Story and photos by Pete Shaw

FUCK YOU FOR MAKING ME BE HERE!

I recently saw those words on a sign at a rally demanding that Legacy Emanuel Medical Center’s management cease its collaboration with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE). At pretty much any time those words are pertinent, but they feel especially so at this moment when so often the what, where, when, and why do not matter much. With so much awfulness going around, the sign fits most contexts.

But people are rising up and resisting. Some resistance makes the news, but as usual the smaller acts are glossed over, ignored, or just rendered part of a scrapbook that years down the road may be seen as one of many actions that galvanized people into the most important force for resisting fascism: community.

Shortly after the rally, I made my way toward the Lents neighborhood. Friend Daisy had organized a “Whistle Kit Meetup” at the Shami Café on Southeast 72^nd Avenue. I am always happy seeing Daisy, and I am always up for seeing these smaller acts of resistance that in fact are never small. In this case, that smaller but still huge act was to bring together people to make whistle kits for alerting people when ICE agents have been spotted. I carry one with me at all times, and I have spares in my car and in my knapsack.

I have a poor sense of smell, but when I crossed the café’s threshold I discerned some of the aroma I associate with Iraqi food. And I feel pretty good about that when I see that in one respect I am only off by a border imposed by France and Britain in the early 1920s. Syrian food on the menu here.

So is solidarity. I spot Daisy at a table across from where the food is prepared. She is with four other people. On the table are some small plastic bags, many pieces of yarn cut to about the same length, informational pamphlets, and of course, whistles. As a firm believer in the dictum that any turnout with one or more people is a great turnout, I smile under my N95 mask. A good job by Daisy who greets me, as she often does, with a blast of exuberance.

“This is fantastic,” I tell her.

She smiles, takes me aside to thank me for coming, and then leads me to the back dining area. It is packed with people, children and adults, sitting around tables with more bags, yarn, pamphlets, and whistles. Around the room are also boxes with completed kits. When I leave, 1,300 of these kits will have been put together, ready for distribution. And judging by the plates of food people are noshing from, both their appetites for justice and food will, at least for a time, be sated.

Kimberléa’s salad looks lovely. They highly recommend it. When I asked why they are here, Kimberléa replies, “I saw my friend who is helping to organize this post about it, and I am hoping to coordinate something like this with a group I organize with. This seemed like a good opportunity to come and see how it was set up, and also just to support making these so they can be distributed to the community.”

Tack, who sits next to Kimberléa, tells me she found out about the event from a Signal chat for the Lents neighborhood and other nearby neighborhood communities. One of her friends has a 3D printer and made the whistles being put into the kits. “So I kind of knew that cotton yarn was a need,” she tells me, “and so I brought some yarn with me. I just wanted to make myself useful. And I also do some mutual aid organizing, and I wanted to learn how these are put together, how they work, and I wanted to bring that back to my group.”

So how do these packets work? For starters, loudly. A few weeks earlier, I blew one in my house. If my brother had called and told me to knock off the racket, I would not have been entirely surprised. He lives in New Jersey. You blow on one of these whistles, and you will attract attention. And that is exactly the point. As the pamphlet notes, it is loud, recognizable, and impossible to ignore.

The pamphlet also provides codes for how to use the whistle. If a person sees ICE agents in the area, they should alert the community by blowing “in a broken rhythm: Pre-pre-pre-pre!” If ICE is detaining someone, then “blow in a continuous, steady rhythm.”

The whistles, and more importantly the crowd of people that they are supposed to bring out when ICE is kidnapping people, are an important and necessary line of defense against the deprivations of ICE and ostensibly the Republican Party and Republican President Donald Trump whom it serves. In December of last year, the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition (PIRC) received reports of 251 ICE detentions in Oregon, most of them in Marion, Multnomah, and Washington Counties. Between July and December 2025, the PIRC received reports of 1,066 detentions. According to the PIRC, “the number of detentions statewide reported by DHS and other organizations are higher.” For comparison, in 2024, federal immigration agents arrested 113 people in Oregon–still too many, but also significantly less than since Trump took office a year ago.

“They are kidnapping people, spreading fear,” Sam, who identified themself as a person of color, told me earlier in the day at the rally regarding Legacy Emanuel management’s collusion with ICE. “They are using force without having an actual explanation. They are killing people on the streets illegally. But most of all, they are kidnapping people from my community.”

When I asked Sam how they viewed the resistance to ICE in Portland, they replied, “I see it forming very, very strongly. And I’m very happy to be in such a safe and inviting community–communities–here in Portland that have gathered around like today to show support for people who have been marginalized like us, people in my community. It really makes me feel like I’m not alone in this.”

That feeling and understanding of community is palpable in Shami. This is an act of caring not grounded in charity, but one embracing the slogan, An injury to one is an injury to all. More than a whiff of “fuck you for making me be here is in the air,” but so is a much stronger scent of thankfulness and resolve for being among friends and neighbors doing this vital work.

Speaking of scents, it is getting late, and I will be getting home later than intended. I put in a request for some food. As it is being prepared, I talk with Nico, one of the owners of Shami. I tell them how much I always enjoy seeing stuff like this, these cracks of light penetrating the darkness.

“Solidarity as a verb,” I say.

Nico agrees. “We all know to do solidarity as an antidote to fascism. We’ve already got that strength to say, Bring your neighbors, bring in the people you know. Let’s make this bigger. One step broader. One step wider. It’s a beautiful thing. If you don’t know how to get involved, turn to your neighbor and ask.”

For more information on getting involved with making migra whistle packets, go to: Migra Whistle PDX.

For more information on the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition, please go to: https://pircoregon.org/.

Story and photos by Pete Shaw

On Saturday January 10 over 300 people gathered in Stanton Park, just across the street from the Legacy Emanuel Medical Center (LEMC) in North Portland, demanding that Legacy management respect the hospital’s staff and patients by ceasing their collaboration with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE). Legacy management has come under fire from numerous labor unions, immigrant rights organizations, and community groups for jeopardizing the rights, healthcare, and well-being of immigrants detained by ICE taken to the hospital for medical treatment. Nurses and staff at Legacy Emanuel have also decried management’s collusion with ICE at the expense of these nurses and staff ethically performing their jobs, including retaliating against them when they speak up for their patients and themselves.

The rally was organized in part by Portland Contra Las Deportaciones (PCLD), a grassroots organization fighting for immigrant rights and an end to all deportations. Omar Gil of PCLD thanked the crowd for coming out to protest “the disgusting disregard for the lives of immigrants” occurring at Legacy Emanuel. He noted that the Oregon Nurses Association (ONA) had sent Legacy Emanuel president Bahaa Wanly a letter “demanding that immigrants receive the same treatment and rights that all other patients have, that there are measures taken to track and report all ICE activity at the hospital, as well as reject any of their input when it comes to patient care, and for nurses and other staff to be allowed to inform patients about their rights.”

The letter referenced by Gil was sent to Wanly in early December and expressed concern with both LEMC’s apparent lack of compliance with state and federal laws, as well as with Legacy’s own policies. “These concerns,” the ONA wrote, “center on the Legacy’s potential failure to comply with basic tenets of patient confidentiality, patient autonomy over medical decisions, and the Oregon Nurse Practices Act. ONA has received reports that these failures have arisen repeatedly during the course of care for patients who are also interacting with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)  officers. Specifically, it appears that LEMC may be failing to adhere to its HIPAA obligations and its own policies. Despite Legacy’s policies largely reflecting appropriate compliance with statutory obligations, there is a growing gap between Legacy’s written policies and the actual practices nurses are witnessing.”

On January 8, with Legacy having failed to provide a substantive response, ONA spokesperson Peter Starzynski stated, “Legacy’s silence and lack of response is deeply concerning. When ICE activity interferes with patient care, frontline caregivers are placed in an impossible position–forced to choose between their ethical obligations and unclear or unsafe practices. Legacy has refused even the most basic step of meeting with us to address these concerns and ensure ICE is held accountable.”

Speaking on behalf of the Defend Migrants Alliance, Claudia stated, “Legacy Emanuel’s collaboration with ICE endangers migrants, endangers nurses, and violates the code of conduct healthcare professionals are sworn to uphold,. We will not accept this. We stand with the migrants inside of Legacy who are seeking medical care and are instead having their rights violated. And we stand with the nurses who are forced against their will to comply with illegal and immoral practices. We uplift the demands of the Oregon Nurses Association that Legacy stand with all migrants who seek medical support, to force ICE to follow the basics of the law, to put the decision making power in the hands of migrants, uphold HIPAA, and provide education and interpretation to patients in ICE custody.”

Monica Weathersby, Equity Director of the Oregon Education Association (OEA), asked the crowd, “Why are hospitals here? Is it to threaten vulnerable people and stop them from getting care? Legacy touts how patient-centered they are, but do their actions show that? It needs to be healthcare professionals, not ICE agents, who are setting the standards of patient care.”

Weathersby linked the demands of the ONA with those of the OEA, while connecting the power of their unions in the struggle against ICE. “The Oregon Education Association stands with you. Just as you are fighting to protect your patients from ICE in this hospital, we too are fighting to protect our students from ICE inside our schools. Thank you for your courage in speaking out and defending the care and privacy of our patients. Educators and healthcare workers are beacons of hope in our communities because our communities know that we fight for them.”

About 40% of nurses and healthcare workers in the Legacy Health system are part of the ONA and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees. The 1,095 nurses at Legacy Emanuel voted to unionize in early 2025 (as did their fellow nurses at Randall Children’s Hospital and Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center). Until recently, Legacy Health had been staffed by non-unionized healthcare workers.

Weathersby also offered encouragement, advice, and solidarity. “Legacy must live up to its mission and your solidarity and union power is the best opportunity we have to make them do that. In OEA we have begun negotiating protections against ICE for students into our collective bargaining units. As more and more Legacy workers continue to unionize, I encourage you to do the same. Because every single patient, every single person deserves dignity of care just as every single child deserves to be safe at school. Through your union, Legacy, you have the power. You have the power to make them change. I want you to keep using it and standing up for what’s right. And on behalf of our 42,000 members, Oregon educators stand alongside you.”

The rally came at a time when the abject violence of ICE and its masked agents who function as fascist shock troops for the Republican Party and Republican president Donald Trump has been seared into the minds of people across the country and around the world who saw the footage from three days earlier showing Renee Good’s murder at the hands of ICE agent Jonathan Ross. While Renee Good’s murder was surely horrifying, ICE has for years inflicted wanton violence upon non-white people. Under Trump, that violence has been amped up, backed up by a white supremacy that considers non-white people as in the country illegally by definition. Daily brutality against migrant communities by ICE has become commonplace.

