{"id":6557,"date":"2016-01-07T15:48:44","date_gmt":"2016-01-07T23:48:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cllas.uoregon.edu\/?page_id=6557"},"modified":"2017-01-30T11:05:17","modified_gmt":"2017-01-30T19:05:17","slug":"lccp-re-thinking-open-spaces-in-eugene","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/cllas.uoregon.edu\/research-action-projects\/icp\/latino-equity-project\/latino-civic-participation-project\/lccp-re-thinking-open-spaces-in-eugene\/","title":{"rendered":"Re-Thinking Open Spaces in Eugene"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from the Winter 2016 edition of  CLLAS Notes<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Re-Thinking Open Spaces<\/h4>\n

CLLAS\u2019s LCPP project is part of a team helping to make the City of Eugene\u2019s Parks and Community Centers a more welcoming and inclusive place for its growing Latino population.<\/em><\/p>\n

by Daniel Platt<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"LCPP<\/a>
LCPP outreach at Festival Latino. From left: Julio Sandoval, who helped with the outreach; Lorna Flormoe, a City of Eugene employee; Nicolette Ulrich, a master\u2019s student in UO\u2019s nonprofit management program; and article author Daniel Platt.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Last spring, the City of Eugene initiated a public engagement effort\u2014consisting of a series of community workshops and outreach events\u2014with the goal of making the city\u2019s parks and community centers more welcoming and inclusive for the Latino community. This outreach effort was organized and led by a team that included the City of Eugene\u2019s Office of Human Rights & Neighborhood Involvement, coordinated by Lorna Flormoe; employees from the City of Eugene\u2019s Parks and Open Space and Recreation Departments; students from the University of Oregon\u2019s \u201cPublic Participation in Diverse Communities\u201d class; Prof. Gerardo Sandoval from the Latino Civic Participation Project, sponsored by the University of Oregon Center for Latino\/a & Latin American Studies; and James Rojas, a trained city planner and public engagement specialist. Together, this outreach team interacted with more than 400 people about what they like about the city\u2019s parks and community centers and what they would change.<\/p>\n

Students and staff conducted five different public engagement events in May 2015: at the monthly \u201cLatino Family Fun Night\u201d in Bethel, at the annual \u201cFestival Latino\u201d in Springfield (sponsored by Huerto de la Familia), at the entrance to Plaza Latina Supermarket on a busy Saturday afternoon, at Ganas, an afterschool program for Latino Kelly Middle School students, and at Pilas!, a Latino family literacy program run by the nonprofit organization Downtown Languages. Instead of hosting the events in city administrative buildings, which may feel unfamiliar or unwelcoming to participants, we chose venues that we believed would feel safe and inviting to the Latino community, such as Latino-owned businesses and schools that host programs for Latino youth and their families.<\/p>\n

Our workshops and outreach events used a public participation model developed by artist and urban planner James Rojas. Mr. Rojas describes his method as one \u201cthat uses model-building workshops and on-site interactive models to help engage the public in the planning and design process.\u201d In practice, this \u201cparticipation through play\u201d method inspires participants to think about the places where they live, work, and play, and how those spaces affect their daily lives. The method also encourages participants to tell stories about their lived experience of city parks and public spaces. Unlike other methods, such as community surveys, which produce a limited set of possible responses, this open-ended, informal approach is likely to generate more surprising\u2014and, perhaps, more honest\u2014community feedback. And because the engagement strategies don\u2019t rely on representative maps or on the specialized language of city planning, Rojas\u2019s method invites all community members to share their ideas and experiences, including children.<\/p>\n

After collating the data and debriefing the results of our outreach, we identified two sets of recommendations to help make Eugene\u2019s parks more welcoming to Latinos. First, we found that many of the participants in the workshops wanted parks that feel culturally inclusive, and where their desired uses for park space\u2014for example, as a place to host large family gatherings\u2014are actively encouraged through park design and management, rather than tacitly discouraged. One suggestion for fostering a sense of cultural belonging and inclusion would be to name a park or community center for someone with cultural significance to local Latinos. As one young participant observed during the Ganas Program Workshop: \u201cIf you really want to build more inclusive parks for Latinos, name one after a Latino leader.\u201d<\/p>\n

The second set of recommendations focused on creating more \u201cinformal\u201d structures for managing park use. By allowing greater flexibility in park rules and regulations, the city can encourage imaginative and communal uses of parks that might otherwise be seen as unwelcome violations of the \u201cofficially sanctioned\u201d park usage. For example, one participant in the Festival Latino Workshop remarked: \u201cI used to play with a Latino team in a soccer league, but that just got too expensive.\u201d Creating informal opportunities for people to play and socialize together can help community members avoid obstacles\u2014like league fees\u2014that might prevent them from enjoying the benefits of recreational spaces.<\/p>\n

Social equity and the inclusion of diverse voices are both fundamental to the mission of Eugene\u2019s Parks and Open Space and Recreation Departments. Now, with the 2015 update of Eugene Parks and Recreation Systems Plan (PRSP), the City of Eugene has a unique opportunity to make parks and public spaces more welcoming and accessible to the city\u2019s growing Latino population. We will continue collaborating and advising the city staff as they reach toward those goals. For more information, or if you\u2019d like to get involved in the discussion, contact Professor Gerardo Sandoval at gsando@uoregon.edu.<\/p>\n

\u2014Daniel Platt is an assistant professor of English at Graceland University and a former member of the PPPM team that put together the report for the City of Eugene.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from the Winter 2016 edition of  CLLAS Notes Re-Thinking Open Spaces CLLAS\u2019s LCPP project is part of a team 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