The Legare Series: Serenity, Part 1

Part one of a several part series! Serenity Legare was interviewed by their partner, Misael Legare, who appears in two the later episodes! In this episode, they talk about Serenity's Oregon Origin Story.

You can read more about the project, about Wordcrafters in Eugene, about our sponsors and community partners, and send in your own Lane County, Oregon stories at StoryHelix.Wordcrafters.Org.

Thanks for listening!

Transcript

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 You're listening to StoryHelix:
 intertwining stories past, present and not yet
 
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 imagined, in Lane County, Oregon.
 What's up, earthlings? I'm Leah
 
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 Velez, and I'll be your host.
 The story we're about to hear was recorded
 
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 at Oakshire Brewing Company in the Whiteaker
 neighborhood of Eugene, Oregon, in early
 
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 2022. Let's open up our ear nuggets and
 give it a listen. 
 
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 Hi, I'm Serenity. My pronouns are she/her and they/them. I'm thirty-two years
 
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 old. I am a white, queer
 adult. I was born in Salem, Oregon
 
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 and I've lived in Springfield,
 Oregon for the past five years with my
 
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 husband, Misa, who is here
 with me. My family came to live
 
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 in Oregon. So my dad is
 originally from San Francisco, California, and
 
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 my mom was born in Cardiff,
 Wales, but moved to California when she
 
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 was a teenager and they met and
 fell in love and all that jazz.
 
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 But my dad, he would always
 tell us, when we were kids,
 
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 so I'm the youngest of four,
 that he did not want to raise his
 
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 family in the Bay Area. He
 did not want to raise his family in
 
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 San Francisco where it was very expensive, lots of traffic. He wanted to
 
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 raise us somewhere that was closer to
 nature, just in terms of access,
 
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 because he really loves being in nature
 as well, and I grew up with
 
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 a lot of camping, a lot
 of going outside, and so yeah,
 
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 he just really wanted a place where
 he could raise a family and not have
 
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 it be in a big city.
 So Oregon definitely feels like home. I
 
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 think my parents hope. I think
 they got what they hoped for. I
 
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 think they hope to raise a family
 and a place that had less demands than
 
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 a big city. My Dad was
 a firefighter and we kind of lived on
 
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 the outskirts of town, kind of
 into the country a little bit. I
 
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 think he really just wanted us to
 have a life where we could just kind
 
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 of be a little bit more laid
 back and, although there were other experiences
 
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 in my life growing up that weren't
 always that way, I am really grateful
 
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 that he did make that decision to
 move to Oregon because I feel really lucky
 
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 that I've gotten to grow up here. I've traveled a little bit around the
 
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 world and lived a couple other places
 and Oregon just yeah, it always just
 
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 feels like home. I always just
 want to come back home. When I
 
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 first moved here, I was twenty-three, I was a young adult,
 
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 early twenties, and moved here together
 with Misa before
 
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 we were married, and we moved
 into a house over on western drive in
 
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 Eugene and we moved into that House
 with some friends and we rented it and
 
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 there was a bunch of us and
 our first summer there we did couch surfing.
 
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 So couchsurfing dot com is a website
 where people can link up and you
 
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 can either be a surfer a couch
 surfer where you can be a host,
 
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 and we were a host that summer
 and we had we had a couple of
 
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 people, I think, from like
 New Zealand or something. We had a
 
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 guy from California. We had a
 bunch of people and it was a really
 
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 cool experience and I felt kind of
 like, at least then, it kind
 
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 of felt like this is the epitome
 of what it means to live in Eugene
 
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 and I felt like this, you
 know, having a somewhat diverse group of
 
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 roommates that I was living with and
 having these people from around the world coming
 
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 and staying on our couch and we
 got to hear stories from them and things
 
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 like that, and that was kind
 of the first time that I felt like,
 
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 yeah, I'm supposed to be here, I think I'm gonna meet some
 
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 interesting people here. I definitely did
 not have those experiences living in Salem.
 
