living in portland: the good, the bad and the ugly
Beautiful nature all around, a nice long summer, swimming in clean rivers, eating amazing food from local food trucks; You’ve heard me say it all in the previous blogs. Living in Portland can be a real treat! But usually on social media, you only see the good stuff. So today, I want to tell you about the things that have been hard. We all have the pandemic in common, so this blog will be more about the other factors that have made living here very difficult these past couple of months. Federal agents ‘guarding’ the streets of Portland, the longest ongoing protests in all of the U.S., and the wildfires that at this moment are still raging around.
Living in Portland in recent months has felt almost apocalyptic. We’re six months in the pandemic, three and a half months into the protests, and now you can add wildfires and natural disaster on top of that. People are getting to the point of getting worn out.”
- Lee Shaker, professor at PSU
so what the heck is going on in portland?
A lot of unrest and chaos was created when president Trump decided to send federal agents to Portland, because the situation was apparently ”out of control”. Portland had already seen months of consecutive protests; they didn’t skip a single night. As someone who has joined some of the marches early on, I could tell that there was growing frustration and anger amongst the people who were on the streets for justice. No defunding of the police and no reforms that people were pleading for definitely caused some of the protests to turn somewhat violent. But with such a large group of people, it is impossible for everyone to think and act the same way. Just because there were some riots and looting (mostly in the first couple of weeks) doesn’t absolve the purpose of the protests, which is rooted in years and years of oppression, fear and injustice.
When the federal agents took over the streets of Portland, the whole thing escalated. Before their arrival, a group of less than hundred people were protesting in front of the Justice Center (which became a symbolic place of protesting). After their arrival, this number grew to over a thousand again. It started an entirely new movement, with people traveling to Portland from other states to stand in solidarity. We saw ”the wall of moms” and ”the wall of grandparents” rise, as people started protesting the ‘occupation’ of Portland. Chants and banners changed into ”Feds Go Home” and the situation became more and more tense every day. It honestly felt like the city was under attack. Stories came out of unmarked vans and agents in cameo picking people up from the streets, and DHS was roaming around everywhere – not just in downtown or around federal buildings. With many different agencies working together, including ICE (immigration), I was afraid to go out alone or at night. The delay of the work permit due to Covid and immigration reforms has caused the immigration process to be almost shut down, and so I do not have any proper paperwork stating my rights as a foreign resident yet. While this is a story for another time, all I want to tell you guys is that it felt very unsafe for more than a month, which is a very strange feeling if you grew up in a relatively safe country.
what about the wildfires?
As many of you have heard in the news by now, California, Oregon and Washington (the Pacific Northwest) is suffering from huge wildfires – bigger and more than ever before. The biggest reason – climate change – is something I’m not getting into in this blog. Another reason is the lack of controlled or ritual burning. I listened to a podcast recently that explained the concept of ‘ritual burning’ and because I hadn’t heard of it before, I want to explain this to you guys. Ritual burning was done by Native Americans for many years before their land was taken from them. They were utilizing fire, controlled burning of pieces of land, to create a natural stop for the forest fires that would occur every year. In order for a fire to continue, it needs fuel. If you take away this fuel by burning pieces of land, the wildfires would have nowhere to go. Currently, a lot of these ritual burnings are prohibited and the land is now publicly owned, so the Natives do not have a say in the matter anymore. However, some states are communicating that they want these ritual burnings to come back, to help prevent large wildfires.
While the fires themselves were mostly spreading in South and West Oregon, the situation suddenly became very scary when two wildfires became one and reached Clackamas County within 24 hours. We have some friends living there, and Beavercreek is located in Clackamas County as well. This is where grandma lives, and where Sam and I got married. We saw on the news that they had started to evacuate these areas, so we were really worried about grandma. Luckily, she is okay and her house is safe from the fires now that rain has started to fall and the winds have changed direction.
This is unlike anything I’ve ever seen in my life. I’ve never seen anything like this in terms of the amount of uncertainty and chaos happening, and the endless panic people are feeling.”
- Ryan Haas, news editor at Oregon Public Broadcasting
It was a relief to hear that the fires were under control and many people were evacuated on time. The damage is huge and so many people have lost their houses. I can’t imagine how hard it must be to have been struggling for months in this pandemic with the lockdown and unemployment, as well as the health concerns, only to end up losing everything you own in wildfires. Many parts of Oregon are destroyed, entire towns are wiped off the map, and many still fear for the danger and destruction these fires leave behind. Portland was relatively close to the wildfires, which is a very unusual case. I have talked to many people who grew up here, and none of them have ever experienced something like this before. On September 10th, the mayor announced a State Of Emergency in Portland, and added some suburban neighborhoods not too far from the city to zone one: ”get ready for evacuation.”
The fires themselves are not the only safety hazard wildfires bring; The smoke (and specifically the fine particles PM2.5) is what has been the most problematic this last week. As you can see from the picture above, Portland turned from blue skies and sun into an apocalyptic smoke-filled grey sky and blood-red sun in just a couple of hours. The smoke also doesn’t really have anywhere to go, considering Portland’s geography being a valley. This past week, Portland consistently had the worst air quality in the entire world.
“Oregon’s air quality is so far beyond ‘hazardous’ that no one knows what it means for health.”
- Joseph Winters, writer for grist.org
All of a sudden, everything started to smell like smoke. We couldn’t keep it out of our apartment and got so desperate for fresh air – but there was nowhere to go. We had no choice but to sleep in it, and be in it 24 hours a day. It didn’t take long for us to notice the effects of it on our health; we struggled with headaches, teary eyes, irritated throat and a burning sensation in our lungs every time we took deep breaths. Where can you go when the very air you breathe is poisonous?
At the time of writing this blog, after 10 days of heavy smoke and an air quality that was higher than the measurement scale itself, I can finally see some blue skies in the distance. I had no idea I would ever feel so grateful for rain, wind and blue skies. To see the daylight again. For ten days Portland and its surrounding cities have been nothing but dark. Now it’s like the colors have returned and it’s pure happiness.
So let’s end this blog on a good note. Better times are coming. You know how I know that? Because it simple cannot get any worse than this. 2020 – you’ve been the shittiest year ever, but when we get through this we’ll be ready to take on anything!
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Marching on the Burnside Bridge
Tilikum Crossing at night
Bike trip to Sellwood Riverfront Park