet and sway their arms in time to upbeat music. Everyone is in workout clothes and dancing with looks of dual intensity and focus, watching themselves in the wall of mirrors in front of them. Leading the movements and providing words of encouragement in front of the class is Vanessa Fuller, Xcape Dance Academy’s founder. Xcape Dance Academy dance studio offers classes with styles rooted in the African diaspora, like jazz and hip-hop, to people of all ages and levels — from toddlers to adults and beginners to professionals. The studio focuses on creating a safe and inclusive space for people of all different backgrounds in Eugene. Fuller says Xcape is both a studio and a community. Living in Eugene as a young Black girl, Fuller says she was not surrounded by people that looked like her. Eugene’s population is less than 2% Black and almost 84% white, according to the 2010 census. Fuller says that it can be challenging to feel comfortable being a dancer of color when surrounded by mostly white dancers and studio owners. “Being in Eugene and being a person of color is very difficult,” Fuller says. “This community is racist.”
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At 3-years-old, Fuller went to her mother and told her she wanted to learn to tap dance, and she has not stopped dancing ever since. For her, dance was the only place she felt like she belonged. While she loved tap dancing, Fuller remembers not having many spaces in Eugene where she could practice hip hop, a style of dance that she had become interested in from watching MTV dance videos while growing up. Many studios primarily offered ballet and modern dance classes. Fuller honors her roots by practicing styles of dance rooted in the African diaspora, which Fuller says most studios in Eugene did not offer. And when she created a space, she says she remembers other dancers and Eugene locals seeing it as too “raunchy.” “At first, the challenges had a lot to do with the way my body moved naturally on the dance end,” Fuller says. “There were white people doing that here, and then when I started doing it, it was a huge fucking deal.” In 2012, Fuller applied to teach hip-hop at her alma mater, the University of Oregon, but was rejected because she didn’t have a master’s degree. When Fuller applied to get her master’s degree to comply with the requirements, she was denied. Fi-
Vanessa Fuller, founder of Xcape Dance Academy, started her businesses at a time in her life when she needed community. Fuller says, “the best way that I have always known to build community is through dance.”
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Fuller dances “to be free” and founded Xcape with that guiding principle. To Fuller, the studio is a space where people can come together to experience that freedom through dance.
nally, once UO asked her to teach a class, it was cut from lack of funding. Fuller decided to start her own studio in Eugene to create the space she wished she had when she was younger. The studio focuses on teaching “street style of dance,” according to the website. “Providing that space for all kids is my debt to the world,” Fuller says. “In this town, I have had to create my own space and kind of wait for people to catch on to it.” Kayla Damo, a senior at New Hope Christian College, is grateful that Fuller made Xcape a safe space. She has been teaching at the studio since she moved to Eugene from Hawaii in 2018. Xcape is a unique place because of the community created there, Damo says. For her, it is the only place in Eugene that has felt like home. Damo is also on the Xcape dance team, where she met some of her closest friends. According to Damo, the team feels like a family, bonding outside the studio by doing activities together like occasional Sunday brunches. “Xcape is not just another studio,” Damo says. She says that Xcape functions as a community, too. Fuller encourages all of her students and instructors to be advocates for the broader Eugene community, she says, from supporting the Black Lives Matter movements to standing against anti-Asian hate.
Former Xcape dance instructor Drea Smith says she did not realize the importance of a safe space until she left her old company to join Xcape. Smith moved to Eugene and first started professionally dancing at a white-owned dance studio, where she felt tokenized as one of the only Black women in the class. For Smith, part of what makes Xcape a unique and safe space is that it fosters a sense of community specifically for people of color. Growing up in LA, surrounded by Black culture, it was a culture shock to come to a city as white as Eugene, Smith says. Smith grew up learning to dance in the kitchen with her mom, the music of James Brown guiding their steps. Even though she loved to dance, she never took classes in a dance studio as a kid because her family could never afford it. Because of this, Smith says, she has conversations with the students at Xcape about privilege and dance. “As a Black woman not afraid to be different and be who I am, that’s damn near nonexistent in Eugene,” Smith says. “Xcape has always been my safe space.” Smith talks to her students about access and her own experience with money as a barrier from dance. She says she’s inspired by the scholarships that Fuller gives out and has had many students who had never taken a dance class before because they were always too expensive.
