Daily Archives: September 16, 2021

1. Go see the Flaming Lips

CHRIS DROSNER, EXECUTIVE EDITOR

A little before 1 a.m. on Saturday, July 7, 2018, I returned home from the Flaming Lips show at Summerfest in a state of prolonged euphoria. What Id just seen and heard was familiar it was my third concert from the space-rockers from Oklahoma but what struck me this time was the earnest and affecting message of love running throughout frontman Wayne Coynes spectacular showmanship and the bands weird, beautiful tales of fighting robots, mystics and the like. After editing my iPhone photos of the show, I posted to Facebook, I will never not go to another Flaming Lips show near me again. Well, nows my next chance: The Flaming Lips take the Generac Power Stage at 9:45 this Saturday.

ALLISON GARCIA, DIGITAL EDITOR

You may have noticed that General Mitchell International Airport has been making a lot of headlines lately. Our little hometown airport has been getting new airlines, destinations, stores (welcome Spanx!) and even restaurants. All of this is great news for us, the consumers. More airlines lead to more competition, which means cheaper prices. For example, last week I was able to take a trip to Colorado on $90 round-trip tickets. Thats a steal! All thats to say that affordable travel opportunities are available if youre willing to hunt for them. I use apps like Hopper and Kayak to make the process even easier.

CHELSEA MAMEROW, ART DIRECTOR

Lets be honest, there isnt a lot of curiosity and mystique incited by your immediate family while staying home. Siblings or dating? Just doesnt work in your own backyard. Quarantine really hampered the people watching, an activity I took for granted until I was able to observe my fellow Milwaukeans enjoy our abundant outdoor spaces this summer. This past Friday I met some friends for happy hour on the patio of the Iron Horse Hotel. The space is as lovely as ever, our service was excellent and the people watching absolutely delightful. Stay till the sun is low and they start lighting the fires!

ARCHER PARQUETTE, MANAGING EDITOR

When this book was recommended to me, I read the synopsis and thought, Theres no way this could possibly be good. The basic story is this: Many years in the future, humans have left Earth for a new planet and established a utopian society, Astrobe. The society is in crisis, and they need a new president to inspire the people and lead them out of the mess. So the leaders of Astrobe decide to go back in time and get Saint Thomas More to come lead them. And he does. Literally. This novel is about 16th-century Saint Thomas More traveling to the future to save a sci-fi utopia. But despite that absurd synopsis, I read the book. And its amazing. Not ironically amazing. Its actually really, really good. Its thought-provoking and exciting and intensely smart. If you have any interest in sci-fi, philosophy, civics, the failure of modernity, martyred Catholic saints, or just want to read a book thats not like anything else youve ever read, check this out.

ANN CHRISTENSON, SENIOR DINING EDITOR

This culinary compendium is a keeper issue full of great food writing beginning with M.F.K Fishers Notes on Cravings from 1968. There is also exquisite writing from Zadie Smith, Susan Orlean, Calvin Trillin and the late Anthony Bourdain. Im reading and rereading for inspiration. You can, too.

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The Best Things to Do This Week, According to Our Editors: Sept. 13 - Milwaukee Magazine

The red velvet seats at the Brooks Atkinson Theater on West 47th Street were covered by tech tables of computers, cables and consoles operated by designers, directors and stage managers. An audience was not due until the first preview on Friday night.

But the anticipation was nevertheless high for a dress rehearsal of Six, the British musical dreamed up by two college students that imagines the wives of Henry VIII as pop stars.

In one of the more poignant examples of the pandemics toll on the theater, the musicals opening night turned out to be its closing night instead: The show had been scheduled to open March 12, 2020, the day Broadway shut down.

Now Six will find out if the loss of 18 months has cost the show any momentum; its original opening had been buoyed by advance sales, multiple productions, a hugely popular soundtrack and fans who had been following the show since its 2017 premiere at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

So there were effusive whoops and cheers from the crew in attendance when the curtain came up on the shows six queens, fully decked out in their sparkly costumes, glittering boots and in some cases crowns.

Were finding ways of readjusting the show to who these performers are now who these queens are at this moment in time, who their 2021 selves are, where these songs are coming from, said Jamie Armitage, who directed the musical with Lucy Moss. Theres a depth and fire to some of the performances which I havent seen before.

I think its the time away, realizing what theater means and what it means to congregate, Armitage continued, adding that the shows theme was newly resonant: The group is more powerful than the individual.