Gil situated what is happening at Legacy Emanuel within that wider targeting of and brutality against immigrants in the US. “The gross dehumanization coming from the Trump Administration has bolstered violence against immigrants at the hands of federal agents. Immigrants are afraid to leave their homes due to racial profiling and the utter disregard for everyone’s constitutional rights. Now the healthcare of immigrants is being impacted. With ICE agents looming over them in the hospital, immigrants are put in a position where they cannot be truthful about their symptoms and mental health. Nurses and other healthcare staff are discouraged and prevented from providing the utmost care to immigrants as well as providing them with life changing resources in their fight against ICE. It is for these reasons that we demand an end to the retaliation against the staff, ICE out of Legacy Emanuel, ICE out of all hospitals, ICE out of Portland, and ultimately ICE out of everywhere.”

Blaire Glennon, who also helped organize Saturday’s rally, was one Legacy Emanuel nurse who spoke up against Legacy management’s collaboration with ICE. She also faced retaliation from management and no longer works at the hospital. Glennon had been protesting outside the ICE prison on South Macadam for a few months and taking in the news of ICE’s violence around the country when she found out that “my hospital had become the go-to sight for ICE to bring people injured during their ICE detainment, and that they were also colluding with ICE.”

“During town halls,” Glennon continued, “I was disappointed to hear Legacy management double down on their support of ICE. At Emanuel, staff were told by leadership that ICE can guide patient care up to and including early discharge. That we couldn’t contact patients’ families until after discharge, or even provide legal information to patients. Staff were even told by Legacy leadership that most ICE detainees were criminals, which is wildly false. When ICE was on my unit personally, we were told to keep our opinions to ourselves and just do our jobs. We were told to ignore the reality of what ICE was doing inside the hospital and in our community.”

Glennon refused to ignore reality. Due to Legacy’s inaction, she decided to give public testimony to the Portland City Council on November 19 about what was going on at Legacy Emanuel. As well, she began placing “Constitutional rights information red cards” in break rooms. About two weeks later, Glennon was put on administrative leave after a security guard overheard her offering red cards to another nurse. “I had already been disciplined for hurting management’s feelings while doing protected union activities and speaking up for the rights of patients and staff,” she said, “so I was not really surprised when they retaliated against me more.”  Glennon also said that Legacy has retaliated against “numerous other nurses who have voiced concerns about collaboration with ICE.”

She closed by saying, “We need our elected leaders to stand up and take real action against ICE terror instead of putting up pretty talking points. ICE must be banished from Oregon and taken apart nationally. The immigration system must be reformed to reflect the needs of the people and not some made-up nationalist agenda based on the dreams of the ultra-wealthy. Now is the time to abolish ICE.”

The ONA has called upon the Legacy Health system to immediately sign a binding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to protect the rights, safety, and privacy of people in ICE custody.

“What we’re asking for are simple, commonsense healthcare practices,” Starzynski said. “Nurses and other frontline caregivers need to be able to do their jobs ethically and legally. Every patient—regardless of immigration status—deserves dignity, privacy, safe medical care, and a full understanding of their rights. Right now, those standards are not being met for people in ICE custody at Legacy Emanuel. ONA urges Legacy Health to immediately commit to the proposed MOU, so caregivers can provide consistent, lawful, and compassionate care to every patient who enters its facilities. ONA’s mission is clear: we exist to protect patient privacy, uphold human dignity, and provide equitable care to every person who walks through the doors of the hospitals and clinics where we work. ICE’s targeting of immigrant communities is wrong and fundamentally inconsistent with these values. These actions–whether carried out or threatened–create fear that prevents people from going to work, moving freely in their communities, and seeking medical care when they need it most. That fear directly undermines the core principles of being a frontline nurse, provider, or caregiver.”

As of printing, Legacy has not signed the MOU and continues to collude with ICE.

Story and photos by Pete Shaw

I felt a bit like a broken record in last year’s “Giving Thanks” when my lede was almost exactly the one from 2023. This time it’s the same record, but a slightly different tune. While Covid remains, I gained the confidence of my better 99% that I would take the proper precautions in the outside world. And indeed I wore my mask, I kept my distance, and I washed my hands often. But as can often happen, defeat was snatched from the jaws of victory, this time due to a hit-and-run rock whose vicious assault upon my person left me with a fractured foot. Throw in some other issues, including a cancer scare that thankfully did not pan out, and before I knew it I was humming The Kinks’ song “Summer’s Gone.”

But figuratively and literally I got back on my feet, and much like last year, and the years prior, I am looking forward to getting out and about and covering some of the good work that good people are doing.

Times look awful, but it is important we remember that times have looked awful before, and throughout history people have organized and fought back, and many times they have won. People are organizing and fighting right now as you read this. And as I recently said to a neighbor who was telling me how scared he felt about the state of things, the antidote to fascism is Community. Fascists and their various enablers want you to feel powerless and alone. You are not.

And so once again without any reference to the greedy and bloody origins of this colonial imperialist holiday, here are some things I am thankful for over the past year.

Last year on November 28, over 1,100 New Seasons Market workers from 11 Portland area stores held a one day Unfair Labor Practice strike. Parking lots were near-empty despite the strike occurring the day before Thanksgiving, a day that usually sees grocery stores packed as people get ready for the holiday. It was a strong showing by the New Seasons Labor Union (NSLU). Two months later, workers at the Arbor Lodge store walked off the job a few days in a row in protest of New Seasons’s unjust firing of Randy Foster who had stood up for his fellow worker and union member, Mikey, who workers believed was slowly being pushed out of his job by management.

But after that I heard little about the NSLU save for the grim announcement that one store’s workers had chosen to leave the union. Otherwise, silence. As it turned out, it seems the NSLU decided it needed a new approach. The workers of the NSLU are now affiliated with the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America, and they remain in contract negotiations with New Seasons management. Recently, the union announced that it may go on strike on December 4. Please check with the union’s website for updates.

Thank you to the NSLU for keeping up its fight.

When Volume II of the Trump Administration came along, there arose among predominantly white folks an outpouring of worry that fascism had arrived. While that was perhaps true at their doorsteps, Black and Indigenous folks, and other people of color often had generations of experience with fascism in the United States. So too to varying degrees anyone else who did not snugly fit into the white, straight, and Christian male category. Consequently, to varying degrees, these are also the people who have experience in organizing and fighting back against fascism. My Friend Walidah Imarisha has often noted that Black people’s survival in this land that was never made for them is nothing short of a miracle. We can learn a lot from such miracles.

And while resistance may not qualify as a miracle by many theologies, I always find it invigorating. In late January I found myself invigorated at the release party for Memory & Place in Black Portland, a collection of photographs, essays, and poems by Portland State University (PSU) Black Studies students who are incarcerated in Oregon State Penitentiary. Ten months later, I still cannot say enough about the book. It stands as an elegant rebuke of the idea promoted by the likes of New York Times columnist David Brooks that “we” have gotten away from a common narrative of the United States, and if we could only go back to a time when we all understood this common narrative, all would be seashells and balloons. It is a vapid thought based on a vapid and bigoted understanding of history. What Brooks and his ilk mean is that they wish we were back in a time when the dominant narrative of US History, one of, by, and for white, straight, Christian males, stood on what they saw as more sure footing.

That dominant narrative has always been challenged by those who bear its brunt. The pieces in Memory & Place in Black Portland resist the dominant narrative of the gentrified Albina district, once the beating heart of Portland’s Black community. With their work, these PSU Black Studies students reclaim their and their ancestors’ history, resurrecting a past that as William Faulkner might have it, was never past, while setting new roots for a culture that refuses to lie down.

Thank you to all who made this book possible, most of all, the PSU Black Studies students whose memories help keep alive the past and offer a more just future.

…and then I broke my foot, and as noted above, found myself dealing with other health matters. But from afar I was buoyed by all the forms of resistance that sprung up across the country. There were the protests outside of Tesla dealers because of Elon Musk’s DOGE nonsense. One of my relatives took part in these, the first time they had demonstrated since the US invasion of Vietnam. Doctors around the country and medical associations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics refused to be silent about Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Junior’s assertions and actions promoting the debunked theory that vaccines cause autism spectrum disorder. And huge numbers of people, despite threats from Trump and his fascist apologists, gathered for No Kings rallies.

As well, the Republican Trump Administration began federalizing national guards and invading US cities, as well as sending out masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to kidnap people they perceive as migrants. As befits a crew so actively dedicated to whiteness and white supremacy, Trump and his enablers clearly define migrants as non-white. At first we were told that only criminals were being snatched off the streets, but it should have been no surprise that this outfit would equate migrants with criminality: when Donald Trump announced his first presidential candidacy in 2016, he declared all Mexicans to be rapists and drug dealers. Now US citizens are also being taken in because they don’t look like citizens, which is to say they are not white. The numbers overall seem staggering. Over 65,000 people have been detained, and 73% of them have no criminal convictions. Locally, the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition hotline has received 304 reports of detention this November.

But people are organizing resistance, fighting for these people who are our families, our Friends, our Neighbors, and our Communities. Residents of Charlotte, North Carolina recently drove ICE out of their city. All around the country people are getting trained in how to spot ICE and report them, and more importantly, how to protect their neighbors whom ICE is looking to kidnap. It is slow work, but it is working.

Joe Strummer was one among many who have noted that the future is unwritten. Some of the forms of resistance mentioned in the above paragraphs, as well as numerous others–see Portlanders dressing up as frogs outside the ICE prison off South Macadam Avenue–were subject to some derision as performative, meaningless, or whatever else other than what they were: Resistance. We simply have no way of knowing the effect of the wide array of tactics people have engaged in and will engage in. But it is certain that doing nothing will only result in things getting worse. And if this leads to more people getting more deeply involved in organizing and fighting for greater justice, then that is a victory unto itself. A diversity of tactics, indeed.

But the US government’s support of this particularly overt form of fascism is nothing new in its foreign policy. The United States continues supporting Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people. As I type, there is supposedly a ceasefire in place…which the Israeli government has violated 500 times in 44 days, according to Jewish Voice for Peace. Support for Justice for the Palestinian people remains vibrant, and support for Israel is waning around the world as governments are now being forced to catch up with their citizens who understand that Zionism is simply a particular form of fascism. Even in the US, bipartisan support for Israel, once ironclad, is on the wane as more people see is not any different than the Nazi Holocaust of the Jewish people. It is only the “Who” that has changed, while the “What” remains constant.