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 So Eugene just felt a lot more
 open to that, at least to trying
 
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 to be more accepting of diversity,
 and I liked I liked that and I
 
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 was kind of the first time that
 I felt like I belonged here. I
 
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 think belonging feels like respect, like
 when you walk down the street in a
 
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 place that you call your home,
 you are not worried about getting cat called,
 
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 you're not worried about being singled out
 because of your ethnicity or your gender
 
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 or your sexual orientation. I think
 that's a perfect world, though it's a
 
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 very idealistic way of thinking of things, but I think I think it's okay
 
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 to have idealistic values and for me, belonging just means I can walk around
 
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 my city, in my town without
 being afraid, feeling like I can walk
 
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 into an establishment and be served equally
 like everybody else. But I think that's
 
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 pretty easy for me to say because, again, I am a white,
 
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 fem presenting person, so I have
 a lot of privilege in that area and
 
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 Oregon is a predominantly white place.
 So I know that I've, you know,
 
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 fit in in terms of that and
 I and I used to take that
 
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 for granted. For sure, these
 days a little less so as I'm becoming
 
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 a little bit more aware of what
 that looks like. I haven't experienced a
 
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 lot of negative things just by being
 a resident here, feeling ostracized or anything
 
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 like that. Um, I will
 say that I grew up very religious and
 
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 I definitely experience things in that lifestyle
 and being a queer adult now, not
 
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 really not really coming out to my
 family or, you know, having limitations.
 
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 But Yeah, belonging. I don't
 know, it feels like trust,
 
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 feels like respect, mutual in both
 ways. So I know that where I
 
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 where we live now in Springfield,
 is the ancestral home of the Chifin native
 
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 people and I know that the Chifin
 tribe was a part of the Greater Kalapuya
 
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 tribes, which many of those tribes
 lived on the Mackenzie and the Willamette river
 
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 here. I know that they would
 do a lot of foraging and a lot
 
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 of fishing. Camas was something that
 was really popular to eat, which camas
 
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 is a wild purple flower that you'll
 see and it's edible. But I don't
 
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 know that much else about the people
 that lived here before me. It's something
 
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 that I want to learn more about. And as far as the early days
 
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 of Eugene and Springfield as a city, I admit that I don't know that
 
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 much. I know that there's definitely
 been a rocky past here and I know
 
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 that there's been that this city unfortunately, was built on some values that were
 
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 racist and sexist and that there was
 segregation. But again, that's something that
 
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 I'm still learning and then I would
 like to learn more about. We hear
 
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 a lot more about like like the
 Navajo tribe, because they're really big,
 
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 which they go by the name Diné
 or the Choctaw the Cherokee. But
 
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 yeah, a lot of the tribes
 here in Oregon and like the Oregon coast,
 
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 we don't know that much about and
 I've just been trying to learn more
 
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 because they were here first and I
 think it's important to to learn those things.
 
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 We talked about them like they don't
 live here anymore and unfortunately, I
 
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 from the research that I've done,
 I think there aren't very many Chifin people
 
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 left, sadly, but there are
 still a lot of tribes that there are
 
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 many people that still live here today. I think we get caught up in
 
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 thinking about it as something of the
 past, but there's still a lot of
 
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 folks around here that have lived here
 for a very long time, generations,
 
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 since before any colonizers. I know
 that there is a museum that has some
 
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 parts of it dedicated to anthropology and
 to native tribes that lived here in Oregon,
 
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 but it just seems really small and
 there might be more that I don't
 
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 know about, maybe at a university
 like U of O, but it would
 
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 be really cool to see more historical
 cultural centers and things like that that people
 
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 can have access to to learn more
 about the area. I hope that this
 
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 becomes a place where more people of
 Color feel like they can move here,
 
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 because I think there's not a lot
 of that here and unfortunately we have some
 
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 people that live in this town that
 kind of keep it that way, sadly.
 
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 So I think I would love to
 be able to see it become more
 
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 inclusive, more diverse, more culturally
 aware. I don't really know what that
 
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 looks like, but along those lines
 that would be nice to see. Thanks
 
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 for listening. You can find us
 wherever you listen to your podcasts. If
 
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 you've got your own Lane County story
 to tell, we'd love to hear it
 
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 at StoryHelix.Wordcrafters.
 Org