“A State of Immigrants”:
A New Look at the Immigrant Experience in Oregon
In September 2021, an interdisciplinary group of scholars from the University of Oregon, Oregon State University, and Portland State University released a report titled “’A State of Immigrants’: A New Look at the Immigrant Experience in Oregon.” This report builds on an earlier report, “Understanding the Immigrant Experience in Oregon” that appeared in 2008. Produced under the aegis of the UO Labor Education and Research Center, “A State of Immigrants” has received financial support from Pacific Northwest Just Futures Initiative (JFI), a project funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The interviews posted on this website appear in Chapter VI of “A State of Immigrants,” which focuses on “Immigrants in the Oregon Workplace.” Both this chapter and the larger report support JFI’s aim of serving as a “seedbed for applied, publicly engaged research” that addresses matters of racial justice and social inequity.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a growing recognition of the critical role that the “essential work” of immigrants has played in ensuring social well-being. In turn, this recognition has spotlighted our social failure to protect, reward, and fully acknowledge the vital contribution of essential workers. Many of our interviewees tell important stories about their experiences as immigrants or the children of immigrants, the essential work they perform, and their efforts to achieve social, civic, cultural, and economic integration.
As contributor Lisha Shrestha from Portland State University observes, integration is a “dynamic, two-way process” aimed at helping newcomers feel at home and develop a sense of belongingness which enables them to “build relationships, craft identities, and explore new opportunities.” Our interviewees describe their engagement in this process, offering insights about the relationships they have built, the identities they have crafted, and their exploration of new opportunities for personal growth and social participation. They also recount their accomplishments and ambitions and reflect on the social environment in which their personal journeys have unfolded.
CONTRIBUTORS
Robert Bussel is professor emeritus of history and directed the Labor Education and Research Center at the University of Oregon from 2002-2021. He received both his undergraduate and graduate degrees in history from Cornell University.
Bob has spent over four decades working with the union movement, including work with the United Farm Workers, the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union and twenty-five years as a university-based labor educator.
He has had a long-standing interest in immigration as both a scholar and activist. Bob coedited a 2009 University of Oregon report titled “Understanding the Immigrant Experience in Oregon,” helped found the Integration Network for Immigrants of Lane County and has written extensively about the history of immigrants in Oregon. Most recently, he edited the 2021 report “A State of Immigrants: A New Look at the Immigrant Experience in Oregon.” This report includes contributors from the University of Oregon, Oregon State University, and Portland State University and has received support from the Just Futures Institute funded by the Mellon Foundation.
Lola Loustaunau is a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology at the University of Oregon and a Wayne Morse Fellow. Her work focuses on migrant workers, precarity, food production, and collective organizing. She will be joining the University of Wisconsin-Madison School for Workers as postdoctoral researcher in Fall 2022.