The productions diverse, all female cast and band and its message of sisterhood and self-empowerment also resonates with the lessons of the lockdown period, specifically a heightened awareness about the importance of equal opportunities for women and people of color. The musical concludes by calling out patriarchal structures.

The dress rehearsal went smoothly, running its 85-minute, intermission-free duration without any apparent technical hitch. And after the confetti had fallen on the curtain call, the two directors rehearsed the bows again. Then they introduced a new idea: The cast took selfies from the stage.

Six will start previews on Friday, the same night David Byrnes American Utopia begins a return engagement, as Broadways reopening gathers momentum. Another 28 shows are scheduled to begin performances before the end of the year.

As the Six actors dispersed for a dinner break before returning to the theater for notes Moss, who co-wrote the show with Toby Marlow, said she was feeling cautiously optimistic.

Until its open and running Im not going to be like, Were back, because who knows whats going to happen? she said. It makes you very grateful for every moment in the room.

Read the rest here:

Six Is Back in Rehearsals and Hoping to Get to Opening Night - The New York Times

The new psychological thriller Don't Worry Darling, directed and staring Olivia Wilde, is being released by New Line Cinema in Fall 2022. However, we have a lot of news surrounding this project. Don't Worry Darling has a really interesting line-up which include Florence Pugh, Harry Styles, Chris Pine, KiKi Layne and Gemma Chan. Today New Line Cinema made the announcement that Don't Worry Darling will be released in theaters on September 23rd, 2022. So yes we have some time before the final film arrives, but we do get a little teaser to tide us all over.

Although it's not much to go by, at least we get a little inside look. The story (or what we know anyways) goes as follows. "A 1950s housewife (Florence Pugh) living with her husband in a utopian experimental community begins to worry that his glamorous company may be hiding disturbing secrets."

The original version of the script was written by Shane and Carey Van Dyke (The Silence). We know now that Katie Silberman reportedly did a complete rewrite for the Olivia Wilde directed film. We also know that Vertigo Entertainment's Roy Lee (IT, The Ring) produces alongside Wilde and Silberman, with Catherine Hardwicke as exec producer.

Don't Worry Darling began shooting in Los Angeles in late 2020, but like so many other movies, they had to halt production (for two weeks) after someone on set tested positive for COVID-19. The list of movies that this has happened with is never ending. Films including Jurassic World: Dominion, The Batman" and The Harder They Fall. Of course every time you stop and start again it delays the movie release. Don't Worry Darling wrapped production in February of 2021.

The early reactions from many people after seeing the teaser are good as they all get a disturbing feel from it. One thing for sure is that the Fans are not going to be happy about having to wait an entire year to see Florence Pugh and Harry Styles all over each other in the 1950s psychological thriller.

The idea that there is a perfect utopia set in the '50s is a fun concept. Of course nothing seems perfect and we know the deeper level is going to be kept secret until the movie is released. I imagine a full trailer will arrive sometime early next year or at least by summer as long as we don't have anymore delays in Hollywood or in the world.

With the cast that this movie has put together, it sounds like a hit and sounds like they will want to release on the current schedule. What do you think of the teaser trailer? Any predictions as to who is behind this utopia? The concept seems a little familiar as we have seen concepts like this before or at least parts of them. However this film looks like we have more to the story. Make sure you follow us for further news as well as any breaking news when it comes to movies.

Topics: Dont Worry Darling

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Don't Worry Darling Teaser Reveals Florence Pugh & Harry Styles in Olivia Wilde's Thriller - MovieWeb

Lets start with perhaps the craziest news out of New York Fashion Week: the brand Telfar is launching a TV channel. Designer Telfar Clemens staged a press-conference-cum fashion show on Sunday morning, with Clemens and his creative director Babak Radboy, along with musician Ian Isiah, filmmaker Leilah Weinraub, director Terence Nance, A$AP Ferg, musician Teezo Touchdown, and others answering questions from the audience about what this wild new venture would entail. The short answer: there will be two channels, TELFAR.TV, and FTV, created in partnership with Nance, which you can tune into on AppleTV or Roku. And viewers can submit their own content, which the brand will airproviding it is a vibe, said artist Kandis Williams.

