Multicultural Community & Friends (MCF) Affinity Group are a group of 1) City multicultural employees 2) who want to have exploratory and encouraging conversations about our city core values by 3) sharing how we experience those values in our life and work. We expect to find commonalities in our personal journeys - both gaps and opportunities - which will increase our capacity as empathetic employees.

They will offer a supportive multicultural meeting for employees to interactively share life and work stories. Story sharing can spark new personal and professional connections across bureaus which will lead to a stronger city community.

The hope is to make City Resolution 37492 come alive with colleagues by sharing personal journeys coming from and living different backgrounds such as: ethnicities, races, politics, risks, socioeconomic statuses, genders, exceptionalities, abilities, languages, religions, sexual orientations, as well as geographies, age, professions and interests.

Would you like to explore and grow multiracial, multiethnic or multicultural identities, experiences, or interests? A multicultural mindset can be based on genealogy, birth, adoption, appearance, household, upbringing, schooling, marriage, immigration, or other life and communal affiliations or relationships.

To sign up to be a part of the group, go to www.portlandoregon.gov/deep/signup

Multicultural Community & Friends Leadership members are: Van Le, Marie Del Toro, Mark Adams, and Carol Lane. Contact leadership through Multicultural Leadership. 

“Multicultural conversations are important because they give us the opportunity to share our too often culturally-specific realities with each other. The confluence of the realities presented in the space gives each participant the chance to question their own perspectives, gain understanding of other perspectives and the inequitable social constructs that create the difference in experience.”

Derron Coles, DRCLearningSolutions.com