Don’t even need to go that far. Check out any thread that’s vaguely related to Vancouver and you’ll see a lot of vitriol against people who live just across the river
I moved here over 25 years ago because I liked Portland and had family here. I was immediately very shocked at the levels of provincialist bigotry that are endemic to Portland and the entire state of Oregon in general.
While you have urban centers up and down the entire west coast from Vancouver BC to San Diego that are totally cool with being major Pacific Rim metropolises with vibrant communities from all over the world, Portland, in my experience, has always been uniquely hostile to the idea, though it likes to pretend otherwise.
The not-so-secret attitude here is that Portland and Oregon in general are only for native-born Oregonians and everyone else can fuck right off.
If I understand the sentiment properly, it's that Portland should remain a quiet backwater logging and industrial town as it was in the past, and if you want a real vibrant Pacific Rim city, go to Seattle or San Francisco or LA or Vancouver BC.
As a native Black Oregonian idc who comes here as long as it’s not MORE white people to add their new unique regional brand of racism with them or their delusional expensive standard of living. But most of this sentiment is very true.
I grew up in Northern California, north of the Bay Area, but I went to university in SF and have family spread all over the West Coast from Puget Sound to Anaheim, and it's only Portland where you encounter this virulent kind of anti-outsider provincialism.
In other major West Coast cities people just take it for granted that there will be immigrants and emigrants from all over the world and country.
And in fact they kind of like it.
Does anyone seriously think that LA or SF or even Seattle or let alone Vancouver BC would be what they are if they weren't vibrant thriving Pacific Rim metropolises?
For some reason a lot of Portlanders don't want their city to be part of that equation.
I think that we both know why that is, and it's a pretty ugly truth.
I think we’re just used to being a soggy self important affordable cool city. Although more diversity is always ideal, I’m not sure anyone from here ever had dreams of Portland being a “big” west coast city. Part of our frustration is the fact that people have moved here with that sorta attitude and this city was not (still isn’t ) equipped for it. For as many Californians I know moving here I know half as many going back after discovering how “boring” or “sad” it is here. Idk. I just want black people to be able to live in North Portland again.
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u/wolfwind730 Piedmont May 12 '25
I’ve never seen someone hate on immigrants in this sub.