Smith grew up learning to dance in the kitchen with her mom, the music of James Brown guiding their steps.
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While Xcape’s prices are comparable to other studios, $12 for a drop-in class, Fuller does everything she can so that money is not a barrier for any of her students. Fuller says she offered over $10,000 in scholarships in 2019 to ensure that dancing at her studio was accessible to everyone. But Xcape teacher Christopher Dean says that Fuller offers community in more spiritual ways too. Dance, according to Dean, is about more than just the choreography but also a way to heal and work through trauma. Dean moved to Eugene five years ago, and he has been teaching dance at Xcape ever since. Dean says he often comes to class anxious or stressed about the outside world and notices this in his students. He says some students might be dealing with loss, the foster care system or school struggles, which have been exacerbated over the last year-and-a-half of social and emotional isolation. But once everyone is in class, he says, dance becomes a form of therapy that lets everyone forget their stresses. “It kind of just suspends reality for that whole one hour,” Dean says. “It’s an incredible feeling to feel like despite everything going on, you achieved something, and you focused, and you pushed yourself in class.” During the COVID-19 pandemic and the multiple waves of quarantine lockdowns, Xcape offered Zoom classes for students before businesses opened back up for in-person activities. Fuller says that the hardest part of the pandemic was the impact on the Xcape community’s mental health. She also says that students didn’t want to dance over Zoom because there’s less energy exchanged between the instructor and other dancers. In response to the pandemic and the mental health toll it took on her students, Fuller created a teen mentorship program. The group meets at least once a week for her students to talk about issues that may arise in dance and beyond. While Xcape is a dance studio, Fuller says that it is also a place of holistic healing. Overall, Fuller says her goal is for all students to leave Xcape feeling confident not only in their dancing but in all aspects of their lives. “Xcape creates leaders,” Fuller says. “There are people who come out of this studio empowered to do the things that they do best.”
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Xcape instructor Christopher Dean (left) and his class fill the studio with energy during their Tuesday night session. Dean 2021 | 31 says Xcape is a safe place. “In an age where everyone’s self-conscious, I try to encourageFALL them to let| itETHOS go,” Dean says.
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Forest debris and logged trees sit at the base of a scorched forest next to the Mckenzie River near the Leaburg Dam. Nearly a year after the Holiday Farm Fire tore through the Blue River community, evidence of its destruction can still be found in the blackened trees and barren home foundations left behind by those displaced by the fire.
Wildfire trauma continues to impact people affected by the Holiday Farm Fire.
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Written by Noah Camuso I Photographed by Collin Bell
alerie J. Brooks was working on her third novel on June 28, 2021 when the lights flickered. All summer, she watched with unease as the vegetation on her property turned yellow and brittle in the summer heat. On a windy day like this one, she was on edge. The lights shut off, and she pulled herself away from the computer. She rushed to the nearest window and looked outside to see a plume of white smoke rolling over her yard. It triggered a panic attack. Immediately, she felt her heart rate quicken. Her mouth went dry, and she began to sweat. “I felt the same way that I did when I picked up the phone and our family doctor told me my dad had shot himself,” Brooks says. “You want to scream, and you can't.” A small fire started in the corner of her property. Brooks was used to being the person that holds everything together in emergency situations, but this time she couldn’t clear her head. Brooks is one of many people who developed symptoms of PTSD from the Holiday Farm Fire. On Sept. 7, 2020, the Holiday Farm Fire started and burned over 173,000 acres and several towns along the McKenzie River, according to InciWeb. Many lost their homes and barely escaped with their lives. Today, whenever the wind picks up, when Brooks smells smoke or when an emergency vehicle wails past her house, it can bring her back to one of the worst days of her life. Her fear of wildfire is not unfounded. According to the National Interagency Fire Center, wildfires in the United States have been increasing in size and severity each year. The Oregon Office of Emergency Management reported that, last year, the Labor Day fires burned over 1 million acres — double the 10-year average — forcing more than 40,000 people to evacuate their homes. According to the 2021 Oregon Wildfire
