Front Street Weekly; 523

Oh. [Music playing] Acceptance of interracial marriages is growing but mixed couples still risk society's scorn. A new support group is helping multi-ethnic families. [Gwyneth Gamble Booth] Some environmentalist say that logging in fish habitats can't coexist under Oregon's current forestry laws. But the State Department of Forestry disagrees. [Jim Swenson] And where's the art is not a question but an unusual gallery with a vigor all of its own. You'll see those stories tonight on Front Street Weekly, Oregon Public Television's news magazine. Good evening, I'm Jim Swenson.

[Booth] Good evening. I'm Gwyneth Gamble Booth.For many, marrying outside one's race is still considered one of the great taboos in our society. Yet every year more and more couples are risking that disapproval. The problems and opportunities bi-racial couples face are unique. And as reporter Rob ?Minard? explains, many interracial families are now finding strength in a new support group. [Male voice speaking] Mostly stares. Particularly from people of an older generation. Fifty, sixty, seventy. I think the older they are the more they stare. Some of them are nearly in shock, you might say, to see us together. Just simply being black in this society prepares you for all of the various types of scorn, etc. etc. that society might heap upon you. [Rob ?Minard?] Ed Cooper and his wife Barbara knew the risks when they married outside the race. It didn't stop them. Today they're one of an estimated 600,000 mixed marriages in the United States. [Second male voice] Up until 1955, state law barred interracial marriages here in

Oregon. But times have changed. In 1984 some 1500 mixed race couples married. That's double what the number was just a decade ago. Acceptance has been slow. It wasn't until 1967 that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all state laws that ban mixed marriages. At the time 16 states still had such laws on the books. [Male voice speaking] [Inaudible] on that and there are people who still hold a lot of those views. I think that's changing slowly but there's still a lot of really ill will for people who are mixed couples. [?Minard?] Experts agree most of that ill will is aimed at black/white couples. According to the 1984 figures of the mixed marriages in Oregon, 10 percent were black/white. Marriages between Hispanics, Asians, Indians and whites were highest. One of the biggest problems facing these couples isn't society; it's their own parents and families. [Male voice speaking] Sometimes they would completely reject their child and then the grandchildren and the happiest day in

their life is if there's a divorce. [?Minard?] Ed Cooper and Barbara MacIntyre have been married for 10 years. They met through friends. But in order to cut their wedding cake, Ed and Barbara had to cut through some family prejudices and pressure to put off the marriage. It started with Barbara's mother. [Barbara] But when she first found out that Edward is black she said I want you on the next plane to Austin, which is where she was living. And I said no. [Laughs] And then Edward was more important to me than everybody else in the world put together. So what what anybody else thinks? [?Minard?] Barbara's family eventually calmed down and today the relationship is good. Ed says the matter of race was never a concern in his family. The couple considers themselves lucky saying instances of racism against them have been rare. Their main concern now is raising their two and a half year old son, Ethan. [Edward] I don't want him to feel ashamed of anything. Don't want him to feel that he's different in any negative

sense. The fact that Barbara and I are a mixed race couple doesn't go unnoticed by a lot of black people also who have some of the same prejudices that white people have. I think it's a possibility that Ethan could be ostracized to some extent from either side. He has to be prepared to deal with in a healthy way. Family counselors say children can be the real victims of interracial marriages, especially when it comes to racial identity. Nationally there are an estimated one million mixed children. [Gonzalez] They are things that are said about their mother or their father. By peers of either white peers and black peers or white peers and Hispanic peers. So it's kind of tough. So the kids grow up feeling somewhat isolated, not quite fitting in. [?Minard?] Despite this, Gonzalez says parents often make the mistake of telling their children that color doesn't matter. [Heidi Durrow] It is important to touch base, you know, with someone of my own because

I think those are the only people, I can really say, those are my, you know, I can't say the black people are mine, the white people are mine, but those mixed people, those people in between, like those are my people. [?Minard?] Sixteen year old Heidi Durrow is a mixed child, a "mocha baby" as she calls herself. So are her friends Eli, Tanya and Leslie. They go to different schools but once a month they get together to do something special. [Heidi] I think society they're always saying you have to choose, you have to choose what you want to be; you're either black or your white. You can't be in between. Right now I'm at a point where I'm saying well I'll just use whatever it is to my advantage. If it's being black, then I'll be black. [?Minard] Heidi lives in northeast Portland. Her mother [?Verkeith?] is Danish. Heidi says her racial and ethnic diversity give her an edge over others. But still there are pressures. [Heidi] We went to a dinner one night and some girl said, "You know, I know Heidi's mom feels out of place; she's the only white person here". But, you know, I deal with it. But it's fine; I'm not