Clemens and his crew are funnyIve been wondering when a fashion brand would bring breakout Teezo into the foldand the high-energy presser suggested his team could really make must-see television. Isaiah strolled up and down the aisles as a whammy-barred guitar wailed, singing a songa drip is not a droprevealing details about the show and future bag drops. (He sang, for example, that there are usually about 10,000 bags in each drop, but over 100,000 people and bots trying to get one).

The TV channel is an ambitious act of possible genius, and a savvy retail innovation. The panelists spoke about no longer wanting to be another person or businesss content, about wanting to reject the corporations and platforms that exploit their talents for money and entertainment. In that way, its a challenge to OnlyFans, to Instagram and Instagram Live, maybe even to Substack and TikTok and especially to the Real Housewives empire and the Kardashian industrial complexgiving the direction and control back to creators themselves. Its also a very forward-thinking idea: livestream shopping has been the nut that many Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and social media platforms have been trying to crack for a few years now. Towards the end of the presentation, the team wheeled on a cart draped with a black sheet and pulled it off to reveal a new bag, in a duffel shape; youll only be able to buy it on Telfars channel, which is also a way, the team explained, for them to avoid the bots that have frustrated those logging on for the regular drops. The Isiah song wasnt a joke: the TV channel marks the end of drops and the beginning of drips.

A lot of fashion heads inside and outside the industryparticularly on social mediadream about populism in fashion. Frankly, its hard to square that with the very idea of fashion, which, in its quest for constant novelty, premium on fantasy, and adoration of exclusivity, is impossible to disentangle from capitalism. But the idea that anyone who wants a Telfar bag can get one seems like a populist fashion utopia. And while Clemens and Radboy have moved further and further away from the industrys mainstream over time, that shifthas also made them a lot more populistmuch more than other New York-based designers who talk about dressing real people, whoever they are.

Thom Browne is another designer who, against the odds, has created a utopia of populist fashion. Of course, his suits are much pricier than a Telfar bag, but what launched as a startling disruption of the American menswear uniform has become something inclusive and joyous. A Thom Browne show is like a Rick Owens show, where many of the attendees are fans and clients, dressed in his mad variety of tweaked-out prep. While most designers use tailoring to establish rules, Browne uses it to abolish them, so his uniform in fact becomes a costume for liberation. The middle section of his three-part show really sang: suiting fabrics, including a soft gray wool seersucker, wool twill, and pinstripes, were cut into monastic sheaths layered over long pencil skirts.

The whole thing was pared back for Browne, who can also be chaotically camp. He dressed a number of star attendees, including Russell Westbrook and Jordan Clarkson, in skirts, which underscored how he has become a leader in American gender fluid fashion. Earlier this week, a buyer told me that Americans dont care about craftsmanshipthey care about mass media. That might sound a little depressing, until you realize just how powerfulnot to mention elegantthe image of Westbrook in a knife-pleat pencil skirt is. Browne loves a wacky fashion show, and I guess he is basically the David Mamet of the runway, favoring floweriness over logic. But without any cynicism, he has embraced celebrity as a way to change everyones mind about whats masculine, whats pretty, and whats courageous. And what could be more mass than that?

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From Telfar to Thom Browne, Is Fashion Finally Populist? - GQ

Zimbabwe born artistKudzanai Chiuraiis a phenomenon. He is one of the most challenging and inventivefiguresin contemporary African art. From large scale photos of fictional African dictators to experimental films and protest posters, rich oil paintings and minimal sculptures, his work is housed in the worlds top galleries and collections.

Chiurai, though, frequently shrugs off gallery spaces to show in warehouses, on the street or in urban locations. His latest project,The Library of Things We Forgot to Remember, ishousedin a boutique shopping complex, 44 Stanley, in Johannesburg. It is built around his collecting practice focused on preserving archives and memorialising social and cultural history from southern Africa. Hes turned his own personal library and archive into a public art project.

Kudzanai Chiurai. Photo: Facebook.

Its an idea informed by Chiurais obsessiveinterest in historyand accumulation of artefacts such as books, pamphlets, zines, newspapers, vinyl records, politicalposters, audio recordings and other ephemera materials that explore the relationship between cultural production and social movements.

The work takes a pointedly nontraditional approach toarchivism. The selection and acquisition are determined by interaction. It is managed as a kind of commons where people can share and benefit from the artists collection and what is donated by others. Whereas most archives and libraries stress the preservation of materials, Chiurais library promotes access, physical engagement, and active use of the materials to maintain their continued relevance.