Response Overview, as of Aug. 26, wildfires in Oregon have already burned more than 213,000 acres this year. The physical impact of wildfire is only part of the devastation. In one 2016 case study, wildfire evacuees were found to have high levels of insomnia and severe symptoms of depression, and roughly 60% of those affected met the criteria for PTSD. Another study found that symptoms of PTSD were prevalent in 30% to 40% of direct victims of disasters. Over the last year, people traumatized by the Holiday Farm Fire in Vida, Leaburg and Blue River, Oregon have been coping with the permanent psychological impact of the fire. Some people experience panic attacks, night terrors and depression, while others find themselves crying when it doesn’t make sense. For Brooks, recovery has been slow and complicated. At first, she threw herself into finding housing for other evacuees, rarely leaving her computer. According to Dr. Mary Schoenfeldt, a traumatologist who worked with communities affected by the Holiday Farm Fire, staying busy by helping people is a common coping mechanism for people in the immediate aftermath of a disaster. “If I give my time and energy, then I’m not forced to be immersed in the grief and loss yet,” Schoenfeldt says. “When it’s the right time, you can shift to a quieter place. You slow down and it catches up.” The devastation of the Holiday Farm Fire began to weigh on Brooks within a few months. She didn’t want to talk to anyone, she couldn’t keep track of time and she had trouble sleeping. Writing was always an escape for her, but she couldn’t focus on her notes. After working with the McKenzie River communities immediately after the Holiday Farm Fire, Schoenfeldt has been
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Valerie Brooks stands in front of burned foliage at the edge of her three-acre property along Highway 126 in Walterville, Oregon. On June 28, 2021, a brush fire, caused by a tree branch falling into the power line, ignited at 4:59 p.m. Local community members and fire fighters extinguished the fire before it spread beyond her property. Photo and caption courtesy of Eden McCall.
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tight-knit, rural communities tend to have a high level of community resilience because they’re more willing to depend on their neighbors. following up with the community, analyzing how individual recovery affects a community’s ability to heal. Schoenfeldt frequently sees posts in Facebook groups indicating the communities still recovering are “hypersensitive” during the 2021 fire season. Brooks says the same thing. “People up here are just on edge. We try not to be, but we're going to be going through this all summer.” Brooks says. “We are still dealing with a drought. There's still a lot of green that can go.” When the fire started on Brooks’ property that day in June, she and her husband immediately heard shouting and screeching tires. She says that six to ten community members barreled into her yard with their tools to help contain the fire before it spread to her home. According to Dana Burwell, the battalion chief and former fire chief for McKenzie Fire and Rescue, the fire started when the limb of a maple tree blew into the power lines on Brooks’s property. The wind was blowing, and it spread quickly in the dry grass. While her neighbors beat the fire back, Brooks called 911. Within minutes, McKenzie Fire and Rescue was dispatched. “It was probably six minutes before McKenzie Fire had a truck on scene,” Burwell says. “The remarkable thing was that during those six minutes, the neighbors came out in force.” Without the effort of the community, Burwell says the fire could’ve been up to four times larger and easily could have spread to Brooks’ home. As a firefighter, Burwell has not developed PTSD, but he says the Holiday Farm Fire was emotionally draining for him. Burwell was involved in protecting McKenzie High School from the Holiday Farm Fire, and he grew up on the McKenzie River. “When I drive up river now and look at all those homes, I just flash back to that next morning when I was driving down
river and everything was on fire,” Burwell says. “All my friends' homes were on fire, and there was nothing I could do about it.” While the firefighters finished putting the fire out, Brooks stood back and watched. “My neighbor Debbie from across the street came up behind me and gave me a hug and we just stood there holding each other,” Brooks says. “Those people who put out the fire probably saved another major fire up here. And those are our neighbors. That's the way this place is.” Brooks says she is recovering over time. When she has an anxiety attack, she tries to control her breathing and slow her heart rate down, which brings her mind to a more rational place. She says that it helps to do normal, everyday things, and that her husband, Daniel Connors, supports her with his sense of humor. Connors says he never questions his wife’s judgement. “We’ll go and do whatever she feels necessary to do,” Connors says. “I can make it happen.” Schoenfelt says that tight-knit, rural communities tend to have a high level of community resilience because they’re more willing to depend on their neighbors. She’s interested in the ways that the McKenzie River Communities support each other on social media. There are several active Facebook groups that are designed to help people talk about their mental health and keep each other posted on fire activity. Often, they’ll tell each other why emergency vehicles are in the area to help mitigate potential triggers. “What I see in disasters everywhere is the communities that have the strength ahead of time. They're already connected like this,” Schoenfeldt says. “You can knock them down. But, you know what, you're not going to tear them apart.” AUDIO STORY ON ETHOSMAGONLINE.COM