Anti-semitism too is fascism, and it always seems to be bubbling under the surface, embraced across the political spectrum. Anti-Zionism is not anti-semitism, but much of the conservative turn against Israel has been at least partially based in anti-semitism. As well, anti-semitism has a history of a home on the Left. We must organize and fight against all of it.

Thank you to all those who are standing up against fascism, national and international styles, and doing what they can to try and make sure things don’t get worse.

We lost some stalwart members of our activist Communities this year. Malcolm Chaddock passed away in March. He was as Good and Kind a person as I have ever known, and I am proud to have crossed paths with him. He seemed to be everywhere, and he was one of those people who if he was where I was, I knew I was in the right place. He was a stalwart activist for Peace, and he was clear which side he was on. The last time I saw him, my better 99% and I were heading to a movie, and along the way we spotted him near the east side of the Burnside Bridge, on a corner waving his Palestine and Veterans for Peace flags. I will carry that memory for all of my days.

We also lost Dan Handelman. The man was a walking encyclopedia of police misconduct, and when I read some of his obituaries, I at first was shocked by how complete his dedication was toward police accountability. But on second thought, that he never missed a City meeting involving police accountability made sense as did all the memories of his work. I remember after some gathering asking him about his life when he was not dealing with police stuff. Dan told me about working as a stage hand, and I want to say we talked a little about baseball, or rather, my appreciation of listening to baseball on the radio. I was not at all surprised that he was a completely pleasant and humble person. His loss is devastating, but his work remains and will be built upon.

Thanks to Malcolm and Dan, and my condolences to their Loved ones who carry on.

I was able to get my health back in reasonable order and get back in decent shape toward the end of Summer. It was just in time to take a trip to France with my better 99%, and as a bonus, my old Friend Howard graced us with his presence for the first week, in Marseille and Tourettes-sur-Loup. I had a wonderful time whether wandering around and talking with random people or meeting up with old Friends and making new ones. I could not have made the trip without the help of many medical folks and their collective Wisdom. My thanks to all of them.

I hit the ground running upon returning to the US. On October 12, a little over 15 years after the Portland police murdered Keaton Otis, a memorial parklet was dedicated to him and is father, Fred Bryant, at the corner of NE 6^th and Halsey, the sight of the monthly vigils for Otis that were begun by Bryant on June 12, 2010. The dedication of the many people involved over the years that resulted in this parklet has been immense, and the organizing around it–and for finding justice for all victims of police violence–has been a privilege to behold over the years.

Thank you to everyone who in some fashion, from attending a vigil here and there (or just here or there) to organizing around the creation of the parklet, and all of the many points in between. Your efforts are a testimony to the power of persistence.

Prior to heading to France, I was able to squeeze in a few days with my brother and sister-in-law, as well as a few Friends I have not seen in too long. As ever, I am thankful for a brother who has always had my back, for a sister-in-law who has always had his and mine. And I am thankful for what always feels an unearned abundance of Friends who keep an eye on me. I Love you all.

Finally, as always, my thanks to my better 99%. I could know every word in the dictionary and still not have the words for her. But as I often say, referencing four of the most beautiful songs I know, she is my Blue Sky, my Waterloo Sunset, and still after all this time, and God Only Knows I’ve never known magic as crazy as this. Thank you, my Love.

Story and photos by Pete Shaw

October 10, 2025

Dear Dad,

I have a movie idea. The setting is Père Lachaise, Paris’s famed necropolis where many artists are buried. In many ways this vast burial ground resembles a city of the living. Its buildings are mostly permanent residences: tombstones, vaults, mausoleums. Some are remarkably elaborate, others elegant in their lack of ostentation. Many are in a state of neglect and irrepair, while others are clearly tended to with loving care.

If the denizens came out at night, what would that be like? Would Frédéric Chopin complain to his neighbor that the view he once had was destroyed by a nearby mausoleum, and so tonight he is debuting his newest work, “Fugue For That Bastard in A Minor”? Maybe he’d go for something more modern, at least for him, and compose a diddy that a perpetually regretless Edith Piaf would sing on her nightly strolls, perhaps joined by Anna Karina and her band of brothers. Antoine-Augustin Parmentier would serve pommes frites to the adoring audience.

But keep an eye out just in case Baron Haussmann is in the area. The guy might begin tearing things down at once and widening the cobblestone avenues. Molière would shout toward him, “Hypocrite!” and command Oscar Wilde to bring him Haussmann’s head on a silver platter. Marcel Marceau would put a finger to his lips and then wag it at Moliere.

Jim Morrison’s neighbors doubtlessly get annoyed that so many people gloss over their resting places while paying respects to him. “Get a load of Mr. Mojo Risin’ over there. You’d think a guy who could do anything would send just one or two visitors over to say, ‘Hello, I love you,’ and maybe even ask for our names.”

They’ve heard this complaint for decades now, and some get cranky. “Oh, let it go already! It does not matter: It is almost dawn, the music’s over, and anyway, no one here gets out alive.”

Estimates range as to the number of people who find their final rest in Père Lachaise. There are about 70,000 burial plots. But when you take into account columbariums and mass graves, anywhere between 300,000 and 3 million people are reportedly buried there, although in most cases 1 million is considered the upper limit. Among them are approximately 166 members of the Paris Commune who after being executed by the French government on May 28, 1871 were put in a mass grave at the foot of the wall where they were lined up and shot, now known as Mur des Fédérés (Communards’ Wall). For two heady months in 1871, after workers and sympathizers decided they’d had enough of not getting their fair share of liberty, equality, and fraternity as it were, tens of thousands of them formed a revolutionary government and seized control of large swathes of the city, effectively saying, “Fuck you, we can do this of ourselves, by ourselves, and for ourselves.” It was remarkably progressive for its time, and it would be so in this time. In the end it was brutally suppressed, another example of the ruling class trying to extinguish the flames of good examples.

Along the exterior of the northern wall of Père Lachaise, on Avenue Gambetta, is the memorial wall Victimes des Révolutions. Created by the French sculptor Paul Moreau-Vauthier and built in 1909, the memorial is composed of some of the stones of the wall against which the Communards stood as they were executed. What first stands out are the numerous pock marks in the stones from the executioners’ bullets, and the figure of a woman standing in front of the wall. She strikes what appears a protective if futile pose, her arms extending from her sides along the wall. Her head is thrown back in despair, or perhaps a desperate, plaintive wail.

Stare a little longer and the stones takes on an ethereal, spectral quality. Behind the woman and along the length of the wall, wispy images of people, some with agonized faces, others holding children, and still more seemingly resigned to their fate, vaguely emerge from the stones. It is meditative and powerful. It is deeply unsettling. It is haunting. And as with the quote from Victor Hugo inscribed in some of the stones in the lower left corner, it cries out for Justice.

A lot of the action of the Paris Commune took place in Belleville, where we stayed. It is probably not where most tourists go when in Paris. Looking online about places to shack up for a few days, there were many comments about it being a place to avoid, similar to ones I read about Marseille. Undergirding these comments, although rarely explicitly said, was that Belleville is a place where migrants live. You know, all the usual tropes: people are too loud, they don’t clean up after themselves, they’re shifty. Taken as a whole, it seemed the comments regarded migrants as definitively not white. No different than among many folks in the US these days. And as with Marseille, the comments would have been comical if they were not so obtuse, so bigoted.

Of course, as with anywhere,  there are surely places to avoid at certain times. One of them is not the entrance to Parc Belleville near where we stayed. First, the view is amazing. Belleville is on a hill in the eastern outskirts of Paris, and the park’s apex entrance affords a sweeping vista of much of central Paris, most clearly, the Eiffel Tower. But the real excitement there is the people who gather at dusk and stay for a few hours. They watch soccer matches, make music, talk, sing, read, eat, drink, and dance. They enjoy life, and not at the expense of others. I watched a brief bit of soccer with one guy on his telephone, and it was wonderful sharing a few minutes with someone enjoying The Beautiful Game.

Belleville is not as geared toward tourism as other parts of Paris. I imagine the Michelin starred restaurants, or the ones lacking stars but not reverence among the foodie class, are not found there. I could care less. If the restaurant scene was going to present any problem, it would be in deciding which of the vast variety of available cuisines to sample. We also had at our avail the usual numerous specialized shops–boulangeries, patisseries, fromageries; etc., and there were grocery stores as well. I don’t think I saw a souvenir shop, and finding post cards was a tough Euro. The major tourist areas were elsewhere, many a couple of train rides away from Pyrénées Metro station, just up the street from where we stayed. Which was great, not because I had a desire to see most of those attractions, but because I still love trains.

I do not pretend that I was anything other than a tourist. I assume I reeked of someone from the US, in both good and bad ways, and I bet it took people about two seconds to recognize I was just passing through. And somehow if not, my piss poor French would quickly give me away as my attempts at conversation would not get far before descending to, “Je ne parle pas français. Parlez-vous anglaise, por favour?” But it is nice seeing places from this perspective, and I hope for a few days I was a good neighbor.

Speaking of seeing things from different perspectives, we spent a few hours one afternoon walking some of the old Petite Ceinture rail line. The name means “little belt” and it ran around the far reaches of the city. The Metro brought about its demise, at least for passenger rail, and it closed to most passenger traffic in 1934. By the 1990s, most of the rails were no longer in use (some became part of the regional rail line that runs between Paris and its suburbs, the RER), at least by trains. Some areas were turned by locals into gardens. Others into ad hoc art spaces. Folks without housing lived along some segments. This all was trespassing, access largely gained by climbing over fences or squeezing through holes cut in them. But at least for the gardens and art spaces, it was tolerated. People also illegally walked the tracks, but again this was for the most part ignored by the powers that be.

When we first went to Paris 11 years ago, this was something I wanted to check out. But we never got around to it, largely because it seemed poor form as a guest to break rules so blithely. Now, quite a few chunks of the old line have become City parks. Jessica and I walked a section in the 15th arrondisement in the southwest corner of Paris. A bit of this segment was an el, and it was neat being above the streets, having that point of view. We also walked a portion that like most of the line ran through a trench cut into the earth.

Many of the Petite Ceinture’s old stations are in good shape, including those along parts of the line that remain off limits to the public. And most of them have been converted to other uses. At least one is a concert venue. A couple are dedicated to teaching sustainable environmental practices such as urban farming and upcycling, that is finding uses for items that you might otherwise get rid of. Of course, as this is Paris, it seems food is available in all the upcycled stations, ranging from cafés and bars to restaurants.

