When I first came to Bend, I likened it to Macondo from Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s 100 Years of Solitude, a place without recorded memory. There are limited written and documented sources of near-past and present-day experiences of Black, Indigenous, Latine, Asian, Pacific Islander, and other people of color in this place.

Stemming from a personal desire to be a knowledgeable guest to these lands, this project seeks to document the stories of people of color not indigenous to Central Oregon. it sets to explore how we got here, what our lives have been here, and why we stay.

This is an imperfect attempt to begin to capture stories that live in our memories and conversations but rarely somewhere accessible to our neighbors and youth.