Andy Carrino, a Blue River resident, stands in front of his red van. Carrino lived in his van for 43 days after the Holiday Farm fire destroyed his home. On September 8, 2020, the first night of the fire, Carrino and his wife left their home in a frenzy around midnight, after the fire spread to the hillside behind their house. Carrino says, “the next morning, we woke up in our van with my parrot, my dog, my wife in front of my son’s house, and I leaned over and wished her a happy 25th anniversary.” 36 | ETHOS | FALL 2021
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Ayisha Elliott, the woman behind the podcast “Black Girl From Eugene,” started her podcast in 2018. Since its inception, Elliott’s podcast has garnered over 1,600 followers on Facebook; one recent podcast entry titled “Are White Business’ Actually Ready?” received over 12,000 views.
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“Black Girl from Eugene” Ayisha Elliott uses her podcast and programs to fill the void she felt growing up in Eugene — she aims to create safe spaces for BIPOC to be heard in her hometown.
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Written by Kate Jacques Prentice I Photographed by Collin Bell
rowing up in Eugene was “contentious” for Ayisha Elliott. In a city where only 1.56% of the population is Black, she often experienced racism in school, and she didn’t feel valued or listened to by a predominantly white city. Elliot moved away when she was 15, and when she moved back to Eugene at 31, she says, she was met with police violence and the same ostracism she felt when she was younger. Elliott took that lifetime of experience and turned it into motivation to make herself heard and make Eugene a better place for its Black community. “I was never anything more than a Black girl from Eugene,” she says. “And now, being a Black girl from Eugene, I wasn’t going to be silenced. I wasn’t going to be shut out. My words mattered. And what I had to say about just living while Black in the Pacific Northwest wasn’t just my story, but it’s a lot of silenced people’s story.” Elliott runs her podcast “Black Girl From Eugene,” leads the cultural mentorship program Nurturing BLACK and heads Kids For The Culture, which teaches middle school and high school students through Black experiences in the U.S. All programs address the racial tensions that fester in a predominantly white community. “I know from research and from self and lived experience, your self-identity is so crucial. In middle school, if you’re not being fed positivity about your identity, it’s a struggle. It could be a lifelong struggle,” she says. Here’s what Eliott had to say to Ethos about her experience in Eugene and her work since moving back seven years ago.
Kate: What was your experience growing up in Eugene? Ayisha: My parents are from St. Louis — both of them are. And they had moved here in the early 70s. So there [weren’t] a lot of Black folks in town. Me or my sister were the only Black people in the school or in the class. We, at one point, moved to Cottage Grove, where we were the only Black family. Growing up here was contentious. I mean, I had a bicultural experience where, at home, we were very Black-centered, Black consciousness, Afro-centric. Outside of home, where at school, my friends and anyone else other than my family were extremely based [at the] core in white supremacist culture. So I had to navigate both roles, and they don’t mix well. I could tell stories of all of the racial incidents that I encountered before the fourth grade. I was called the N-word. I’ve been spit on. I had to fight my way out of things. Even now, when I talk to younger kids — I work with younger kids as well — they have similar stories. So it hasn’t changed a whole lot. I have changed a whole lot. And I’ve only lived here until I was 15. And then I moved away. So, right in those formative years, I was swept away to several different cultural experiences. And I didn’t come back to Eugene until I was like 31, 32. K: So would you say then that you were able to bring your experience from outside of Eugene back and then into your podcast? A: Okay, yes! There’s lots of things that happen to you, as a developing young Black girl around this culture, that tells you everything about you is either negative, bad or inappropriate. You might be smart, and you might be pretty, and you might be all those things, but you get to sit in the back of class.