I have no doubt those places are fine establishments, but for my and Jessica’s taste, it’s hard to beat the bustling lunch scene in the crypt of the Madeleine Church. At first glance, it might seem unappealing. The eating area is long and narrow, and the seating somewhat cramped.  An isolated table for two is not impossible to find, but the tables feel so tightly packed that claustrophobia may as well be on the menu. This is the type of setting that in most cases badly bends my balance, setting the vibrations of most of my nerves to extremely negative.

But this is also part of the charm. Foyer de la Madeleine is advertised as a community restaurant, and the food is made in house by volunteers. The crowd is largely local, or at least it seemed we were the only native English speakers there. The purchase of a meal goes toward getting hot meals to hungry people. The menu changes daily, and you have a couple of choices for appetizer, main plate, and desert, all for 17.5 Euros. The atmosphere is welcoming, and the food is tasty. A wonderful place.

Yesterday was a fine day. We got up early, had a good breakfast, and rode the train to Châtelet station where we transferred to a train that took us to the Latin Quarter. We came out of the Metro at Place Monge and walked down the Rue Monge and soon came to Rue du Cardinal Lemoine. It was a comfortably cool and crisp and sunny Fall morning.

“Which is it?”

“Seventy-four, I think.”

“What does it look like?”

“No idea. But I am sure it is marked.”

It was marked, an otherwise nondescript building with a blue door.

“He lived here when writing The Sun Also Rises. ‘I mistrust all frank and simple people, especially when their stories hold together.’”

“You quote that often.”

“It’s a fine quote. Here’s another great one from him: Never confuse movement with action.”

It was a good morning. We had Fall and we had sunshine and we had Paris. We continued down Rue du Cardinal Lemoine and then turned on to Rue Clovis. Soon we could see the Pantheon and passed by the entrance to Saint-Éienne-du-Mont Church. We turned on to the Rue de la Montagne Sainte-Geneviève and went to the Tram. I ordered a double espresso and Jessica had a latte. It was good, strong coffee, and the day was warming.

“What now?”

“What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“We could get some food and go to the island.”

I paid the bill, left the tip, and thanked our waiter.

We walked to the market at the intersection of Rue Basse des Carmes, Rue Monge, and Boulevard Saint-Germain. Jessica chose the food. Soon we crossed the Pont au Double to the Île de la Cité. The renovations to Notre-Dame following the fire in 2019 are near completion, and the crowd waiting to get into the cathedral was huge. We walked around it to the Rue de la Colombe and saw the remains of a section of Paris’s first city wall, built around 270 AD. Unlike outside Notre-Dame, the gathered crowd numbered two.

“Where do you find these things?”

“I read a lot. A search on Google for ‘weird shit in Paris’ does wonders.”

We continued north and then walked west along the Seine and passed a man fishing and a couple of groups of tourists admiring the Pont Neuf. Soon we came to the tip of the island. We sat down on a short wall with our legs and feet dangling over the water. Jessica took out the food. The vegetables were crisp, the fruits were juicy, and the sandwiches hearty. It was a good day. We had Fall and we had sunshine and we had Paris and we had lunch. And we had each other.

The bucolic soon gave way to sobriety. As we walked back toward Notre-Dame along the Quai des Orfèvres, we came to the Pont Saint-Michel. I knew the name, but I could not place why. And then it came to me. It was here on October 17, 1961, a few months before Algeria gained its independence from France, that the French national police violently repressed a curfew-violating demonstration by some 30,000 to 40,000 Algerian folks who were also French citizens. The curfew had been declared a couple of weeks earlier by the Paris Prefect of Police, a former Vichy collaborator named Maurice Papon. Keeping with the spirit of a Nazi sympathizing government that deported over 75,000 Jewish people (about 72,500 of them were murdered in either concentration or death camps), Papon’s curfew applied only to the about 150,000 Algerians in Paris and its suburbs. Like the Communards 90 years earlier, the protesting Algerian people were demanding their share of liberté, équalité, et fraternité. The police detained thousands of these protesting Algerian folks, brutalizing many of them, and reportedly under Papon’s orders, they murdered anywhere between 48 (that number provided by a French government commission over 30 years later) to 300 of them. As records are difficult to come by, the number may be higher. Many of these Algerian people’s bodies were dumped into the Seine by the Pont Saint-Michel where they were found floating the next morning. 

The French press largely ignored the massacre, and the French government only got around to acknowledging it in 1998. Until the mid-1980s, about the only place one could find an account of it was in the Philadelphia journalist William Gardner Smith‘s 1963 roman à clef, The Stone Face. Indeed, that was where I first heard of it. 

We meandered some more through the Latin Quarter and then the Jardin du Luxembourg. As the sun was setting, we made our way back up to Belleville. Emerging from the Metro station, I saw a march in support of the Palestinian people, demanding an end to Israel‘s genocide of them. It was clear that the best way to pay respect to those Algerian people murdered almost exactly 64 years earlier was to walk in solidarity with another group of oppressed people demanding an end to their colonial torment. It seemed an odd way to wrap up a trip, but it was also Right.

Dad, I imagine when most people think of France, particularly Paris, they think of the Eiffel Tower, Notre-Dame, Sacré-Cœur, or one of many other famed landmarks. That‘s fair. And despite my desire to stray from major tourist sites, when I think of Paris I think of the Louvre. Yet I have never been inside it. But I have gotten great mileage from the story you told me about how when I was 2 or 3 years old, you were sent by the company you worked for to Algeria to do work on the construction of a urea plant. You had a short layover in Paris. Rather than wait for your connecting flight in the airport, you went to the Louvre, hurried through to glimpse the Mona Lisa, and then got back to the airport. In so many ways–the Right ones–it was so you.

We are now over the Atlantic Ocean, headed back to Portland where Friend Tony will pick us up and take us Home. Over three years since you passed, I think about you often. When I read or see something I think you‘d find interesting, I still instinctively reach for the phone. So many times on this trip I wanted to send you a photo or a brief text message. But these days, or at least most of them, that makes me smile.

I Love you.

Love,

Peter

Story and photos by Pete Shaw

October 6, 2025

Dear Dad,

Our numbers have dwindled. We arrived at Paris Gare de Lyon early on Friday afternoon. And then it was time to bid farewell to Howard. He will spend two nights here in Paris before heading Home. He has been a fine traveling companion, and my and Jessica’s time with him unequivocally made for a better trip. He is my good Friend. As he walked away from us toward the station exit, Jessica gave one last goodbye. Waving and smiling, she shouted, “Good luck at your sodomy trial!”

Okay, let’s dispense with a grim if meaningless truth: Luxembourg City is boring. And I suppose that makes sense. It is a city dedicated to banking, which is to say its tax gathering is favorable to the banking industry. According to Luxembourg For Finance, which advertises the Grand Duchy as “a pan European banking center with global reach,” 115 banks from 25 different countries call Luxembourg their corporate home, or at least it is one of their operating bases. A place dedicated to such pursuits is going to be boring by definition, at least by my standards.

But at least four people there are not. We met Marc in 2009 when we were in Brugges, Belgium. I think it was Holy Thursday. He and his Friend Sverker were sitting on a bench in a church courtyard, drinking wine and eating some cheese and meats. In front of them, recessed into a side wall of the church, was a large crucifixion scene with Mary and Mary Magdalene on each side of the cross. The lines from the top of the carving ran straight through Jesus’s hands and along the women, with Marc and Sverker perfectly aligned. A wonderful photo awaiting taking, and I took out my camera. They turned to me and asked if I wanted them to move. I almost yelled, “No!” I told them they were in perfect position, took the photo, and then went over to yammer with them.

They were from Sweden and had clearly been on many adventures together. For a short spell, Marc lived in Manhattan, same street the Marx Brothers grew up on. He found everyone there nice. Except for the Germans, who did not laugh at his jokes. I told them I would send them the photo, and a Friendship was struck. The other day, when Marc picked us up at the train station, I gave him a copy of the Harpo Marx memoir I once gave you and Aunt Dorothy, Harpo Speaks!

I also had with me three mounted photos featuring Marc, his wife Marta, and their newborn son Conrad. We met Marta and Conrad in 2014 when we visited here. Marta was everything Marc had told me, speaking of her the same golden tones I speak of Jessica. Conrad was tiny, and he was clearly Loved. When Marta opened the package, she was excited seeing the photos.

Conrad is no longer tiny, and he now has a sister, Estelle. They are Lovely children, and the clarity of that Love from Marc and Marta remains, doubled. Conrad speaks five or six languages. He is a curious young person, peppering me with questions about the United States, the Republican shutdown of the US government (yeah, again), and so on. On Sunday night I taught him a few things on guitar. Which is to say he is just starting out. It’s great to see.

The new kid on the block is shy. Estelle is also remarkably well-mannered and respectful for her young age: not once within my earshot does she ask Marc or Marta, “Who is that guy?,” or “Where did you find that?,” or “The fuck is wrong with you??!!”

Jessica and I had a bit of Saturday to ourselves. Walking down the street toward the art museum, we saw a sticker on a lamp post reading in Luxembourgian white supremish, Keep Luxembourg White. A stark reminder that white supremacy knows no boundaries. But also, neither does resistance: the sticker is covered with anti-fascist ones.

The art museum was fine. After an espresso, we wandered more, finding ourselves wandering along the Petrussa River. It began raining heavily, and we were without umbrellas. Using the canopy of the many trees whose leaves are changing color, and an occasional quickened pace, we were not drenched when we found shelter on the pedestrian and bike path that is the second and bottom level of the Adolphe-Bréck, the Pont Adolphe, the Adolphe Bridge, and I could give you a few other names had I consulted Conrad. The rain soon let up. We ended up at an expansive outdoor shopping plaza, and Jessica got a croissant.

When we got back to Marc and Marta‘s place, the excitement began. To be fair to the story, Luxembourg City could have been as enticing as Paris or Barcelona or Wherever, and it would have paled in comparison to the thrill of spending time with Friends. What did we eat? Was it the great Indian food? Was it Marc‘s delicious homemade pizza? Does it matter? Not at all. It was truly a reminder, as much of this trip has been, that food is probably the least of the pleasures of the table.

Sunday found all of us walking around the remains of an old castle that guarded some part of the city. It overlooked the Petrussa and afforded great views. We then ate Middle Eastern food outside the nearby modern art museum. Marta lamented that the weather was colder than usual. Jessica and I would be leaving the next day, and Marta said, “It will be nice in Paris. This is all that matters.” I joked something like, “Well, I fell off the roof, broke my leg, and ruptured a testicle. But the weather was nice in Paris.”