embarrassed because my mom she's just great. It's just other people's attitudes. [?Minard?] The Durrows divorced recently. [Inaudible name] says isolation helped destroy the marriage; isolation that grew in part out of racism. [Heidi's mother] It's the turns of the backs when you walk in a room; it's a certain way when people look at you. Looking for an apartment; talking with them on the phone and yes it was available when yes [inaudible sentence]. "it out". That was typical. [Female voice speaking] Well we've got to stop looking at each other as colors. [?Minard?] It's at this monthly support group meeting that interracial families are breaking their isolation. The Interracial Family Network started up in Portland last summer. Most of the couples are black/white. Many are also single parents. Some here have been harassed by neighbors for marrying outside their race. Others have been banished by families. They come to share those troubles and the [inaudible] that they're somehow maladjusted. At this meeting they discussed racial identity. [Female voice speaking] A woman I know refers to her children who have a black father and she's a white woman, as "mixed".

And it just, you know, does something; it just makes me feel [inaudible]. [Younger female voice speaking] I've been brought up seeing that I have access to [inaudible] cultures and so being mixed is a positive word in my life. [Young female voices speaking at the same time] [Female voice speaking] I think that the main importance I think that, at least for myself and our family is that my daughter Lauren has a chance to around children that have the same ethnic background that she does; you know, they're part African-American and part Caucasian-American or as she calls it, "light brown" like me. [Female voice speaking] I was amazed at how isolated I was and had been for years and years and years and I - isolation I mean it was not OK for me to openly love my husband, to be able to demonstrate that, to show affection. [Male voice speaking] America's made up of many people. America's made up of what they call a "melting pot". But that should be something positive to look at.

[?Minard?] But will America live up to its melting pot ideal. Experts agree that as racial mixing increases, that theory and notions of who we are, will be put to test. Whether we can put to rest doubts over mixing skin colors remains an unwritten American story. [Male voice speaking] I think probably by the year 2000 that interracial marriages or couples will probably equal the number of same race marriages or couples. And that I think that we can look at that - I think it can be very positive. [Gwyneth Gamble Booth] Well it is estimated that Portland's Interracial Family Support Group is one of about 16 in the nation. And if you're interested in more information you can call the Mallory Avenue Christian Church. Jim? [Jim Swenson] Well in Oregon thousands of miles of streams run through private land which is being logged. And some environmentalists tell us that although the streams and the fish in them belong to the public, logging near streams is permitted and that can ruin fish habitat.

What the fish need is a simple way to get upstream, clean gravel to spawn in, quiet pools in the stream to rest and grow in and shade to keep the water cool. But ensuring that these needs are met is a balancing act between public and private interests. [Swenson] They're on Ted ?Copies? place near Vernonia, a couple of environmentalists worried about fish. They're showing a friend what's happening to streams on private land. Deer Creek cuts through the property. Paul Ketchum of One Thousand Friends of Oregon and Tom Marlin, a fish advocate, say it's being ruined. But first they're looking at a good stretch of the stream. [Undercurrent male voice] Marlin says his mother caught 50 pound Chinook salmon, silvers and sea going cutthroats in the creek in the early 1900s. [Marlin] As she brought me up here intermittently as a child, I saw all the fish that she was talking about. And as I continued to come back up in here, they're gone. Only a few

silvers survived. The other fish are gone due to the destruction to the streams. [Swenson] "When ?Copy? logged, he did it right", says Ketchum. But other landowners aren't doing the same. ?Copy's? stream site is pretty much undisturbed: a buffer of trees shades the water. [?Copy?] And what you can see from just looking at the areas ?on your? left, a lot of large trees, a lot of large conifers, which are needed and as well other kinds of trees and vegetation. [Swenson] Old conifers like fir and cedar were allowed to rot and fall into the stream, making pools, which collect gravel. Yet there are no barriers that fish can't swim through. But despite ?Copy's? kindness to the stream, there is silt in it. Logging upstream is causing erosion. On adjacent Crown-Zellerbach land, a bar of silt partially blocks Deer Creek, the bank eroding as the stream is forced to change direction. [Ketchum] As you can see, there's a great deal of sediment here. Just to give you an example this is mud basically from logging practices that have settled in this area.

This kind of sediment deposits over the whole stream bed itself and severely reduces fish possibility for fish survival. [Swenson] This buffer strip is required by law along Class 1 or fish bearing streams under Oregon's Forest Practices Act. The conifers near the stream have been logged and sold. Only alder is left. It's legal, but not enough shade to suit Ketchum and no fallen trees add to the streams structure. [Ketchum] Really the only way to get the structure is to get those conifers next to the streams and leave them there. [Swenson] Under law, buffer strips aren't required on Class 2, or non-fish bearing streams. This one feeds Deer Creek. Marlin says it should have fish in it, but it doesn't. [Marlin] Steelhead, salmon, Coho, but not anymore. It's been stripped of all buffer strips and been so heavily silted that the fish can't survive in something like this. It's bacteria eating oxygen level up and act like a sewage. It just kills the fish.

