Building Collective Power with Latinx Oregonians

In summer and fall 2022, Latinx nonprofit leaders and community organizers from across Oregon gathered virtually to envision and create a just future. Participants listened to and learned from one another, sharing interconnecting values and lived experiences, culture and traditions. Together, we proactively promoted a sense of belonging. The result was an outline for the future of Oregon that included approaches as multilayered and diverse as the diaspora: investments in reparations and returning land, communal healing, culturally affirming education, Indigenous ways of life, immigration reform, inclusion in the green economy, and so much more. These gatherings formed part of a broader community engagement process to inform Meyer Memorial Trust’s developing work and grantmaking under its new mission to accelerate racial, social, and economic justice for the collective well-being of Oregon’s lands and peoples. In addition to input from Latinx leaders, Meyer also engaged Native, Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific