RACE, RENTERS, AND SERIAL SEGREGATION IN PORTLAND, OREGON AND BEYOND by GENNIE NGUYEN A DISSERTATION Presented to the Department of Anthropology and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy June 2018 DISSERTATION APPROVAL PAGE Student: Gennie Nguyen Title: Race, Renters, and Serial Segregation in Portland, Oregon and Beyond This dissertation has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in the Department of Anthropology by: Lynn Stephen Co-Chairperson Daniel HoSang Co-Chairperson Stephen Dueppen Core Member Ana-Maurine Lara Core Member Raoul Lievanos Institutional Representative and Sara D. Hodges Interim Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School Original approval signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Graduate School. Degree awarded June 2018 ii © 2018 Gennie Nguyen iii DISSERTATION ABSTRACT Gennie Nguyen Doctor of Philosophy Department of Anthropology June 2018 Title: Race, Renters, and Serial Segregation in Portland, Oregon and Beyond Homeownership may be the American Dream, but renting is the American reality for nearly half of Portland, Oregon’s residents. In Oregon, where I conducted fieldwork from 2014 to 2017, a statewide ban on rent control, the prevalent use of no-cause evictions, and the lack of renters’ protections pushed Portland residents, especially renters, into a Housing State of Emergency. Many renters in this housing crisis are forced to rent and face the threat of being repeatedly displaced as their apartment units change hands from investor-to-investor. These investor landlords used no-cause evictions to remove tenants from their homes and to quickly empty entire apartment buildings, flip the buildings, and increase their rate of return. As gentrification increased the rent in Portland, it also push low-income people and communities of color as they moved to the suburbs in search of scarce low-income rental housing. Employing ethnographic methods of participant observation and in-depth interviewing, this dissertation explores the inequalities built into the rental housing system for different groups of vulnerable tenants in Portland. A qualitative analysis revealed that families of color and low-income residents not only experience serial displacement as renters, but also serial segregation. iv CURRICULUM VITAE NAME OF AUTHOR: Gennie Nguyen GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED: University of Oregon, Eugene Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana DEGREES AWARDED: Doctor of Philosophy, Anthropology, 2018, University of Oregon Master of Arts, Anthropology, 2009, University of Oregon Bachelor of Arts, Anthropology, 2007, Ball State University AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST: Serial segregation, racial segregation, housing, interconnected vulnerabilities, alliance building, and global cities, urban anthropology PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Graduate Teaching Fellow, University of Oregon, 2010-2017 GRANTS, AWARDS, AND HONORS: Dissertation Fieldwork Grant, Coming to Terms with Our Routes: Displacement, Identity, and Neighborhood Place, Wenner Gren Foundation, 2016 PUBLICATIONS: Nguyen, Gennie. 2012. “Building Coalitions and Rebuilding Versailles: Vietnamese American Women’s Environmental Work after Hurricane Katrina.” In Women of Katrina: the gendered dimensions of disaster recovery, edited by Emmanuel David and Elaine Enarson, 443-468. Austin: University of Texas Press. Nguyen, Gennie. 2012. “Culture, gender and vulnerability in a Vietnamese refugee community: Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.” In Water, Cultural Diversity & Global Environmental Change: Emerging Trends, Sustainable Futures? Edited by R. Barbara Johnson, 225-236. New York: Springer. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to express my gratitude to my dissertation committee for their invaluable feedback and support in during my graduate studies. I owe a special thanks to Professor Sandra Morgen, who was the chair of my dissertation committee before she died of cancer in September 2016. I was really fortunate to have Sandi as a mentor. She was a skilled ethnographer, who imparted onto me the need to listen empathetically— “people are often the hero in their own stories, so can you try to see them how they see themselves?” To be critical— “can you say it better and be more precise or so what? Why should people care about that?” And to show up authentically—“People will know a mile away if you’re bullshitting them, so be who you are. You can’t be anyone other than who you are.” These were her gifts. She always seemed to know what to say and how to say it. In addition, I give special thanks to the residents, community members, and community organizers, who shared with me their stories, anger, hopes, and dreams and their immense knowledge of the world around them. Finally, thank you to my family who supported me throughout this endeavor, especially my four older sisters. Words fail me whenever I try to express the lifetimes that have passed between us. Words are insufficient to express our shared pains, disappointments, and struggles through this life. Words are an equally disappointing vehicle to convey what it feels like whenever we are together and our laughter fills the air until our belly aches while we do the things we do together. vi To my sisters Chi Thu, Chi Trang, Chi Huyen, and Chi Quyen, you are the wonderful family I came from And to Kyle and An, you are the wonderful family I chose vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 1 The Rental Housing Market as a Housing Caste ................................................... 1 The Places Displaced People Make ....................................................................... 5 Racial Residential Segregation, Re-segregation, and Serial Segregation .............. 8 Global Suburbs....................................................................................................... 20 Interconnected Vulnerabilities ............................................................................... 24 Fieldwork, Analysis, and Writing ......................................................................... 25 Chapter Outline ...................................................................................................... 28 II. SERIAL FORCED SEGREGATION: THE INTERGENERATIONAL EXPERIENCES OF BLACK PORTLANDERS..................................................... 33 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 33 Meet the Jones: from Vanport to Albina, 1940-1990s .......................................... 37 Growing Up in Albina, 1970s-1990s .................................................................... 46 Renting on Their Own Outside of Albina in “One Big Neighborhood,” 1996-2017 .............................................................................................................. 55 After Urban Gentrification, Suburban Gentrification in Gresham, 2000-present ........................................................................................................... 66 Shaniqua on Becoming a Black Greshamite .................................................... 68 Phylicia and Rockwood Rising ........................................................................ 70 Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 77 III. FORCED RENTING AND TENANT AND IMMIGRANT RIGHTS ALLIANCES .......................................................................................................... 82 viii Chapter Page Introduction: From Morelia, Michoacán (Mexico) to Portland (U.S.) to Gresham ................................................................................................................. 82 Tacoma Detention Center and the Start of Pueblo Unido ...................................... 85 Pueblo Unido and Rockwood Rising ..................................................................... 93 Pueblo Unido, Community Alliance of Tenants, and Gresham Housing for the People .............................................................................................................. 102 The Hernández Family, Undocumented Immigrant Renters ................................. 108 The Hernández Family’s Homebuying Attempt .................................................... 114 Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 119 IV. FORCED, NO-CAUSE EVICTIONS AND ITS EFFECTS ................................. 122 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 122 Evictions in Portland ............................................................................................. 127 Rosie and Moving Out ........................................................................................... 130 Eviction Clocks, Eviction Money .................................................................... 131 Rental Applications in English ........................................................................ 133 Getting to Work…………… ........................................................................... 135 New Neighbors and the Ever-looming No-Cause Eviction Threat ................. 137 The Effect on Rosie’s Children.......................................................................