Alexis McLean

 This story was in collaboration with Emily Jimerson Photo by Emily Jimerson “We are the emerging majority.” These words were chanted by an auditorium of Oregon high school students who attended the inaugural Latine High School Leadership Conference on Friday, May 3, at Linn-Benton Community College. The students came from West Albany, South Albany, Corvallis, Crescent Valley, Philomath, Lebanon, and Monroe high schools. The Conference began with keynote speaker Greg Contreras, the College Assistance Migrant Program (CAMP) director at Portland Community College. Contrera’s speech focused on plantando semillas; planting seeds. He described five decisions he made, described as “seeds planted,” which contributed to his sucess. They are: Semilla #1: “Read like no one is watching, then watch how much you learn, grow, and change.” The seed he planted in his life and in others’ lives was libros/books.  Semilla #2: “Despite impostor syndrome, stand out in more ways than just your skin...

(An image of me carrying my cousin on the beach during one of many trips to Newport, sometime in the early 2000's. As you can see, it's very windy. Not good for pictures.) "I’ve never been on vacation” is something I said for most of my childhood. I felt it was true. I knew about vacations. They were big, expensive, week-long or even multi-week adventures around the world, or at least an amusement park. You bought fancy souvenirs, ate gourmet food, and had the most fun. I grumbled the first day of school every year listening to my schoolmates describe their summer vacations. But, if I had been really honest, I had been on vacatio n. A few times actually. But it was always the same smelly place: Newport, Oregon. I leaned, and sighed, and groaned through every shop I was dragged to. I had seen them all before and they never changed. Despite Oregon Beach Vacations' assertion that “Newport is a very kid-friendly town," I did not feel appealed to. I dreamed of white ...