About the Project

In September of 2025 I was late, as I often am (I operate on CPT), to a meeting with a new-to-Bend Black business owner and community member. In my role at the time, I found myself connecting people to each other, to community resources, and knocking off tasks without piecing the work into a more strategic whole. There was little infrastructure (people or technical), support, or investment to motivate this type of engagement work. 

He was not much for small talk, and in this conversation he posed the question that has festered in my mind ever since: “Why do I stay in Bend?”

I now revisit this question in both level-headed times and moments of restlessness. I anchor myself to my original answer, which, although it remains fundamentally unchanged, has recently been rocked and subjected to storms. 

He posed this question to others, and in our discussions afterward, we dissected, reflected, and realized how we’d not dug deeper, pressed harder, for everything behind the first response. 

I’ve been in Central Oregon for almost nine years and, while I have my days with the place, I have come to love my people. And, because of self-imposed distance, I’ve only in the last 2-3 years, begun to have profound, insightful, infuriating conversations with people who pour into this community every day, and because of systems and history, do so quietly and invisibly. 

This project is a completely biased endeavor to capture some of those conversations with (mostly) Black, Indigenous, Latine, Asian, Pacific Islander and other friends and acquaintances of color, who make Central Oregon a liveable place for someone like me.  

It will feature the stories of newcomers, no-so-newcomers, people indigenous to this land, and other people of color whose families have been here for generations. Alas, it is another attempt at dismantling the monolith myth, and offering a glimpse into the beauty of a diverse Central Oregon that always has been.