[Swenson] The streams have been classified by Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists State foresters check proposed buffers on all fish bearing streams before logging begins. Further along Deer Creek, Marlin pointed out what he considered to be a strangely marked buffer strip. It was on Crown-Zellerbach property, tagged by Crown foresters. The strip, composed of alder, is inside a line of conifers which now edge the stream. [Marlin] This is the edge of the river, edge of the creek, right here. And the buffer strip is actually inside the creek [inaudible]. There's where the buffer strip should have been marked where the paint is on the tree. [Swenson] Marlin has painted these conifers with white salmon logos to remind Crown to save them for the fish. He's frustrated the current practices allow them to be cut. [Marlin] I haven't seen anything this ridiculous in a long time. [Swenson] Across the road on the other side of a culvert, Marlin couldn't find much of a buffer strip at all. No alders had originally lined the stream before logging and all conifers were cut, leaving nothing.

[Marlin] The fish can probably get through this culvert, through all this mess. But I don't know where they're going to go and spawn once they get to the other side with all the buffer strip gone and all the silt coming in. This is just a joke. [Swenson] It'll be a long time before seedlings planted near the stream will produce much shade again, says Marlin. Meanwhile, he claims, the water temperature will change. [Marlin] All the conifer trees are cut down. It's going to overheat the water to too high a temperature and with no gravel here to deposit the eggs, the salmon will die. [Swenson] Marlin also pointed out hillside erosion nearby, from what he called poor logging practices, allowing soft soil to flow into streams and a temporary stream crossing, two logs covered with dirt, not removed after logging and causing more erosion. [Marlin] In my opinion, this is a violation of the Oregon Forest Practices Act, by having the lack of the culverts. They put logs down and the man told me that it was OK, but you can see now what's eroding out. This will eventually blow out. When the enough water gets behind here, it will block it

up and just push all the sedimentation into the creek, into the system. [Swenson] Marlin and Ketchum say protecting fish is impossible because current laws are too weak and too hard to interpret. [Ketchum] The existing forest practices rules, as they apply to stream side areas contain some vague phrases and language which in many cases is not enforceable. [Swenson] Things may change. The Forestry Department is now considering a task force report that would upgrade stream protection. But timber owners are claiming economic hardship and demanding proof that stronger laws are needed. John Davis, a Forest Practices forester, is currently busy enforcing the laws as now written. He says state forestry is backed by an effective system of permits, inspections and citations if rules are broken. [Davis] .... a Class 1 stream, then those activities require prior approval. And what that means is that we get together and do an on-site inspection ..... [Swenson] Davis says the Forestry Department does protect fish.

He took us on a tour of his own to see this bumper strip on Endicott Creek. [Davis] I'd say this is a pretty good representation of what happens out here. [Swenson] Fred Robinson, area director, agrees that this is a well done piece of logging. [Robinson] We think in all, all respects that it's just a pretty darn good job. [Swenson] This carefully logged site is on land owned by Longview Fiber. Here, extra care prevented erosion on high risk, steep terrain. A buffer strip of mixed trees was left. [Robinson] The whole objective is to minimize the sight disturbance. [Swenson] Robinson says stream side conifers can be cut while still safeguarding fish habitat. [Robinson] For the 15 years the Forest Practices Act has been in effect, we have allowed the land owner to harvest, out of that buffer strip, commercial trees, so that he could recoup some of that value. As long as he could do that

and still maintain 75 percent of the shade cover of that, of that stream ..... [Swenson] Robinson added however, that both Class 1 and Class 2 streams must be cleaned up after logging if non-permitted silt or debris enters the water. Streams cannot be blocked. Neither Robinson nor Davis were familiar with the sites of Marlin or Ketchum's complaints at Deer Creek, but Davis said he welcomed the information. [Davis] Well, as conducting inspections and getting out and around and looking at the area, we also rely when people see problems on them getting in contact with us and pointing those things out and then we can respond to them. We encourage that. [Swenson] After our interview, Davis took a day off and asked Marlin to show him the problems along Deer Creek. Crown-Zellerbach was cited for violations of the Forest Practices Act. [Act.] Davis cited Crown-Zellerbach for not removing the temporary stream crossing Tom Marlin had complained about. Crown claims that before the citation there was some

confusion about whether or not they had to remove it. Davis also asked Brown to clean up the slash in the stream. No fines resulted from Davis's visit but Marlin says after eight years of trying to bring Deer Creek to the Department of Forestry's attention, it's a beginning. [Gwyneth Gamble Booth]Have you ever experienced art? Have you ever ridden Arto Mobile? Would you put a quarter in the first coin operated art gallery window? With music. Well, our next story tells you exactly where you can do all these things. [Music playing] [Music continues] [Booth] For most people in Portland and surrounding communities, a visit to an art gallery, stopping by to see one of the many established purveyors of art: Jameson