Soon we were off to what Marc often refers to as The Enemy, or as the rest of us in the car called it, Germany. We crossed the Moselle River and went to a winery’s restaurant. I had a glass of grape juice and an espresso, utterly content among such fine people that I have the privilege to call my Friends. I began thinking about how lucky I‘ve been in this life to know Good people like these. The thought overwhelmed me and I had to go outside.

When we got back to Marc and Marta‘s, I gave my guitar lesson to Conrad, teaching him a few chords, but hopefully more expressing how much joy playing music has given me in life. We had dinner, and I am smiling as I think of it, as I do when I think of all fine times. One among many; however, each unique.

Later, before they went to bed, Conrad told us he hoped the US government shutdown meant we’d be stuck in town. He then thanked us for coming and hoped we could meet again soon. I told him I would do my best to make it so. Estelle approached Jessica and gave her a card she had made, a pink heart on its front. I turned away as if occupied with something else, and I heard her tell Jessica she hoped to see us again.

We were not in a rush this morning. Our train for Paris left around 14:00. Jessica and I were up early enough to see Conrad and Estelle leave for school. We warmly embraced Marta before she fled. Jessica and I went for a walk around the neighborhood. We passed a large community garden, as well as a swimming center. We also met a beautiful gray cat who for about 15 seconds deigned me worthy of holding her. When we got back, Marc took us to the station. I was sad to see him leave. But I was happy I was there to see it.

When I wrote you from Barcelona, Spain 7 years ago, I wrote about how much I enjoyed establishing relationships while traveling, no matter how short the time spent together. And that maybe one day, if as Hunter S. Thompson put it, the Right gods fall in Love with you, you will have more time together. You will get to know them a little more, see more sides of them. You will share life. Zahia and Marc, Marc and Marta: we proudly call them Friends. And through them, we have new ones: Edoard, Oliver, Conrad, and Estelle.

I know you would have liked them.

Unlike the ride from Paris, which entails a transfer in Metz, this train is non-stop. We‘ll soon be in Gare d‘Est. A couple of quick Metro rides from there, and we‘ll be up in Belleville.

Love,

Peter

Story and photos by Pete Shaw

October 2, 2025

Dear Dad,

Marc has solved the issue. The other night, having dinner with him and his partner, Zahia, and their Friends, Edoard and Oliver, I jabbered on about how amazing I found Marseille, how it struck me as so different from Paris, or really anywhere. Since my prior letter, I have remained at an ebullient loss for definition.

I am clearly not the first person, including among France’s denizens, who has recognized Marseille’s singularity, or at least its distinct character. And while in some pockets of the world the reflexive property in the service of description is frowned upon, Marc spoke as if for many when he replied to my enthusiastic rave, “Marseille is Marseille.”

We arrived in Tourettes-sur-Loup on Monday afternoon. We rented a car in Cannes and an hour later (most of the time spent navigating traffic in Cannes) we were in this small perched village about ten miles inland. In 2016 Jessica and I had rented a place in Montmartre, Paris from Zahia and Marc. It was a Lovely trip, and we finished it off having dinner with them at a nearby Thai restaurant. Jessica and I don’t recall the food being anything special, but the companionship and conversation was perfect. When we parted ways in the street outside the restaurant–Marc putting his hand over his heart, a gesture I have since occasionally used in homage to him and Zahia–I felt sad that we would likely never see them again.

Well, here we are, just a 20 year old me’s stone’s throw from them. More precisely on this early morning, “here” is in an old olive oil mill lying in the Cassan Valley below the town. Zahia and Marc have converted the mill into an art gallery and living quarters. It is a kind of community cultural center. When the weather is nice, they show films on an outdoor screen.

The walk down here along Rue des Moulins is pleasant. The walk up is somewhat strenuous, but also pleasant. The views of the town, and the valley reaching out to the Mediterranean are Wondrous. Marc is a man of many talents including landscape design. The plants may be a bit off their peak this time of year, but they are nonetheless beautiful. Prior to Zahia and Marc, a sculptor had a studio here, and some of his work remains among Marc and Zahia’s.

The past two days have found Jessica, Howard, and me driving around, stopping here and there. In particular, we visited two other perched villages, Mougins, and the significantly larger Saint-Paul-de-Vence. The former is not quite a sleepy place, but it doesn’t seem to go to extraordinary lengths to attract tourists. And while a lot of these villages, so reminiscent of Tuscany’s hill towns, can start feeling similar, I don’t think I could ever grow tired of walking their winding streets.

Saint-Paul-de-Vence is probably most famous for having been home to Marc Chagall for the last 19 years of his life. Or at least that’s how I knew of the place, having written a book report on him in fourth grade. Chagall is also buried there. More recently I found out James Baldwin had lived in Saint-Paul-de-Vence for some time, and he also passed there. Some years ago, his house was razed. It seemed Important to bear some kind of witness at that spot, to remember the man and his remarkable mind.

Tourettes-sur-Loup is a small, quiet place. Last night, after returning from Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Jessica and I walked through the medieval town, along its narrow back streets. It was raining, and we virtually had the place to ourselves. It was beautiful.

Walking back down into the valley, we passed by a house where we’d talked with the guys living there the night before. They are artists, and they were friendly sorts. One of them showed us a string instrument that I’d never seen before. He played it well. Last night we saw them again, and the guy who had played for us showed us a sculpture he had made. It was amazing, and we talked about art and the pleasure of making it, of having an idea and seeing it through.

Then it was time for dinner. Zahia had invited us over. I suppose we could have demurred, choosing to get a meal elsewhere. But why? Aside from it being poor form, it would also be Stupid.

The meal with Zahia, Marc, Edoard, and Oliver on Monday night had been fantastic. I assume my food was good. I think I had trout. I ate some bread. I don’t remember much of it to tell the truth. But I remember thoroughly enjoying myself. Oliver brought some wine his father had made. I do not know much about wine, and I barely drink alcohol. But I do know that I enjoy wine when sharing it with Good people. As we were readying to leave the table, I announced that this had been one of the great nights of my life. Zahia was surprised. But I was sincere. I am as I have long been: someone who takes great pleasure in getting together with people and enjoying their company. And I recognize these moments for the always rare and precious treasures they are. And it even got better as we got to talk some more with Edoard and Oliver in the parking lot before we parted.

So, yes, Zahia’s Kind invite was accepted swiftly and emphatically. The food was great. Zahia made pasta topped with her own sauce. The four food groups were represented with cheese, bread, wine, and radishes. Howie even relinquished his tight grip on some of the 5 trillion metric tons of nougat he had picked up in Saint-Paul-de-Vence in some crazed effort to corner the market.

But of course, better than the food was the time spent so enjoyably with Good people. It was another life highlight, the finest of vintages. I will always hold close the memory of talking about something and then asking Marc what the French word for obscene was. He told me, looking slightly confused: Obscène. I let out a sharp bark of a laugh, aware of how absurd the question must have seemed, perhaps une obscénité unto itself. Marc laughed too. So did Zahia, Jessica, and Howie. The night was Perfect, again.

It’s still dark here in the valley, but the morning light is just peering in on the town. When Jessica gets up and we finish packing, we will once more sit around Zahia and Marc’s table. This time for coffee and a light bite. We head to Aix-en-Provence later where we’ll spend the night before dropping off the car and taking the train to Paris. Once there, we’ll sadly part ways with Howie. He will grace Paris with his presence for two nights before heading Home. Meanwhile, Jessica and I will hop another train to Luxembourg City where we will stay with Friends Marc and Marta.

When organizing this trip, we originally planned to go from Marseille to Lyon, north instead of east. Then I remembered Zahia and Marc had moved somewhere in southern France, and when Zahia said they’d probably be around, our plans changed. How often do you get a chance like this, to see Good people that you’d never thought you’d see again? You give me that option, no matter how thin the chance of seeing it through, and I will pursue it with all my will.

You and mom named me well.

Love,

Peter

Story and photos by Pete Shaw

September 29, 2025

Dear Dad,

How do I describe Marseille? It hit me a bit like New York City. The greeting was not so flagrant and aggressive as The City’s, but similar contours were discernible. Or at least at this early morning hour, I seem to believe that. But the fact is that I have been, since 3:30 AM, trying to make some sense of this place for you.

Then, it may have only seemed similar because we had landed in Paris earlier in the day following a nine hour overnight flight, a couple of short train rides to Paris Gare de Lyon, and then a high speed rail that three and a half hours later dropped us off here, in St. Martin’s Station. Only a few moments after emerging from the station, trying to get oriented, some young person rode a fast and lengthy wheelie on his electric scooter. It gave me a slight jolt. If I was not familiar with the singularity of the act–New York always hits me like a wall, and this was more like walking into a lamp post–the lower volume did not affect my recognition of the melody.

I smiled. Marseille!

“We” is not just Jessica and me. Howard came along for the ride. You remember Howie, my good Friend from college who grew up near mom’s folks? Him. The madman on the scooter had not impressed him. In fact, he seemed scandalized. Howie still lives in Brooklyn, and all else is but a cheap imitation. The brazen insolence of the rider–This? This is your idea of trying to make your case for my walking into a human blender? I eat that shit for breakfast.–had clearly aroused his contempt.

A few months earlier, Howie had expressed some trepidation. He was worried that being from the United States might result in us dealing with unpleasant situations. I assured him that most people understood the difference between people and their governments. (Oh yeah, Trump, yeah that one, got re-elected in 2024.) Then he got worried about how he would be treated as a Jewish person. “Nonsense,” I said. “Europe has a long history of kindness toward the Jewish people.”

The young rider had set the tone well. There is a near-palpable chaos-that-works feeling here. Driving a car would is usually the best way to notice this. We do not have a car, but an equally reasonable gauge of a city’s entropy is how safe you feel when traversing a crosswalk. In Rome it seems like a good idea to launch prayers toward St. Peter’s before stepping off the curb. In Marseille, although the option is readily available from its many churches and other religions’ houses of worship, just keeping hyperaware of traffic at all times should handle most situations.

Marseille is alive, vibrant. It is a riot of sensory input. It has its own peculiar, difficult to describe rhythm. People have been coming to this ancient port city for thousands of years, and and their cultures have permeated. There are numerous ethnic minorities in the city center, many from north Africa. It is supposedly the highest ethnic minority populated city center in Europe. The African influence is clear. And from my limited experience, there is a deep Italian feel to the place, and an equally Spanish one too. It feels less formal than Paris, but there is surely something very French going on. Everything is still done with style, but often from different angles than you find in Paris.