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AUDIO STORY ON ETHOSMAGONLINE.COM
We’re not gonna listen to you, and we don’t really care. And we think that your body is kind of gross. And it’s fodder for identity crisis. It’s fodder for depression. It’s fodder for all of these things.
to your door and be like, ‘Hey, we disagree with you.’ Just say what you mean and send it out there. That’s what it was. And it just has grown from there.
So, when I moved away at 15, everywhere I went was Black and Brown culture. So, I got to discover myself in a different lens. And there was edification and value-boosting from my surroundings that I had never seen or heard from peers here. And so, when you start to see yourself in other people, you’re represented in the culture around you, you start to be able to reimagine yourself. Coming out of Eugene and coming back into Eugene, it’s very, very evident what’s missing. But “Black Girl From Eugene” manifested from an experience that — even after I moved away and I came back — there was still a piece of me that thought I could work with and be seen by white people here in Oregon as valuable.
K: Reflecting on your impact with “Black Girl From Eugene” and Nurturing BLACK, is there any advice or parting thoughts you have?
When I came here, I was actually assaulted by Eugene Police Department and was essentially beat up on my front porch when I was trying to help and protect my son who was in a crisis at the time. My children were upstanding students and athletic, you know, leaders and academic leaders, and my family was this cultural family in Eugene, and we just were that thing. We were respected, are respected, in this community. And I got beat up on my front porch and treated like a criminal when I was doing nothing wrong. And when I spoke to them, I was actually trying to talk to the police officers as if we could have a dialogue about what was going to happen. And then I was physically beat up so badly it took me four years to recover. That is where “Black Girl From Eugene” came from. Because I realized at that place in my recovery that part of the problem was I thought that those police officers, and I thought the city, would be able to hear me. I was never anything more than a Black girl from Eugene. And now, being a Black girl from Eugene, I wasn’t going to be silenced. I wasn’t going to be shut out. My words mattered. And what I had to say about just living while Black in the Pacific Northwest wasn’t just my story, but it’s a lot of silenced people’s story. A part of my healing that I decided to do for myself was that I would record how I felt about things. And I would never edit it. And I would just send it out into the wave. Which meant that I couldn’t take it back. Don’t be afraid of what people think about it. Don’t be afraid of what people might come
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A: Just have a conversation that actually involves your personal, lived experience and your personal opinions and biases around racism before you try to create the space, right? It’s very important that you are not only convinced yourself that it’s the right thing to do, but that it’s something that’s important for your life personally — and that you’re not doing it for something else, not for someone else, but for something else because a culture is what we’re trying to create, right? An antiracist culture, which means you got to buy in. You [have] to be able to say ‘I’m willing to be uncomfortable,’ and ‘I’m willing to decenter whiteness so that access and resources can be a complete global circumstance.’ That part, if you’re not having those conversations, come see me, and we can totally do that.” Programs such as Nurturing BLACK, Kids For The Culture and the Black Girl From Eugene podcast offer a space to learn, improve and act. Cassi Chambers, Elliott’s friend and hairstylist, is involved in Nurturing BLACK with her son. “She reminded me that this is not something that I can lead him in — because I can’t,” Chambers says. “And so, this is something he leads me through. I think everybody should take at least one class from her because if you take one, you’ll take two.” Emily Little, the founder and executive director of Nurturely, also works alongside Elliott in providing classes and resources for children and their caregivers. “Her energy is just so approachable and just so positive and so infectious in, you know, her passion for this work that for me and for the Nurturely team, I think that is what really makes her work come alive,” Little says. “And you know, she’s not sugarcoating it. She makes it approachable and accessible, but she’s not sugarcoating it.”
