The Magic 25: Say Hey, NW

Say Hey, NW is a reception held quarterly by Partners in Diversity to welcome new professionals of color. The event is hosted by a group of employers in Oregon/SW Washington working together to make sure their workplaces and the communities they serve are able to attract, hire and retain a diverse workforce. The event brings together professionals who are new to the area with a more established (as opposed to “old”) “welcoming brigade”. Attendees include community leaders, corporate and government representatives, community organizations and individuals willing to help make the honorees feel more connected with their new community.

“Say Hey” is the result of a confluence of goals, all well intentioned and, at root, the same: to find a way to encourage the formation of community, to make Portland a warmer, more accessible place for people of color who move here and can too easily find themselves alienated from other professionals of color and the broader community.

As is the case with any great idea, when you look back at its genesis there is often a series of reactions to the status quo which, once combined, gel—as if by serendipity—to create something unique, important and, above all, useful. In this case, both Chris Poole-Jones and Vicki Nakashima had, quite independent of each other, been hosting what I call “Welcome Lunches” for people new to the Portland community of color. When I found my way to the IFCC and onto its Board of Directors and said to Chris, “We’ve got to do something because it’s too hard to find this community and had I not, I’da left Portland for sure,” she convened an extraordinary group of community members to brainstorm the problem. It turns out that she understood all too well my sentiments as did Vicki Nakashima, Vicki Guinn, and Doug Samuels. Each of us in our respective ways was reacting to a status quo that we found at odds with our sense of how things could, or perhaps more accurately, should be. So, we brainstormed. In a single afternoon the idea for a quarterly welcoming gathering was born. We didn’t have a name. We only had a place, a need to serve, and a couple of handfuls of hope that folks would show up to our first gathering. “Say Hey,” was named because what you say to
family, at least in my hometown of Detroit, is: “Haaaaaayyyyyy.”

Well, that original gathering of 70 people in IFCC’s upstairs galleries was an immediate success. We wined, we cheesed, we threw air-kisses. And in the process we helped create something important.

I’m not sure if the current incarnation of “Say Hey,” with it’s broad reach would be possible without it having first been a very cozy event in the upstairs of the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center. What I learned from being a part of this particular IFCC story is that service is important, you can find lifelong friends by doing something you deeply believe in, and you can deeply affect a group of people, a community, a city by being reactionary and employing your imagination. I have long since moved away from any formal involvement with “Say Hey.” But I still deeply believe in its mission. And I miss that wine and cheese, the tight, tight quarters, the happiness that abounded, the warmth and good spirit of those first events. What a fantastic group of folks. What a fantastic way to get to know Portland. Indeed. IFCC: Congratulations on fulfilling your goal of serving an under served population with class and art and vision. Thank you.

by Crystal Williams
Associate Professor, Reed College

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