The apartment we rented is at the top of its building, fifth story. There is no elevator, so we have to climb about 100 steps to reach it. The reward is a lovely view of the Old Port and the Mediterranean Sea. At night from this height the view is serene. Morning light turns the water azure, and to the right in my view, for a short time, it looks magenta. The red ceramic rooftops that help define any aerial view of the city glow, and the various antennas, plants, clotheslines, and most alluringly, the chimneys, look remarkable. To the left, on the highest point in the city, sits basilica Notre-Dame de la Gard basilica. Not far from it are the well-preserved remains of the fort that guarded the port. Readiness next to godliness, indeed.

To the right, St. Martin’s station seems much further away than I thought following our walk from the train to here. The Church of Saint Vincent DePaul appears huge, particularly its two large white steeples which stand slightly out of proportion to the buildings around it. But Cathédrale La Major, near where the Old Port meets the Mediterranean, fits. It is not as majestic as Notre-Dame de la Garde, but it more than holds its own. Its black and white stripes draw the eye.

It is a magnificent view.

Not far from here is Noailles, a neighborhood with a heavy north African vibe. It is lovely. The people, not surprisingly, were friendly, and they appreciate friendliness. I do my best in French, which is not far from the result likely brought by asking one of our cats to do her best recitation of Bob Dylan lyrics. But when that fails, as it quickly does, a smile will go a long way. 

A young person sitting on a stoop asked me if I like Marseille. I told him I love it. I ran by him and gave him a short list of particulars including the beautiful way it confused me. He smiled and gave me a thumbs up. When I told him I grew up near New York, he got excited. Everywhere I have been, from western New York to Paris to East Bumblefuck, The City is a place of Magic. Ten minutes later we parted ways, and I moved along, better than I was prior to meeting him.

A few moments later Jessica and I were in a small Tunisian grocery store. It has much of what would be the usual stuff in the US, although the many baskets hanging from the ceiling called for attention. But what really stands out is the island running down the middle of the room. It has an array of bags with colorful spices in them, many of them seeming to glow. I commented to the person working how beautiful it was. Or I tried to. I said, “Plus belle.” Jessica stepped in to say, “Tres belle.” While I am sure he was pleased with my saying the spices were more beautiful, for a moment he probably wondered, “More beautiful than what?” I laughed, thanked Jessica, and repeated, “Tres belle. Tres belle!”

We spent one day in the old neighborhood, La Panier, the bread basket. A place of winding, ancient streets. One of the neat things about Marseille, and every other city or town I’ve visited in this country, is how short the streets are. Not that the streets themselves cover short distances, but rather that outside of more main roads–think the Rue de Rivoli in Paris–you cannot go more than a few blocks before a street changes its name. In La Panier, Rue Saint-Antoine becomes Rue des Belles Ecuelles which a few blocks later becomes Rue du Panier. You can cross the Rue du Panier from the south along the Rue des Muettes and once on the other side find yourself on the Rue Puits du Denier and quickly, the Rue de la Vieille Tour.

There’s a lot of history in all that. And while the frequent changes can make coping with a map challenging, in nearly all cases when traveling, I find the best solution is to just toss the map in the knapsack and wander, reveling in the possibility that every step may result in a surprise. And when you calibrate your spirit to that setting, the rewards come often.

Graffiti, if that is the word for it, is big here. My circumspection is because some of the graffiti is sanctioned. I am sure there have been battles fought over the idea that graffiti by definition must run afoul of The Law. What is the line separating graffiti and street art here? I imagine it is little different than anywhere else. Whatever one calls it, it seems like it is everywhere. Much of it is whimsical, but not art for art’s sake. After all, if graffiti is by definition not legal, then its very act is one of Resistance

As to be expected, there are also political statements. Many focus on the Palestinian people and Israel’s genocide of them. (Yes, you did help drop bombs on Germany when it was committing a genocide.) There is great discontent with the French government, particularly its president. A surging fascist party in France finds Resistance on walls and sidewalks and parks and squares. It is often sobering.

I am taken in by all of it. Most cities are museums unto themselves, exhibits changing by the moment. But I have never been in a city that had close to as much as wall art as Marseille.

Not surprisingly, a lot of languages are spoken here. It’s like hearing different sorts of music. I have little to no idea what is being said, but that is just fine. The many paces, rhythms, and dynamics are navettes for the ears. Another input, another smile.

When we travel, I have very few things I need to see and do. One of them here was to get a t-shirt for Finn featuring Erik Cantona, one of the greatest soccer players of all time. He was born in Marseille. I enjoy seeing any reasonable activity performed at a high level, and to boot, no pun intended, Cantona once drop kicked a Nazi sort in the stands. Better, he was absolutely unapologetic about it. I got into a lengthy conversation about Cantona and anti-fascism with the clerk. As with so many people we have met in this city, he felt sorry for us having to endure Donald Trump. But he was glad to hear that people are Resisting.

Just up the street from where we are staying is a large square, Place Jean-Jaurès. People gather on it, sitting on benches, playing soccer, jumping around on the playground, and so on. Along some of the perimeter are cafes, bars, and restaurants. As with the other similar squares we passed through, the tables outside the eating and drinking establishments are often filled. There is a sense of Community that I feel is missing in much of the U.S. Just being around it is invigorating.

Of course, nothing is perfect. Quite a few times we’ve passed a stark reminder of this, an ad hoc memorial to the “martyrs” of Rue d’Aubagne. That street runs through the Noailles district. The population has a high ethnic minority composition, and not surprisingly, much of the housing is not well-maintained by landlords or the City. In the morning of November 5, 2018, 63 and 65, rue d’Aubagne collapsed. While 63 was unoccupied, 65 was not. Eight people died. Following the collapses, city officials evacuated over 4,500 people from 578 buildings in the city that were deemed dangerous. Most of those people who were evacuated were ethnic minorities. A report from the High Committee for the Housing of Disadvantaged Persons released on November 21 stated that “the collapses of the buildings on rue d’Aubagne were not accidental and unforeseeable events. They resulted from a continuity of dysfunction from public actors.” Those public actors are Marseille’s city council and the French government.

I’ve lit a few candles at churches for you and mom. I don’t believe they will come to anything in terms of divine intervention. But it is always nice thinking of you and her. And I think you would agree that if it was the least I could do, it was Right that I also lit one for those eight people who lost their lives too soon, to in some small way offer to the universe that their lives mattered.

Here is another interesting, small way. We passed the empty lots where those buildings once stood, where the eight deceased and the survivors once lived. The aerial view on Google’s map program shows the empty lots. If you go down to street level on the map, a half block from the addresses, you still can see the empty lots. But when you directly face what should be the empty lot, the buildings are there. 63 appears lifeless. The two windows on the second floor are covered with plywood. The remaining three stories have missing windows. The facade’s paint has fallen off in many places. The top looks ready to buckle.

65 appears better maintained, but again, the upper two floors look ready to buckle. On the first and third floors, drying laundry hangs from the windows. People lived there. They raised families there. They ate there. They argued there. They Loved there. They slept there. And at least eight people died there. They mattered.

In a few hours we will head back to the train station and head east to Cannes. There we will rent a car and drive inland to a “perched village” named Tourettes-sur-Loup.

Despite choosing the scattershot items above, and choosing them from a far larger list of images dancing across my mind, I have no answer to this moment’s ultimate question: What is this place? I am not sure how I would even go about that. I feel if I lived here the rest of my life, I could not provide an answer.

Of course, that is of no matter. I know I like Marseille. That is all I need know.

Love,

Peter

Story and photos by Pete Shaw

The monthly vigils for Keaton Otis, Fred Bryant, and all victims of police violence have always had a tension to them. There is the grim reality of why people have gathered on the corner of Northeast 6^th and Halsey for over 15 years, recalling Otis, Bryant, and the many other lives taken too soon by police. Yet there is also a sense of celebration, however subdued. It is founded in a resilience and memory that pushes forward toward a more just future.

At 6 PM on October 12, 15 years and 5 months after the Portland police murdered Keaton Otis, and 15 years and 4 months after Otis’s father, Fred Bryant, began the vigils, over 70 people gathered at that fateful corner to dedicate the Keaton Otis Memorial Parklet. The balance leaned more than usual in the favor of celebration. Even the weather, predicted to bring heavy rains, seemed to join in to fete Otis and Bryant, nearly rendering gratuitous the four erected canopies 

“Black commemoration is not merely nice, but necessary,” said Donovan Scribes, capturing the gravity of the moment. “It allows for power to be forged out of the proof of our existence and weave the necessary connections to our nows, to help light our futures with possibility. Possibilities cut short and possibilities made real are necessary to our understanding of where we are headed.”

The parklet is a result of an effort born upon, as Dr. Pastor Leroy Haynes put it, a struggle for justice, freedom, and equality that is “not just a moment, but a movement…that has been ongoing since the beginning of humankind.”

This moment started with Otis’s murder and Fred Bryant’s monthly vigils. After Bryant’s passing in October 2013, the vigils continued. Month after month, through heat and cold, rain and sleet, in crowds ranging in size from a handful to hundreds, people gathered. Usually at NE 6^th and Halsey, but sometimes for the May observances, at larger venues such as Maranatha Church and Augustana Lutheran Church. And since the COVID-19 pandemic, the vigils have also been held online. But always, on the 12^th, at 6 PM, attention has been paid.

The parklet is a space of community. It invites passersby to, as Ry Cooder might have it, pull up some dust and stay awhile. Maybe share a cup of coffee and conversation with a passerby while seated on one of the benches painted in the image of forget-me-nots and periwinkles, designed by nia musiba, set atop a porch that extends from the curb underneath an ash tree. The two free little libraries of the sort that have sprouted throughout Portland are stocked, and the planters surrounding the benches have a variety of native species growing in them. The result recalls and respects the memory of Otis who was throughout the event recalled as an artist, a lover of nature, and someone who enjoyed good conversation.

Three summers ago Sharita Towne, who helped design the parklet, and a group of volunteers, referenced the Japanese art of Kintsugi, filling with gold paint the cracks in the street on Northeast 6^th. In Kintsugi, which translates to “golden joinery,” pottery shards are brought together with a lacquer mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. The pottery is not just repaired. It is strengthened. Its breakage is not its end, but rather part of its history. Its resilience is an apt metaphor. As well, a plaque commemorating Otis’s life was embedded in the sidewalk only a few steps from the pockmarks left by three of the stray bullets fired by the Portland police.