One of Elliott’s biggest motivators to continue her work is vulnerability. “It’s incredibly important to be radically vulnerable and radically honest,” Elliott says. To her, radical vulnerability and honesty are what make us human. FALL 2021 | ETHOS | 41
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n May 2021, Eugene resident Jayme Bradshaw lived under Washington-Jefferson Street in the Whiteaker neighborhood in Eugene. She lived in a tent, located on the eastmost side of the strip of park, right across the street from a free community fridge.
According to the Oregon Food Bank, there were around 66,750 food-insecure people in Lane County in 2020. Eugene Community Fridge, a new organization in Eugene, provides access to perishable goods, premade meals and fresh produce through neighborhood fridges available around Eugene.
Just a short walk away from Washington-Jefferson Park, the fridge was easily accessible to Bradshaw and other nearby residents. The fridge, painted an orange-pink hue with multicolored rainbow squiggles, had "free food" and "comida gratis" painted in big white letters on the front. Inside, the fridge contained perishable food and other necessities free for the taking.
Unlike other neighborhood free food locations in Eugene, the organization's fridges can sustain frozen and other perishable foods. Refrigerators allow people who experience food insecurity to access a broader selection of fresh and healthy options. Other donations, such as toiletries, cleaning supplies and gently used clothing, are also accepted by Eugene Community Fridge.
Bradshaw is still currently affected by food insecurity. While she primarily uses food stamps to pay for food, Bradshaw also used the free community fridge across from her camp once or twice a week to grab things like hotdogs, pizzas and salads. But now the fridge is gone.
Before Eugene Community Fridge, there weren't any wellknown locations in Eugene where individuals could access fresh and frozen food 24 hours a day with no questions asked.
Bradshaw has nerve damage, so it’s important for her to be close to food resources. Other free meal programs, like the FOOD For Lane County Dining Room, which is about half a mile from Bradshaw's camp, can be difficult for her to access. “Walking long distances is not a thing for me," Bradshaw says. "If I don't have my bike, I can't go anywhere.”
To keep its fridges stocked with foods, Eugene Community Fridge depends entirely on donations. Burrito Brigade, another local mutual-aid organization with a similar mission of feeding the hungry, helps Eugene Community Fridge by providing donated food for the fridges. Burrito Brigade receives much of its food through its Waste to Taste program, collaborating with local grocery stores, bakeries, restaurants, and farms that give it imperfect food.
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A free food pantry stands on the corner of West 4th and Madison street. The pantry is one of many free pantries around Eugene, each of which have a different design painted on it, that offer free food to Eugene residents.
one of the organization's biggest struggles is finding hosts for fridges Lane County's website says the county throws out 91 million pounds of food waste each year. But through the Waste to Taste program, food is sent to the pantries around Eugene rather than landfills. Eugene Community Fridge volunteers visit Burrito Brigade to pick up food from Waste to Taste five days a week. Besides donated food from Burrito Brigade's Waste to Taste program, Eugene Community Fridge also depends on resources donated and stocked by individual community members. Eugene resident Maya Ormsten stocks Eugene Community Fridge's fridges at least once a week. Ormsten says she's just doing her part for the community. "Food is a human right, and I think it's important to understand that there is so much food waste out there," Ormsten says. "Being able to redistribute food that would normally go to waste and provide it to folks who have restricted access to food — it's just important to be involved in that process." Eugene Community Fridge set up its first fridge in September 2020 at West 4th Avenue and Washington Street, right across the street from where Bradshaw would live a few months later. In October 2020, the organization set up a second fridge just outside the Janet-Smith house, a student cooperative for graduate students and non-traditional undergraduate students, at the busy intersection of 18th Avenue and Alder Street. KW Lau, who lives at the Janet-Smith house, says the decision to host the fridge was a unanimous agreement among the residents and is an easy way to give back to the community. Lau says she hopes the fridge is helpful to university students. Located in the middle of a university town, Lau says, many of their neighbors are students, and many of them are food-insecure. 44 | ETHOS | FALL 2021
A Eugene Community Fridge volunteer, who goes by Goose, fills the community fridge on 18th and Alder. Goose is the founder of Eugene Community Fridges and was inspired to start the program after seeing similar organizations in other cities.
