The teens crowded into chairs before the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners. Behind them a room filled with their family and friends, community activists, public servants, strangers.
They came as leaders.
The teens were Latino, many from immigrant families, some immigrants themselves. And they told the board how an anti-violence program called STRYVE helped them recognize something they had all along: the power to change their futures.
In a poor neighborhood, where violence spikes in the lazy heat of summer, where parents work long hours, they could so easily slip through the cracks.
Instead, they coached sports for Spanish-speaking kids, advocated for a Wood Village family lunch program then staffed the tables, distributed tiny libraries across the county.
Beside them sat 28-year-old Ismael Garcia, a county health specialist who works with the teens.
“Our present looks much different from our past,” he told the board as it proclaimed Sept. 15-Oct. 15 Hispanic Heritage Month. “Our future will look very different from our present. We strengthen our county when we create opportunities for our youth, and allow them to reach their potential.”
County-sponsored events kicked off with a celebration in the board room, where Latina moms from Wood Village donned traditional Mexican dresses and danced, encouraging county staff in suit coats and heels to join them.
Marcos Circosta, a constituent relations liaison for county Chair Deborah Kafoury, hung back. A shy man in his early 20s, Circosta isn’t one to offer an opinion. But he did.
It meant a lot to hear his boss say that Latinos mattered; that they were important.
“Having it recognized by local government makes you feel like you’re a part of it,” he said. “It’s great. It’s meaningful.”
And it’s an event that Health Department Executive Advisor Consuelo Saragoza has attended again and again in her 22 years with Multnomah County.
The recognition that seems so passionate today, she said, must remain tomorrow. And recognition must to lead to power, and from power to change.
“Looking at leadership in terms of Latinos, that hasn’t grown as much as it should have,” she said. And yet there are seeds of change: The success of the Portland Mercado, the multicultural library resources, community organizations like Latino Network.
“And now, looking at these kids, these young leaders,” she said, and looked over at Ismael Garcia and his teens. Those are leaders of tomorrow, she said, young people like Garcia.
“I knew him when he was this big,” she said and held a palm at hip-height.
While Garcia chatted with staff and clients, his mother Isabel sat quietly in the back of the room, rocking Garcia’s one-month-old son Julian.
His speech about the past and the future made her reflect on her own life. Her parents met on the Mexican border and crisscrossed the country as laborers in the 1940s. She was also born on the border.
“I’m proud to see how far our heritage has come. I can see it in our children,” she said. “My parents were hard workers. So that’s what I always thought I was, a hard worker.”
She moved to Oregon in 1980 and took a job in a labor camp picking strawberries.
Unlike many of the other workers, she had gone to high school and spoke English.
“I wanted to do more than labor,” she said. So Isabel entered a medical assistant program and hired on with Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center, then with Multnomah County.
She tried to show her son that he could do more with his life. And he did. He entered the University of Oregon. So did his highschool sweetheart, Suleima. Suleima’s family immigrated from Mexico and she was the first in her family to graduate high school.
They married. They both graduated college. She went on to earn a degree in law. He became an advocate for teens.
The couple has thought about what they want for their son. And if they want more for their son, their fight must be much bigger.
“We need to see change in our community, especially in East County,” Suleima said. “We’re pushing for change for our children, so hopefully they can grow up in a better neighborhood. We want our child to have the opportunity to do anything.”