None of this came together overnight. It is the product of years of behind the scenes work of dedicated people attending organizing meetings, crafting designs, negotiating with officials, and doing whatever else it took to bring the project to fruition. “Dedicated people” is as much a perfect phrasing as it is a flaccid one. There are names that feel prominent: JoAnn Hardesty, Walidah Imarisha, Sharita Towne, C-Mo, and the late, great Dan Handelman. Community groups standing out include Justice for Keaton Otis, Pacific Northwest Family Circle, Black Lives Matter PDX, Asians for Black Lives, and SURJ PDX. But there are also so many others who although unnamed, whether attending a vigil here and there or diving deep into those meetings, were also an integral part of this community effort to create this vital landmark.

Emmett Wheatfall, who after offering his pitch-perfect poem “When the Time Comes for You to Speak,” reminded the audience of the parklet’s significance. He noted the numerous statues around the country erected to Confederate leaders and soldiers, as well as the many schools and military bases named in their honor. It was a reminder that reality and history are not synonymous. Boiled down, the reality is this: the Confederacy was an outright white supremacist fascist state which thrived on stolen land and the labor of kidnapped and enslaved Africans. Its leaders were treasonous, and in just about any other scenario, they would have been executed.

The statues, schools, bases, and numerous other sites dedicated to them are about promoting the “Lost Cause,” the idea that these Confederates were victims instead of oppressors. It’s nonsense, utterly devoid of reality. And yet the people who dismay over the toppling of effigies and the renaming of schools, spinning a yarn about the overlooked beauty of a society that in reality enslaved people as chattel, are taken seriously and regarded sympathetically by enough people that they are given space to jabber their gibberish at many media outlets.

Wheatfall, his voice gathering toward a righteous thunder, intoned, “We come not only to memorialize (Otis’s) young life, but to leave an indelible mark in the city of Portland, Oregon, wherefore as a poet I stand in solidarity that it will never, ever be acceptable or traditional to destroy the black body through the auspices of police brutality in Portland, Oregon. Never! Never again!”

Wheatfall had closed his poem with the lines:

When the moment is not about you

But someone who has died violently

Remember to reverence that moment

At that moment, a reverend is not needed

What’s needed? Just a poet.

Just a poet.

No umbrage seemed taken by Haynes, who began fighting for human and civil rights before much of the crowd was born. “This,” he intoned, ”is an institutionalized symbol that will remind generation after generation that the struggle for justice, the struggle for freedom, the struggle for being human, for human and civil rights, shall continue on.” Recognizing the parklet as a symbol of those struggles, he encouraged people to take inspiration from it as they “resist totalitarianism, police abuse, discrimination, inequality, and injustice.”

Scribes added a more time specific symbolic importance of the space, and his words echoed Wheatfall’s belief in the need for poets, and ostensibly artists of all stripes. “This piece,” said Scribes, “is unveiled today at another strange intersection in our city’s history. When lies continue to inflate the very real threat of a military siege of our city. It’s in this moment that we are seeing the potent power of story. The stories we tell about ourselves, our communities, our past, and our present do indeed shape our future. It’s impossible to ignore that the lies being told by the president and the so-called right at this moment were also popular stories about Albina for many years. An outside story was fixed on to those fuzzy borders that stretched from the Rose Quarter to over here by the Lloyd Center, splitting either side of MLK from Interstate to 42^nd. It was labeled as a place of destitution, criminality. One that needed a militarized intervention. Containment. Cleanup. The police. It’s what led to 50% of all the Portland Police Bureau’s arrests happening in Portland’s Black community. It’s what supported the erosion of our home values. It’s what led to a reinvestment later that had us mostly as afterthoughts.”

Scribes closed saying, “Words matter. Stories matter. Symbols matter.”

And they are informed by moments, some seemingly tiny in the grand scheme, but nonetheless a link in the chain. In light of Wheatfall’s, Haynes’s, and Scribes’s words, the ceremonial planting of two seedlings in the beds behind the benches may seem small. But when Otis’s sister Alyssa Bryant and one of his closest friends and fellow fashion artist Fabian John put them in the soil, it was the type of moment that sticks. Plants are tough. They are resilient. The pain of losing people so close to you never goes away. But people also are durable. And for the times they doubt that toughness, a strong, loving, and rooted community will be there for them.

Intisar Abioto included Keaton Otis as part of her community of artists. She read her poem about Black art being implicitly about resistance. “When I think about Keaton Otis and artists of our generation…I feel our energy is still being carried forward….I can’t write an end to this because we continue. We continue. We continue. We here. We goin’, and we comin’. We continue.”

Intisar closed with a blessing, saying Otis’s and Bryant’s names, all responding, “Ashay.” Or is it “Ase,” both pronounced ah-SHAY. According the urbandictionary.com, Ashay is “a word used in African American culture to mean ‘and so it is’ or ‘Amen.’” Perhaps its roots lie in the latter, the Yoruban word meaning “life force.” The word also has Sanskrit and Hebrew roots, meaning “blessing” or “hope.”

However one parses it, the memorial parklet is. Its life force is a community that remains fighting for justice for Keaton Otis, Fred Bryant, and all victims of police violence. It feeds off the hope that a more just world is possible, and it is worth fighting for.

Alyssa Bryant expressed her profound appreciation for the project, saying, “It’s remembering them in a positive way.” She then introduced her son, Keaton Otis’s nephew, Fred Bryant’s grandson.

“Looks just like my dad.”

The vigil demanding justice for Keaton Otis, Fred Bryant, and all victims of police violence is held on the 12th of every month, from 6-7 PM, at the corner of NE 6th and Halsey.

Story and photo by Pete Shaw

History, it is said, is written by the victors. Their perspective and their stories are presented as unimpeachable. From this favored perch, the present is interpreted and the path to the future is mapped.

A new book, Memory & Place in Black Portland, adds its voice to the long and rich legacy of those challenging this privileged narrative. The history described in it is that of the Black community and culture that once thrived in North and Northeast Portland, particularly in Albina where the majority of Black people settled following World War II and the Vanport Flood of 1948. 

The book–a moving collection of photos, essays, and poems brought together by Portland State University (PSU) Black Studies students who are incarcerated at Oregon State Penitentiary–offers cherished narratives from traditionally underprivileged voices, touching on place as palpable presence. Parks, restaurants, basketball courts, grocery stores, the back halls of Lloyd Mall–these and more play starring roles alongside the feelings and memories they conjure. These students breathe life and lives into them, illuminating the photographs taken by students in PSU’s Project Rebound, which supports formerly imprisoned students as they transition from prison to college. 

“Whatever forces of gentrification and so much more attempt to change or eradicate the physical landscape,” said Walidah Imarisha at the photo exhibit and book release celebration on January 26, “these students have saved and preserved these parts of Portland for all of us and for future generations to come.”

Imarisha and Dr. Lisa Bates, both instructors in the Black Studies Department at PSU, and Nahlee Suvanvej, the director of PSU’s Higher Education in Prison program, worked with these students in prison to produce the book.

Bates said that one of the impulses for the project was 2020’s reigniting of the fight to abolish police, prisons, and “punitive and carceral measures as a really false way to try to get to community safety.” PSU’s Black Studies and Urban Studies programs concluded the best people to ask about these issues were “the people who have individually been directly affected by, impacted by, the criminal legal system.” An advisory group was convened to come up with a project to ask people who have been imprisoned what community safety means to them and what is needed “to move forward in our collective endeavor toward a different way of being.”

Bates noted that Babatunde “Zubbi” Azubuike, Executive Director of the Black & Beyond the Binary Collective, described that different way of being, “In a truly safe, community centered future, there would be no place that love cannot find you. That’s when we would really be safe.”

“It’s a metaphorical place,” said Bates, “but it’s also real geographical places. It’s real neighborhoods and communities. We worked with our advisory group recognizing the power of Black neighborhoods and Black places as centers of love, of nurturing, of nourishing people. Outside of systems of police that weren’t keeping people safe. But within systems of family, neighbors, kinship, in very special, actual geographic places here in Portland.”

That sense of a desire, sometimes leaning toward a desperate yearning, to belong to something that loves and can be loved permeates this collection. Elijah Craig finds it in the mall in “Lloyd Center.” As a kid, he trails his grandma to the Newberry’s Thrift Store behind the mall. Later, he navigates crowds smelling of “overly priced colognes” and takes advantage of free food samples that “poverty always pulled me toward.” He is not like many of the shoppers, whether there to purchase the latest Air Jordans, or “in a hurry to buy nothing.” Rather, his purpose there is to find

My mother fresh out of prison

Only job available was mall janitor

Somehow those food court visas

Was better than Columbia River Visitation

At other times, family and community, or at least the values which undergird the best of those concepts, are temporary, but their meaning can never be understated. In “U-Haul,” Jeffrey Sanders describes the daily grind of heading to work each day. The work itself is left unmentioned. The poem provides a sense of place familiar to any Portlander: the rain and the smell of pines. These remind him of his grandfather who taught him to work hard. He has passed, but he remains inside Sanders, a guiding light.

Arriving to work on time–before time–and doing a job as best one can is not an end to itself. It includes helping raise his own family. In Sanders’s essay “The Service of People,” it also means doing good unto others because you should. Perhaps it is what you must do. It has been passed down through the generations. The essay is perfect in every way, while set in a place that firmly is not. 

The call of home, wherever and whatever that may be, rings loudly, often desperately, in this collection–whether from a literal jail cell, or in the day to day violence of white supremacy, such as noted in Craig’s work, and more pointedly in Dwayne McClinton’s poem and narrative, both titled “Gentrification.”

McClinton grew up in a house on NE 16^th and Prescott, a stone’s throw from Alberta Street, a place that has frequently been tagged as the poster-child for Portland gentrification. In his poem, McClinton’s house–his home–is “full of good and bad memories/But they are all cherished.” In its 32 pulsating lines McClinton names names and calls out the crimes of erasure.

Then I instantly thought about

gentrification

The process to push the Blacks out of our

neighborhood

Their urban renewal plan

White racists pressing

The Portland Development Commission

Now Prosper Portland, destroying Black

communities

Stealing homes, businesses, land, history

and wealth

Any conversation of community and culture, whether through enthusiasm or appetite, inevitably turns to food. Memory & Place in Black Portland bursts with culinary references. Community is partially bound by what sticks to the ribs. DeAngelo Turner’s “Doris Cafe on Russell and MLK,” features a joint where upon entry you are hit with the smell of “hot BBQ with a hint of honey” and further inside “the chatter of different cultures, of people writing or sitting inside the cafe to eat that good food.” It takes some time for the food to make its way to the table, but its arrival brings salvation.