According to the University of Oregon's Food Security Task Force, 36% of all enrolled students experience some level of food insecurity. To combat food insecurity among UO students, the University of Oregon's Student Sustainability Center hosts Produce Drop at the Erb Memorial Union Amphitheatre on campus, where students can select fresh fruits and vegetables to take home for free. According to the Student Sustainability Center's website page on food security, Produce Drops happen every Tuesday from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. A student's household income must be at or below twice the Federal Poverty Level to be eligible for the Produce Drop. The UO also hosts a food pantry. According to the Student Food Pantry Facebook page, on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. during the university's academic terms, students can get free canned and non-perishable foods. To use the food pantry, students must have their university ID.
Unlike the UO's Produce Drop and Student Food Pantry, the free fridge outside the Janet-Smith house is open and accessible 24 hours a day, every day, including holidays. Lau says that it's also unnecessary to show any ID or proof of need, which could be a barrier that people face with other resources. "The fridge is a less intimidating idea to access," Lau says. "Hopefully, we can reach out to the students here who need the food and can discreetly get it." Eugene Community Fridge depends on volunteers like Lau and the Janet-Smith house to serve as hosts to the fridges. The fridge needs easy access to a sidewalk and an electrical outlet, but Eugene Community FridgeEugene Community Fridge doesn't require any maintenance or upkeep from its hosts. According to Eugene Community Fridge, one of the organization's biggest struggles is finding hosts for fridges. Homeowners and businesses are often hesitant to host fridges out of fear of loitering, vandalism and property destruction. FALL 2021 | ETHOS | 45
On the corner of 18th and Alder sits a community fridge. The fridge was placed there in October 2020 by Eugene Community Fridges. Now, the fridge is filled weekly by volunteers with free and accessible food for anyone to take at any time.
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In April 2021, Eugene Community Fridge announced on its Instagram page that it would be taking down the free community fridge next to Bradshaw's camp at the corner of West 4th Avenue and Washington Street. According to Eugene Community Fridge, the host of the fridge could no longer accommodate it due to complaints from neighbors about litter and noise as a result of heavy foot traffic in and around the fridge location. A few days before the fridge near her camp was taken down, Bradshaw says she didn't know it was being removed, and its absence would significantly impact how she and other people in her camp accessed food. "So many people here, they don't have income," Bradshaw says. "I'm one of them, but I get food stamps. So, if it wasn't for things like that, they might not eat." The fridge near Bradshaw's camp was taken down in May 2021 — a month after the Instagram announcement. Since then, Eugene Community Fridge has not found a new host to accommodate the fridge. The organization has reached out to many of the businesses and churches near Washington-Jefferson Park but has been unsuccessful in recruiting a new host. Eugene Community Fridge worries that stigmas surrounding people experiencing homelessness may be contributing to apprehension about hosting a fridge. "What we really need is to educate folks on the importance of this kind of resource," a volunteer from Eugene Community Fridge, who asked to remain anonymous, says. "If you show love for people, and compassion, and show up for people, we would see more of a mutual respect between housed and unhoused folks." With the absence of a free fridge near Washington-Jefferson Park, Eugene Community Fridge says, volunteers still show up for Bradshaw and other individuals experiencing food insecurity to distribute food on foot five days a week, Monday through Friday. As Eugene Community Fridge continues to search for a new host, the organization says distributing food on foot is vital in preventing food waste and connecting individuals experiencing food insecurity with fresh, healthy food. "When you ain't got food over here, it's nice that somebody actually cares to provide that," Bradshaw says. In the future, Eugene Community Fridge plans to install more free fridges around Eugene and Springfield. With a fridge for every neighborhood, the organization hopes more individuals will be encouraged to both donate to and take from the fridges, preventing more food waste from entering landfills and ensuring more food insecure people can access fresh and healthy food.
"WHAT WE REALLY NEED IS TO EDUCATE FOLKS ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THIS KIND OF RESOURCE" FALL 2021 | ETHOS | 47
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