Thomas, the Attic Gallery; perhaps the Oregon Art Institute, better known as the Portland Art Museum. But recently we visited an art gallery new to the art scene, one whose owner hopes it will catch on and become a permanent fixture in downtown Portland, albeit an alternative to its establishment brethren. Stephanie Pearce opened her gallery last November. For Stephanie, or Stevie as she is known to her friends, operating this unusual venture is just the latest in a series of careers. Her work resume runs the gamut from waitressing to working on a cruise ship. For three years she practiced law in the legal department of AT&T in New York. [Stephanie] I didn't have any real attachment to the work there. Working with the FCC I don't really care if AT&T won or lost and there just wasn't any kind of motivation there to keep going and it got harder and harder coming to work every day and every new assignment was just this big gigantic headache and I wrote little notes to myself all the time, "You must quit, you must quit, you must quit". [Booth] While riding her bike in Portland one day

Stevie got the idea to open a different sort of art business, more an art experience, if you will, and a place where Stevie could hone her own art talents as well. She sees her gallery as a happening. Indeed it is just that. [Music playing] Stephanie Pearce has provided an opportunity to many artists. Lisa, "I'll paint anything" Rose, shared her feelings on why she believes "Where's the Art" must succeed. Lisa was busy creating her entry for the opening of the "Off the Wall" wallpaper exhibit, the April show of "Where's the Art?". [Rose] Everything that this gallery stands for is just sort of what feeds me and makes me want to live [laughs], I don't know how to say it, you know, it's just that

Stevie's attitude; for one thing she doesn't take life so seriously. And also she does not depend on magazines from New York City and art critics and newspapers telling her what to like and what is [inaudible] and what's good art. She has a total other basis of making a decision as to what is art and in fact I don't think she even thinks about what is and isn't art. [Booth] Photographer Ryan Bond's work has been shown in such traditional places as ?Son Beau? Gallery in Portland and the ?Mod Kerns? Gallery in Eugene. Yet Bond sees a real need for the non-traditional art space as well. [Bond] Well this gallery is a little different. It's not quite as sterile as the traditional museum or museum type gallery. The walls aren't white, there's no hushed tones and soft carpet. And I like that. It's more informal, sort of order

forming out of chaos. [Booth] Artist John Kreider whose moniker is "Knife", agrees. John Kreider, have you exhibited in any other galleries? [Kreider] No I haven't. This is my first gallery. [Booth] So what then does "Where is the Art" mean to you? [Kreider] This is kind of like a, you know, sort of open forum for artists, really, kind of like more of a communal sort of place where we can all come and work. [Booth] Stephanie hopes to keep her gallery alive with innovative theme shows attractive to the public. She also has devised window decorations that she terms, "world first". For example, the first coin operated art gallery window in the world. [Stephanie] And this is the world's first coin operated art in a jar. So basically, 24 hours a day, walk up to the window and put a quarter in and basically it gives the music and a jar full of art. [Booth] But can "Where's the Art?" make it, with its off-beat presentations?

Well, we went to the opening of "Off the Wall" wallpaper. It began at 5 p.m. and was to continue all night to 5 the next morning. Certainly at 5pm, crowds were not breaking down the door. [Music playing, background noises]. But Stephanie was undaunted. She knew that she had found the answer to "Where's the Art?" [Stephanie] It's sort of like an announcement that is right here. You don't need to look anywhere else. It's right here. [Music playing]. [Music playing] [Booth] Well Jim, we've learned that since we were there on opening night that indeed, she did get lots of people and she

considered it a big success. [Swenson] Well, I'm glad they found their way. Where is the art, by the way? [Booth] It's downtown Portland, on the corner of 9th and Washington. It's fun to do. It's a great, different art experience. [Swenson] Great. [Swenson] Lots to see. [Booth] Lots to see. [Swenson] And here's what you'll see on the next edition of Front Street Weekly: Super County is the consolidation of Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington counties, the wave of the future governments. [Booth] And will drug testing become the new preventative medicine for substance abuse on the job. [Swenson] And scenic photographer Ray Attkison not only snaps gorgeous pictures but he spins a mean yarn to match. And that's our program for this evening. We'll be here next week. [Booth] We hope you will be too. We'll see you then. Good night. [Swenson] Good night.