The library reflects Chiurais artistic repertoire, which deploys the use of mixed media to address social, political and cultural issues. It calls to mind his groundbreaking 2011 exhibitionState of the Nationwhich explored conflict by constructing an African utopia that enabled him to merge forms and mediums, juxtapose political ideas, evoke historical figures like a speech by slain Congolese independence leaderPatrice Lumumbadelivered by artist Zaki Ibrahim alongside a performance by contemporary musician Thandiswa Mazwai.

In his work Chiurai imagines new ways to activate, share, present and reinvent the archives, as he does with his latest project, the library.

The library

Initially, in 2017,The Library of Things We Forgot to Rememberwas of no fixed abode, usually incorporated into the artists own exhibitions. But the concept of a mobile library was altered by the COVID-19 pandemic, which restricted movement and live events. The library is about gathering, not just materials, but people. It is supposed to be a meeting place.

Now, Chiurai also invites others to curate this archive, to re-arrange it for regular public viewing in a rented space. Heconsidersthe library to be:

itself a form of liberated zone. It functions independently I find a different librarian every time and different people see the process of cataloguing differently. Some look at it visually, and some aurally and so different librarians bring different things to my attention.

The library includes the artists extensive collection of vinyl records associated with liberation movements in southern Africa from the 1970s-80s, notably ZimbabweanChimurengaand South African anti-apartheidstruggle music. There are also recordings of speeches by historical political figures such asIan Smith,Kwame Nkrumah,Mobutu Sese Seko,Dr Martin Luther Kingand even a dramatic re-enactment of the trial ofBlack Panther Partyco-founderBobby Seale.

The collection has continued to grow. In 2018 it obtained digital recordings from the US-based educational project,Freedom Archives radio interviews with political figures and women involved in the liberation movements in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Namibia, Guinea- Bissau, as well as the US civil rights movement. Other materials are donated by individuals and institutions.

Accordingly, Chiurai treats these traces of struggle with great care. Some of these historical documents and posters are now framed and hung on the white walls. Once, these materials chronicled life in Black Africa or Black America as it happened. Now, they are artefacts of frozen moments in history. His library is conceived as a place of contemplation and reflection. There is a big green couch and listening stations.

The art of remembering

The Library of Things We Forgot to Rememberis part of an effort toexpand ideasof what a library can be and its decolonisation. It is an extension of new ways people are using the library as a place of inquiry and conversation with the past.

Perhaps, what is fascinating is that Chiurais library is not static, but re-arranges in the hands of a guest librarian, and has travelled from its first iteration in Harare, to Cape Town, Kalmar, Sdertlje and Johannesburg. Previous librarians have been the political writing platformChimurengain Harare, writer and DJ El Corazone in Cape Town, and film director and deejaySifiso Khanyilein Johannesburg.

What Chiurai is doing is to incubate a new model for artistic creation and knowledge production that interferes with the circulation, display and preservation of cultural objects. Who has a right to assign value? Who decides what is history? What kinds of materials should be collected? How can access be expanded to new publics?

Visitors also have a responsibility. They are not just passive observers, but collaborators, interpreters, and readers. The library becomes a place of provocation that allows multiple registers of value, because value is negotiated. Its also about the reinvention of the library as a space for multiple forms of contemplation. It is still a destination for artists, scholars, curators, and collectors to research and engage with southern African history.

Remembering is a virtue that Chiurai extols. In Black communities it is often an expensive luxury, a privilege. But through this new space arranged in the form of a hybrid gallery, community center, library and archive, remembering is translated into a collective process of reimagining and of sharing heritage. It is also testament of the generosity behind Chiurais art practice, of care and community.

Tinashe Mushakavanhuis a Post-Doctoral Fellow, University of the Witwatersrand.

This article first appeared in The Conversation. Read the original here.

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How Zimbabwean Artist Kudzanai Chiurai Has Reinvented the Idea of a Library - The Wire

Luis Alvarez / Getty Images

Noticeably absent is the celebration from state health officials for the Pacific Islander community shattering the states goal of reaching 80 percent vaccination for Oregonians of color. Thats because the numbers dont accurately reflect the rate of vaccinations for Oregon Pacific Islanders. In reality, community health workers believe the number of vaccinated Pacific Islanders is far lower than what OHA reports.

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Literary Arts presents The Moth: Portland Mainstage. True Stories, told live. Held at Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall.

