The Legare Series: Misael and Serenity, part 3

Misa and Serenity Legare talk about their differing experiences with racism in Lane County.

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Thanks for listening!

Transcript

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 You're listening to StoryHelix, intertwining
 stories past, present and not yet imagined,
 
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 in Lane County Oregon. What's up, earthlings? I'm Leah Velez and
 
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 I'll be your host. The story
 we're about to hear was recorded at Oakshire
 
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 Brewing Company in the Whittaker neighborhood of
 Eugene, Oregon, in early 2022. Let's open
 
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 up our ear nuggets and give it
 a listen. Hi, my name's Serenity,
 
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 spelled like it sounds, S-E-R-E-N-I-T-Y.
 
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 I'm thirty-two years old. I
 am a white queer adult who's here with
 
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 my husband, Misa. I'm Misa
 spelled M-I-S-A. I am
 
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 thirty, Um, Latino, Hispanic, White, a little bit of everything.
 
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 Do you know any do you know
 any stories about Eugene? I don't
 
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 know much about the area. I
 just like, I know, like Oregon
 
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 as was very racist and like in
 the beginning, you know, like not
 
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 letting minorities in our own homes,
 and I don't know, I guess the
 
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 White Supremacist Haven, so to speak. (Right, after the Civil War.) So you know that like that kind
 
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 of like it's still here, obviously, and yeah, I guess you know
 
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 it's always in the back of my
 mind being a minority. Do you think
 
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 that's come more to light in just
 the past few years living here? I mean, yeah,
 
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 of course, like like, you
 know, like the seeing the guy with
 
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 it was the swastika at WinCo that
 one time that was fun. Oh yeah, or the guy with
 
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 the truck who had paint that had
 the loud speakers on his roof and on
 
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 his truck and have awful things coming
 out. I know for me, I
 
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 was definitely pretty oblivious for the first
 few years living here. I thought,
 
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 I thought Eugene was so woke and
 so diverse and you know, I also
 
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 came from a very religious bubble and
 so I thought it was all. You
 
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 know, now I'm learning not so
 much, but that's okay. It's good
 
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 to learn about that stuff too.
 And I mean that's always been obvious for
 
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 me, like anywhere there's white people, I just yeah, I mean sometimes
 
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 they, you know, people forget
 I'm, you know, not I am
 
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 Hispanic and Latino, and they say
 things in front of me, racist things,
 
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 forgetting, you know, like okay, how does that make you feel?
 
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 Does it make me feel? I
 mean, I'm not good, like
 
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 not seen. Yeah, just judged
 for the way I look. As you
 
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 know, it's not a good feeling. Yeah. Thanks for listening. You can find
 
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 us wherever you listen to your podcasts. If you've got your own Lane County
 
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 story to tell, we'd love to
 hear it at StoryHelix Dot Wordcrafters Dot Org.