General Information: 503-823-4000
E-mail: cityinfo@portlandoregon.gov
1221 SW 4th Avenue, Room 110, Portland, OR 97204
Multicultural Community & Friends Affinity Group
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FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY This leadership pipeline from a national 2021 workplace report shows uneven employee demographics. Fiscal responsibility means ensuring alignment in expenditures with stated values. One area of alignment is workforce demographics.
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EQUITY MCF members are committed to a more multicultural society by sharing and stretching as a multicultural group.
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WELLNESS MCF members have resources for mindset stretching.
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TRANSPARENCY We collect anonymous feedback from participants at the end of our monthly meetings. Read MCF member feedback for our three meetings in 2021. MCF formed in September 2021 and are actively testing new activities to engage each month.
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COMMUNICATION MCF has multiple flexible ways for members to get involved and get information.
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ANTI-RACISM Sharing our personal journeys at MCF meetings help us heal, reduce, and understand more about anti-racism challenges.
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COLLABORATION In December 2021, our MCF Volunteer subteam successfully organized the first MCF Adopt-a-Family activity. Thanks to our subteam, MCF members enjoyed holiday treats while organizing almost $1,000 of gift cards and donations to one multicultural family.
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, Kevin Suell, Megan Lehman, Connor Edmonds, Juanita Hess, Sadie Silkie, Jamila Meeks, Hallie Liu, Shelby Williams, Rebecca Sherman, and Anthony Thurmond. 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
Multicultural Mindchanging
Info for a more multicultural mindset.
Multicultural Couples
Info for multicultural couples. Imagine if we approached multicultural workplaces with similar awareness and longterm investment.
Multicultural Caregiving
Info on growing multiculturalism in families.
Multicultural Trends
Info on multicultural demographics.
Multicultural Workplace
Info on sharing stories, building trust, and things that will help you in the workplace.
Multicultural Identity Layers (Intersectionality)
Info on how some BIPOC experiences may differ from yours.
Multicultural Diversity Within Racialized groups
Links and articles about differences within racialized groups.
Multicultural Needs Anti-racism
Info on anti-racism and inclusion as part of multiculturalism. Multiculturalism is not an option instead of anti-racism.