MidCounty Memo
Wednesday August 22, 2018
By Ygal Kaufman
In June, the Somali American Council of Oregon, or SACOO, opened its first office on Southeast 122nd Avenue. A division of the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization, SACOO primarily focuses on increasing the visibility of Portland’s African community in a variety of different ways. Executive Director Musse Olol poses next to the new sign. STAFF/2018
Since 2006, the Africa House has spent a lot of time helping
immigrants from African countries as they settle in Portland. A division
of the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization (IRCO), the group
primarily focuses on increasing the visibility of Portland’s African
community in a variety of different ways. Now the Somali community of
Oregon, by which some estimates is more than 12,000, has its own core
representative cultural group, the Somali American Council of Oregon
(SACOO). This past June 23, the group opened their new headquarters at
1505 S.E. 122nd Ave. with a party featuring speeches by Executive
Director Musse Olol and Portland City Commissioner Chloe Eudaly, among
others.
Nearly all of Oregon’s Somali refugees settle in Multnomah County,
and they represent as much as 69 percent of the total African immigrant
population of Portland. It’s even claimed by some that Somali is the
third-most spoken foreign language in Portland public schools. The most
recent data on that, from a Portland State University study from 2012,
places it fourth, behind Spanish, Vietnamese and Cantonese; however,
Somalis are one of Portland’s fastest growing immigrant communities, so
it’s entirely possible the third-place estimate is accurate.
A lot of these Somalis coming to Portland are refugees of civil war
in their home country. And there are dozens of different clans from
which they are emigrating, some of which bring their clan conflicts with
them from Somalia. That’s why SACOO was a necessity, says Executive
Director Musse Olol, a Mogadishu-born engineer who has been living in
Oregon for more than 30 years. But the big catalyst for the formation of
the group was the failed car bomb plot by Somali Mohamed Osman Mohamud
at a Portland Christmas tree lighting ceremony eight years ago.
“In 2010 when we had the tree lighting incident in Portland, the
Somali community at that time had … 17 different organizations,” says
Olol, “but they were based on tribal and personal interests; they didn’t
have a combined voice.”
The nationally publicized terror plot put the Somali community in the
spotlight in a way that was surely uncomfortable for them, not to
mention unfair. But it made the need for a specific cultural group to be
a voice for Somalis clear. The majority-Muslim East African nation has
suffered from internal strife for decades, causing a refugee crisis.
Immigrating from one of the poorest countries in Africa comes with a
host of additional hardships that other immigrants may not face. Having
an interpretive buffer to help steer immigrants through the rough
welcome to the United States is invaluable for the Somali refugee
community, and SACOO fills that role.
East Portland has the highest concentration of both low-income
housing and programs to help those in low-income housing. Locating SACOO
headquarters on the east side made immediate sense to the group.
“The majority of the Somali American community lives on this side of
Portland,” says Olol about the Somali presence in east Portland and
SACOO choosing to base their operations here.
The new headquarters isn’t SACOO’s first, and they’ve spent the last
year in limbo, occupying only one room of their current location and not
utilizing the whole space. Now their expansion will allow them to fully
unfurl their services to the growing Somali community.
Also present and overjoyed at the opening event was Judith Mowry,
senior policy advisor for the Portland Office of Equity and Human
Rights. Mowry mused about the history of the organization, which she has
been involved with helping since it was conceived. “Years ago, Halima
Mohamed [a mental health counselor at OHSU] had the idea that we really
needed to work with all the Somalis in Oregon,” says Mowry of SACOO’s
origins, “and I met Musse Olol when he was trying to help PDX Yellow Cab
get a cab company started with the city.” The Somali-owned taxi
company, which also happens to be SACOO’s new next-door neighbor,
understandably needed help navigating the complex permitting scenarios
that come with starting a cab company, for which Mowry advocated.
“I completely fell in love with the community,” says Mowry. “SACOO
works to identify and connect to the needs of the Somali community. They
work on a lot of connecting with youth. Somali youth are really
high-risk of not making it in high school, and their families often come
from circumstances where the kids are traumatized. That can be such a
barrier for them for the rest of their time as they acclimate to
American culture.” One of SACOO’s new frontiers is also trying to help
immigrants with disabilities. These are some of the most disadvantaged
of the refugee community, with physical, cultural and language barriers
in front of them.
“All of you play an important role as trusted advisors in helping us
do our job more effectively,” said Commissioner Eudaly in her remarks to
the crowd. “There is more than one way to build a community. A
community is not just about neighborhoods and geography; it’s about
shared culture and other experiences.”
The event was an example of experience-sharing, with a DJ playing
Somali and American music while the crowd of people from a variety of
backgrounds posed for pictures, conversed and enjoyed authentic Somali
food.
“This community center didn’t happen overnight,” said Olol in his
opening remarks to the gathered audience of Somalis, volunteers and
other local dignitaries. “It was a community effort that started a year
and a half ago for us to have an office. It’s not easy to have a
community center: it takes a lot of money, a lot of grants, a lot of
processes … but the community said, ‘We will pay for it.’ This is not a
community that is very rich.”
The Somalis of Portland came together despite not being “very rich”
and created a community center and office they can be proud of. Now that
the office is open, all that remains for SACOO is the hard part:
helping their community succeed.