Oregon Queer History Collective

Its primary election time q***rs! We’re taking a lil peak at the 1976 Voter Guide compiled by Portland Town Council (PTC) in reflection of our political power and to get excited about casting our ballots.

PTC formed in 1974 and was a major organizer for LGBTQ+ political rights. In 1975, they conducted the largest gay lobbying effort in Oregon’s history (up to that point!).

Branches of PTC evolved into other organizations, yet we can see its inspiration in orgs like , , .center, and others.

Be sure to check out the various voter guides compiled by local activists and other resources and get that ballot in by May 19th!

Source: Portland Town Council Voters Guide, Nedra Bagley Collection.

Tonight was so special spending it with Cherríe Moraga, courtesy of PSU’s OHSU-PSU School of Public Health, Office of the President, Department of Chicanx/Latinx Studies, Department of English, Department of History, Department of Sociology, Honors College, & . It was especially special to hear her thoughts on visibilty, allyship, courage, and intergenerational connections.

Cherríe Moraga is an internationally recognized poet, essayist and playwright whose professional life began in 1981 with her co-editorship of the groundbreaking feminist anthology, This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. (snippets included). Her own writings are compiled in several collections, including: A Xicana Codex of Changing Consciousness, Loving in The War Years, The Last Generation and Waiting in the Wings: Portrait of a Q***r Motherhood. Moraga is the recipient of the United States Artists Rockefeller Fellowship for Literature and the American Studies Association Lifetime Achievement Award, among numerous other honors. As a dramatist, her awards include an NEA, two Fund for New American Plays Awards, and the PEN West Award. In 2017, Moraga’s most recent play, Mathematics of Love, premiered at Brava Theater Center in San Francisco. In the same year, she began her tenure as a Professor in the Department of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where with her partner, visual artist Celia Herrera Rodriguez, she instituted Las Maestras Center for Xicane Indigenous Thought, Art, and Social Praxis. Her most recent memoir, Native Country of the Heart, was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2019. In 2023, Haymarket Books published updated anniversary editions of Waiting in the Wings and Loving in the War Years. In 2024, Moraga became a Distinguished Professor Emerita In English, UC Santa Barbara.

PS you can get these books & more from the lovely !

Do you have a favorite old photo you’d love to share with the world? Have you always wanted to be featured on a bumper sticker? Would you like to support the Collective’s work?

We’re calling all community members to help us create bumper stickers, pins, & more featuring your piece of Oregon LGBTQIAS2+ history!

These items will be sold for a small fee to help raise funds for our work, such as:
* Sustaining our upcoming new website!
* Creating a digital and searchable archive on our new website
* Framing and preserving ephemera in professional quality materials
* Printing interpretive materials like our upcoming Pride Zine!

Although community members have donated many fabulous photos over the years, we know that being featured in an exhibit is different from being printed on a t-shirt. (And not everyone wants to see their likeness on a stranger’s waterbottle or car!)

We’re open to all kinds of photos, but are especially interested in photos that reflect pride, q***r joy, and community spirit. The gayer, the better! If your photo is selected, you will receive two free copies of whatever merch we produce (and bragging rights forever).

If you have photos you’re willing to share, please contact Cait (email: [email protected]). Please make sure to include some details about the photo, such as who is in the photo, when and where it was taken, and what it represents.