Turner also recalls Jake’s grocery store which once thrived at 9^th and Alberta. The smell and taste of “jojo’s and chicken” and “seasoned potatoes”–a value at $2 that in real numbers means a tray of “at least 10 jojo’s and 5 drumsticks” is a welcome memory, counterposed to Kay Johnston’s photograph of the corner, showing Turner “all the 31 years of absolute departure from this Portland neighborhood.”

Medero Moon remembers the Going St. Market on North Williams Avenue when it was owned by a Black man named Phat Charles who let people buy needed food on credit. He was “so much more than just a Black owner of a store. He was a pillar as well as a gatekeeper to the community. He was a provider when our families didn’t have money to give. That little corner store on Going St. connected our community in a way greater than our understanding.”

Mr. Charles no longer owns the store. Stressla Lynn Johnson remembers when it was named Maxie’s, a block from her Auntie’s house, and attended by Mr. and Mrs. Maxie. Like Moon, Johnson recollects the store as “an integral part of the community’s heartbeat.” Mrs. Maxie, she fondly recalls, always had Johnson and her friends “in her loving and caring sights” as their eyes wandered the many varieties of candy “situated in a way that was convenient for kids.”

However, in “Penny Candy…Gone Street Market (III),” Johnson writes of the change gentrification has brought to the same but markedly different place, now girded with “Black security bars” ironically implying “the distrust of strangers.”

I hear the store is not the same …

An old white lady stands behind the counter and don’t even know the smilin’ kids’

names … That she has been suspiciously watching ever since their little feet crossed

the wooden threshold …

Johnson notes that the penny candy once spread out by the Maxies for kids to pick from is gone. Much is gone, she laments, “…especially the/people that loved the Black Community.”

One of the many strengths of this collection is its pairing of narrative with poetry. In “The Park,” Johnson’s prose recalls gatherings at Peninsula Park. The sight of “majestically distributed” trees, perhaps maple or oak or pine, “standing like giant sentinels over us”. The sound of the fountain that sometimes became a swimming pool. The smell of the freshly mowed field. Family gatherings including those of “families not necessarily related by blood–always interrelated in the Essence of Black Love.” Stories and tales, the one that got away a little bigger each year. And children having fun being children, but “always under the watchful eyes of every adult in the park.”

Like most of the essays in this book, Johnson leans heavily on describing what was. But the accompanying poem, “Being In/At That Park,” gives us how it felt. The narrative is stripped to its bones.

Old friends and family that haven’t gathered since last

year.

Getting caught up on life’s changes over a nice cold

beer.

The parks of my youth: Peninsula, Unthank, Irvington, Alberta, and

Pier.

Looming large in my heart-soul’s memories of places I hold Near and

Dear.

After reading this collection it can be difficult not to feel a sense of something lost, a place that, while recognizable to its authors, may no longer recognize them. But as Bates and Imarisha note in the introduction to Memory & Place in Black Portland, “the removal from a physical location, or even its destruction, does not affect its existence.” And for all the losses lamented, this collection points forward. The gentrification of Albina has not resulted in the eradication of Portland’s Black community. In “9th and Alberta” Turner notes that it has relocated to Gresham where it has retained, according to Johnson, what it holds Near and Dear.

The PSU Black Studies students whose works appear in Memory & Place in Black Portland have taken their place in the long tradition of withstanding white supremacy by challenging its dominant narratives, and embracing the stubborn resistance of memory. From behind prison walls, their stories pulse with the life of a vibrant community, offering echoes of what McClinton enshrines as “this sacred place/A Black placemaking place.”

To view some of the entries in Memory & Place in Black Portland, go to: https://www.theponyxpress.org/s/psu-black-studies-portfolio

The author apologizes for the formatting error in the presentation of McClinton’s poem “Gentrification.”

Story and photos by Pete Shaw

Workers at the Arbor Lodge New Seasons’s grocery store at 6400 North Interstate Avenue walked off the job for the second day in a row on Wednesday January 29. According to the New Seasons Labor Union (NSLU), the Unfair Labor Practice strike was again called because Randy Foster, who has been employed at New Seasons for 19 years and is the treasurer of the NSLU, was “unjustly fired.” The union is demanding Foster’s immediate reinstatement, and it will continue striking until this demand is met. As of Thursday morning, the union has called for another strike, starting at 2 PM.

On Tuesday, Wednesday’s would-be shoppers were met at both entrances to the store by picketing workers and community members acting in solidarity. Passing vehicles honked in support, and would-be shoppers chose to spend their money elsewhere. The parking lot was soon down to a few cars, and at 4:11 PM, just a little over an hour after the picket lines formed, one of the store’s managers put signs on the doors reading that the store was closed for the day. Tuesday’s strike also resulted in the store’s closure.

“I have been an employee with New Seasons Market ever since the company was young and truly locally owned,” said Foster. “And after all that time, with a spotless attendance and discipline record, over the last couple of months I have been written up for a couple of situations that ultimately revolved around me trying to support a disabled co-worker of mine. On paper there’s merit to what they wrote me up, but basically I was just trying to do the right thing by my co-worker, and after all of this time I just got summarily fired yesterday because of my attempts to help my disabled co-worker, even though they in small ways they violated company policy.”

That co-worker, Mikey, has type 1 diabetes and is visually impaired. He has been a New Seasons employee for ten years.

Foster described the reason for his first write-up. “I was trying to help my co-worker with a medical issue that involved his type 1 diabetes. I intended to be off the sales floor not working for about five minutes. I was still on the clock. The thing took a lot longer. I was off the floor for almost 30 minutes. Even though I communicated with my team partway through and inquired if they were okay. I got an answer back to make me think they were fine. I got written up for time theft for that desire to help my co-worker out.”

His second violation similarly revolved around his being a decent human being. Foster’s and Mikey’s co-workers help get Mikey off his shift a few minutes early so he can catch his MAX train toward his home.

“Mikey’s legally blind, and he takes a MAX and a bus home every single day,” explained Foster. “I had just clocked out for my lunch break and wandered back by the front end of the store to get my hoodie to wear and noticed it was about that time to get him out. I took it upon myself, as has been fairly past practice for us, to shut his register down a few minutes early and let him leave.”

He continued, “I got fired for not only “working” while I was on my lunch–I worked for about 20 seconds doing that–but also for contradicting the wishes of our department management who had decided we are not allowed to do that for him anymore, and I was not aware that they had made that crackdown.”

This most recent strike by the NSLU comes as contract talks between the union and New Seasons’s management remain mired after over two years of management first refusing to negotiate and then, according to the union, only doing so in bad faith, with no offer close to the union’s demands. Foster’s firing is seen by the union as an attempt to browbeat union workers into accepting an offer that does not meet workers’ needs.

Brian Berry, Store Representative for Arbor Lodge, said, “My perspective is that Randy was unjustly fired after almost 19 years of service to this company. About as good a worker as they could want. But the fact is he’s a union organizer. He’s our union treasurer, and they deemed it worthy of firing. Apparently management doesn’t want our co-workers looking out for each other.”

Mikey, the New Seasons worker whom Foster got fired for helping, as well as his co-workers, worries that he may be next.

“They’ve been kind of causing pressure on Randy and myself to leave,” he said.

Berry concurred, stating, “There’s been a lot of pressure recently as far as we can tell to push Mikey out, and maybe eventually fire him. And we think Randy’s firing is absolutely connected to that considering the person Randy was helping was Mikey.”

For Mikey, the stakes are high. But he felt it was important to support his co-workers as they have supported him. “If I lose my job, I’ll be homeless. It’s a one income household in my household. My partner is unable to work. I’m not gonna let that stop me from being here. I’m not gonna let that stop me from sticking up for my co-workers and fighting the good fight.”

The NSLU’s struggle for its first contract in many ways bears a striking resemblance to that of the Burgerville Workers Union (BVWU). One reason for the BVWU’s success was the union’s exposure of the divide between the company’s professed values and the way it treated its workers. When New Seasons was founded in Portland in 1999, it could honestly state it was a locally owned store that reflected local values. Since then, the company has been sold a few times. It now is owned by Good Food Holdings, a subsidiary of the multinational retail company, Emart Inc.

New Seasons has indeed come a long way from its roots. It once proudly proclaimed on its storefronts, employees’ aprons, bags, and fliers that it was “the friendliest store in town.” That phrase physically disappeared a few years ago, although the workers still carry it on.

Nick Neumann, who has worked in the Portland grocery industry for nearly 20 years, noted, “While workers at New Seasons attempt to keep their end of ‘friendliest store in town’ by providing great customer service, management has turned New Seasons to perhaps the most hostile store in town for workers.”.

Mikey said about Foster’s firing, “I think that it’s totally unfair. It’s bogus. He didn’t do anything wrong. New Seasons seems to be trying to chase a lot of folks out. My real, visceral thought is, I’m beyond disgusted with what New Seasons has done. You know, I’m 55 years old, and I’ve been working since I was 14. I have not encountered such a hostile work environment.”

“I want people to know a couple of things,” he added. “One, just how good of a person Randy is. Randy is an amazing person. He is my friend. He’s my co-worker. He’s someone I care about profoundly. And for them to let him go in the manner that they did is just wrong. It’s so wrong. And what I want people in the public to know is that New Seasons is not the ‘good place’ that it was ten or fifteen years ago. It’s changed. It’s not locally owned. It’s not a good company. And it does not take care of store employees.”

Foster recalled when he first began working at New Seasons. “One of New Seasons’s core slogans ever since the beginning is ‘do the right thing always.’ And that is a founding core of the company. Ultimately that is what I was trying to do in both these instances, and I am now fired. New Seasons is still living on their image that they have cultivated over the last 25 years, and it’s not representative of the way the company is anymore.”

Just before Thanksgiving, the NSLU asked people to boycott New Seasons until the workers got a fair contract. That call for a boycott remains, and as more people have learned about the chasm between the New Seasons they thought they knew and the one the store’s workers endure, the company is starting to feel the pinch in its bottom line. Wednesday’s community turnout in support of Foster and his co-workers was its largest outpouring yet, and over 2,000 people have signed pledges to honor the boycott.

“We know the company is feeling the boycott,” said Berry. “What they did to Randy shows once again this company does not deserve anyone’s hard earned money. With the amount groceries have gone up, shop anywhere else. Don’t give your money to New Seasons until we settle a fair contract.”

Want to get involved? Visit the New Seasons Labor Union’s website at: https://www.nslu.org.

To sign the New Seasons Labor Union boycott pledge and to donate to the union’s strike fund, go to: https://www.nslu.org/community.