The artificially high vaccination rates amongst Oregons Pacific Islander community reveal a long history of undercounting and underinvestment in one of the state's fastest growing racial groups.

This community has long been invisible because nobody was tracking Pacific Islanders, even from the federal level, said Joe Enlet, the Micronesia Consul General in Oregon. So, there indeed is a gap between communities and these systems.

Enlet believes population data for Pacific Islanders in Oregon may be undercounted because of the way Micronesian people move to the US.

Data from the Oregon Health Authority showing the vaccination rates by race and ethnicity. Oregon Health Authority

As of 2014, more than half of Pacific Islanders living in Multnomah County were born outside of the countrymost likely on an island signed on to the Compact of Free Association (COFA) agreement with the US. COFA is a financial agreement between the US and the Federated States of Micronesia, Republic of the Marshall Islands, and Republic of Palau. The US assists the COFA islands financially in return for control over the islands land, water, and air space. The agreement also allows COFA islanders to move to the US without a visa, green card, or any restrictions on their length of stay. COFA islanders hold a nonimmigrant status in the US, but can never become US citizens.

According to Enlet, who serves as a diplomat for the Micronesian islands, Oregon has the highest concentration of COFA Islanders within the contiguous United States, with hundredsif not thousandsof COFA Islanders moving to the state every year. But, because COFA Islanders arent processed through US immigration channels, the racial data of COFA Islanders is not being captured and included in the states population data, leading to the chronic undercounting of the Pacific Islander community.

That undercounting has likely inflated the reported vaccination rates for Pacific Islanders in Oregon. Community leaders doing on-the-ground vaccine outreach know those numbers are inaccurate.

When those numbers came out, at first we were surprised, and maybe a little suspicious, said Jacinta Galeai of the Samoa Pacific Development Corporation (SPDC), a community organization performing vaccine outreach in southern Oregon.

Galeai and other community health workers are suspicious of the high numbers because they still see vaccine hesitancy and vaccine access problems within their communityand because many Pacific Islanders in Oregon have minimal access to public health services and infrastructure. Because COFA Islanders are not US citizens, they are barred from accessing public health programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). Historically, COFA nonimmigrants were unable to enroll in Medicaid, until decades of advocacy and a global pandemic inspired the federal government to restore the groups healthcare eligibility at the end of 2020.

While the recent change in Medicaid eligibility was welcome, Enlet says the damage of not having access to affordable healthcare had already been done.

If people had the option of Medicaid [before the pandemic], they would have at least built up some level of community immunity, Enlet said. If you're excluded from those programs, on a health level, on a policy level, on a social level, everything is working against you. No wonder COVID-19 thrives in our communities.

Enlet believes the history of Pacific Islander people not being able to access public and civil programs contributed to the high numbers of COVID cases within the Pacific Islander population in Oregon. According to OHA, Pacific Islanders have the highest rate of COVID cases out of all racial and ethnic groups. As of September 8, Pacific Islanders average 11,564 COVID cases per 100,000 people. In comparison, white Oregonians average 4,331 cases per 100,000 people. During the surge of COVID cases in the summer of 2020, Pacific Islanders made up three percent of COVID cases despite only representing 0.5 percent of the state population.

Its expected that undercounting has probably skewed those case rates as well. Enlet believes that the first time many COFA islanders ever had to document their race in Oregon is when they were reporting a positive COVID case or being admitted to the hospital, meaning the number of COVID cases was likely disproportional to the underreported population size.

Despite unreliable state data, the stories of COVIDs impact on the community show that the high case rates cant be exclusively attributed to inflation.

I think we all experienced [the impacts of COVID] upfront and personal, said Manumalo Alailima, executive director of the United Territories of Pacific Islanders Alliance Portland (UTOPIA PDX), a nonprofit supporting queer and trans Pacific Islanders. We had family members and friends die early on. It was constantright when you had one funeral, there was another funeral.

Alailima lost five of their family members to COVID, and cites the profound suffering the pandemic caused for the Pacific Islander community as one of the reasons community groups worked so hard to bolster vaccine outreach.

Manumalo Alailima (left) at a cultural event hosted by the Oregon Pacific Islander Coalition. Courtesy of Samoa Pacific Development Corporation

According to Jackie Leung, the executive director of Micronesian Islander Community Oregon (MIC), collaborating was key to raising awareness about each organizations services outside of the community they regularly served. The coalition also turned to faith-based groups and neighborhoods with high Pacific Islander populations to share information with people who did not regularly engage with nonprofit services.

