How do you tell the whole story of city like Portland—not just food trucks, lattes, and the dream of the '90s, but decades of racial exclusion, land theft, and violence? On this panel, five writers will describe how they've reclaimed the lost or erased histories of their communities through imaginative writing and literary activism, from Portland to Staten Island to the Blackfeet Nation.

Still Here: Writing Against Gentrification, Displacement and Erasure

Samiya Bashir, Jess Row, Mitchell S. Jackson, Sterling HolyWhiteMountain, Jen Fitzgerald

March, 28, 2019 // 1:30pm - 2:45pm on Thursday March 28, 2019 // Portland Ballroom 251, Oregon Convention Center, Level 2

In the past few years there's been much discussion of the continuing crisis of housing discrimination, residential segregation, and gentrification in the US. This panel brings together five writers (African American, Native, and white, of different class and geographic origins) all actively working to tell the stories of people and communities ignored and marginalized by official narratives of real estate development, economic growth, and cultural "coolness."