PCC Instructor Curates Art Exhibition Focused On Youth Activism In Forest Grove (Photo) -12/14/21

BEAVERTON, Ore. – On May 19, 2016, in response to racially-charged incidents at Forest Grove High School in Western Washington County, thousands of students at schools throughout the Portland metro area participated in a series of organized walk-outs to demand changes to the educational system. The protests, amplified via social media with the hashtag #StandUpFG, started a movement in Oregon to do more to help students find success through a greater sense of belonging at their schools. 

The story of this moment, its connection to the past, and impact on the future is told by Portland Community College history instructor Israel Pastrana in the newest virtual exhibition at the Five Oaks Museum (formerly Washington County Museum). The exhibition, “#StandUpFG: Latinx Youth Activism in the Willamette Valley,” debuted in October and will run through June of 2022. Pastrana is the first PCC staff member to serve as a guest curator for the museum, an independent non-profit located at the college’s Rock Creek Campus.

The Guest Curator Program at Five Oaks Museum was created to decentralize the museum’s singular authority and voice in storytelling. Instead, major annual exhibitions are put in the hands of community members who are chosen by a committee then given a platform, access to resources, and support from staff to speak authentically about their own history and experiences.

For Pastrana, a child of Mexican immigrant parents and self-labeled “high school pushout,” which he ascribes to the failure of educational institutions to serve students of color, the exhibition was indeed personal. He also met many of these same #StandUpFG youth leaders in his PCC classrooms where they continued their push for a more inclusive educational system.

“I am grateful for the trust that the students I have worked with have placed in me, and I hope that the exhibition does some justice to the courage and vision of the youth that inspired it,” Pastrana said.

The impact of this movement was soon felt at PCC in 2018 when these students entered PCC and became students in Pastrana’s class. They then extended their push for ethnic studies curriculum to the college, developing a collective class project that formally documented the historic protest and call for belonging many of them had helped lead. This became the basis for the exhibition.

Over the past three years, PCC’s Ethnic Studies Program has taken flight with the hiring of two full time faculty members, Gabriel Higuera and John P. Craig, and three stand alone courses currently offered. Higuera also founded the Critical Educators of Color Pathway — a partnership between PCC, Pacific University and several Washington County school districts that prepares students for careers as teachers and educators with specific focus on ethnic studies.

“This exhibition is a tribute to the courage, vision, and commitment of Latinx youth, who for generations have pressed us to better understand our history, culture, and the role that education plays in creating a more just and equitable future for all of us,” Pastrana said.

  

About Portland Community College: Portland Community College is the largest post-secondary institution in Oregon and provides training, degree and certificate completion, and lifelong learning to more than 50,000 full- and part-time students in Multnomah, Washington, Yamhill, Clackamas, and Columbia counties. PCC has four comprehensive campuses, eight education centers or areas served, and approximately 200 community locations in the Portland metropolitan area. The PCC district encompasses a 1,500-square-mile area in northwest Oregon and offers two-year degrees, one-year certificate programs, short-term training, alternative education, pre-college courses and life-long learning.

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