In an effort to connect with vaccine skeptics, the coalition also hosts vaccine events in tandem with other community services, like back-to-school events where they distribute school supplies and food boxes, as well as vaccines. Kapiolani Mickey, a MIC community health worker, said those community events provided her with opportunities to interact with unvaccinated people in person and correct misinformation about the vaccine.

Mickey, whose husband died of COVID in January, uses her personal experience with the virus to explain the vaccines importance to people who are hesitant about getting the vaccine.

I still cry about it when I talk about it, but that's the only way I can relate the message to the community, Mickey said. I always tell them, Don't be afraid of the vaccine because the vaccine is not gonna kill you, but COVID will.

Alailima of UTOPIA PDX is proud of the work the coalition has done to vaccinate community members, but does not trust the states data to give an accurate portrayal of vaccination rates in the community. According to OHA data, new weekly COVID cases within the Pacific Islander community have minimally decreased since vaccines were introduced to the public at the beginning of 2021. In 2020, Pacific Islanders averaged 29 weekly COVID cases. Since mid-June 2021, when the OHA reported Pacific Islanders reached at least an 80 percent vaccination rate, the community averaged 22 new COVID cases per week. The decrease is promising, but not what health workers would expect from an 80 to 90 percent vaccination rate.

The states reported vaccination rate does not match what Pacific Islander health workers are hearing on the ground. Alailima and Galeai are currently coordinating new vaccine clinics in southern Oregon, where community members are reporting clusters of unvaccinated Pacific Islanders. Additionally, most of the coalition members offer wrap-around COVID services, like food delivery, bill support, and COVID testing. For the past month, Alailima says UTOPIA PDX has been addressing a barrage of [COVID] cases that has kept the groups wrap-around service providers busyanother indication that vaccination rates are lower than OHA data indicates.

Volunteers with UTOPIA PDX prepare hot meals and take-home food supplies for a vaccine clinic. Courtesy of UTOPIA PDX

We shouldn't be content or comfortable, said Galeai with the SPDC. We still have to keep talking and keep looking for people in our community who have not been vaccinated.

The SPDC is leading the coalitions vaccination efforts in southern Oregon, aiming to address pockets of unvaccinated Pacific Islanders in the states more rural areas. In the Portland metro area, the coalitions vaccine events are still vaccinating up to 40 people per event and the groups are expecting to ramp up again once the vaccine is approved for children under 12.

While the Oregon Pacific Islander Coalition members are kept busy with responding to the immediate community needs caused by the pandemic, getting people vaccinated is a surface level issue in comparison to the root causes that created health disparities within the Pacific Islander community in the first place, according to Enlet.

Weve been sounding the alarm for the longest time, and so now it's like, here you go, this is a direct result of non-investment, said Enlet. This is a critical moment for decision makers and policy makers to focus on vulnerable communities, because they will cost society, in the long run. If you don't take care of them right now and invest in these communities, this is whats going to happen.

Investment, according to Enlet, means creating more opportunities for COFA islanderswho cant voteto participate in civic decisions, as well as making them eligible for basic government safety net programs, like SNAP and TANF.

Access to safety net programs is just human rights, Enlet said, noting that solutions to addressing health disparity need to go further. I shouldn't spend my time saying [the programs are] a solution because everybody already has to have that right.

Oregon Pacific Islander Coalition members also want to see the infrastructure they built during the pandemic maintained and used to build a better relationship between public health systems and the Pacific Islander community after the threat of COVID subsides. Alailima of UTOPIA PDX is grateful for the support the coalition has received from county health departments, like funding for community health worker positions and vaccine supplies, but stressed that the swell of Pacific Islander public health infrastructure the coalition built during the pandemic only got the community caught up to where they should have been all along.

Were expected to serve our community because no one else is doing it, but we definitely did not have the technical assistance to get us to the place where our counterparts have been for decades, Alailima said.

The coalition believes they have a better chance of getting that technical assistance from local health authorities now that the pandemic has made the communitys health disparities too obvious to ignore.

The data was in front of them before COVID, Galeai said, but it's screaming at them now.

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How Flawed Population Data Conceals the Reality of COVID for Oregon Pacific Islanders - The Portland Mercury