I'm Into This Place
I'm Into This Place is Clark County and Vancouver, Washington's arts, culture, and heritage podcast. We take you behind the scenes with the artists, makers, and organizations shaping our local culture - from art and music to food, history, and heritage. Listen in as we bring you interviews, event previews, and tips on where to explore. Let’s get into the stories, sounds, and spirit of Vancouver, Camas, Ridgefield, and beyond!
I'm Into This Place
Ridgefield Multicultural Initiative Makes History - 📍 Ridgefield, WA
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Ridgefield’s got a surprisingly diverse and nuanced history. (Seriously) and The Ridgefield Multicultural Festival’s 9th year is all about celebrating that history, both told and untold. Megan Dudley, president of the Ridgefield Multicultural Initiative, joins us to talk about founding the Initiative and the festival after recognizing the need for greater inclusivity in her community.
👀 For more, visit the episode page.
🎉 The Festival is on the first Saturday in September - see you there!
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📍 Find more at imintothisplace.com.
The Ridgefield Multicultural Festival comes to us on the first Saturday of September, and it is an absolute delight. If you or anyone in your family is interested in exploring cultures from around the world and from close to home, then you don't want to miss the Ridgefield Multicultural Festival. I went before I even started this podcast, and I saw all kinds of fun stuff. A fashion show with people dressing in traditional costumes and traditional clothing from all over the world. I sampled great food and checked out lots of fun vendors and activities. It's a really special one because you really get to see the diversity of our community. I sat down with Megan Dudley. She's the president of the Ridgefield Multicultural Initiative, and she is one of the people behind the festival. She talks to me about the initiative and what her hopes are for Ridgefield as it continues to grow and grow. And I think that no matter where you live in Clark County, you'll probably find this conversation pretty interesting as we learn about our own history, the history of our neighbors, and we come together to connect over arts and culture. Welcome to I'm Into This Place, your deep dive into the local arts, culture and heritage of Clark County. From fabulous new restaurants to quirky art installations to the historical sites you never even knew to look for, we're inviting you along. Whether you're a Clark County connoisseur or just starting to get to know her, get ready to fall head over heels for this place we call home. I'm your host, Adriana Baer, and I'm into this place. Let's go. So happy to be sitting with Megan Dudley, the president of the Ridgefield Multicultural Initiative. And we are going to talk today especially about the Ridgefield Multicultural Festival. Thank you so much for having me today.
Megan:I'm so excited to be here. Thank you.
Adriana:Why don't you introduce yourself? Tell me a little bit about your own background.
Megan:Sure. I am a Ridgefield resident since 2014. I'm a pediatrician at Kaiser in Longview, and the folks that I work with told me,"You have to move to Ridgefield. It's the best place to raise your family." And so then we did, and we just love being here. I'm Yonsei, which means that I'm fourth generation Japanese American on my mother's side, and I grew up in Michigan, lived in Albuquerque for 17 years, and then moved out to the Pacific Northwest.
Adriana:And tell me the story of how the initiative came to be.
Megan:Yeah. So the city of Ridgefield does an awesome job of having first Saturday events on the first Saturday of each month, and my family and I would go down and participate and really enjoyed it. And I noticed that my two colleagues, one's from Nigeria and the other's from the Philippines, and they both live in Ridgefield, never came down, and I asked them once, like, "So what's going on? Why don't you guys like to come down for the events?" And they felt like it really wasn't for them. And I think Ridgefield, as a vast majority white city, can sometimes feel, especially at that point in time, you know, 2014, 2015, not as welcoming for people of color. Um, and so and I was thinking about that, and I was also thinking about my own family history, which my, um, grandmother and grandfather were interned in Arkansas during World War II. So they left from California and had to go out to Arkansas when they were teens, and that's where they met. So that history is, weighs heavy on me, but in terms of culture, it's heavy because there was a big force to assimilate because you didn't want to be seen as Japanese, because there was a lot of prejudice against Japanese Americans. So even though my grandma was born in the US, when you… at that time, if you looked Japanese, then, um, you would try to be as American as possible. Mm. So not speaking Japanese, not celebrating cultural events, not cooking Japanese food, and that way of thinking really lasted through the generations. So, like, my mom never spoke Japanese. She doesn't even eat sushi, which is She's, um, yeah, never liked it. And so when I was growing up, we didn't have any contact really. And where I grew up in Michigan, there was only, like, three Asian kids, and so, like, we didn't have Asian grocery stores around or, um, any way to participate in the culture. So I thought about my kids growing up and how could we give them the opportunities to be around Japanese culture. And so those two things really together made me think about, what about if we did a First Saturday event as a multicultural festival? And so I did a PowerPoint and contacted the city and went and presented my PowerPoint to them, and they were excited and super welcoming about the idea. Then we presented it to the First Saturday group who plans all the First Saturday events, and they were excited about it, too. So it's been nothing but positive reinforcement for the idea from all the stakeholders in the city, which has been fantastic. So our first festival was in 2018, and it's always on the first Saturday in September.
Adriana:So let's talk about this year's festival.
Megan:Okay.
Adriana:What is the theme, and what can we expect?
Megan:Yeah. The theme for this year is history, and it's a brand-new experience for us because we're putting on a, a history museum, Ridgefield History Museum, and, um, it'll be at the Greely Building, and it's from August 21st to September 5th. So it's kind of book-ended with the festival at one end and a dance hall event at the beginning of it, um, where people can preview the museum and then attend the event and see the Ne Plus Ultra jazz band, which is gonna be super fun. The museum is a collaboration between a lot of different stakeholder groups in Ridgefield, nonprofits, um, food sharing organizations or organizations that help the needy The Friends of the Wildlife Refuge, the city and the port. Um, it's just a, it's a big collaborative museum, um, where we're telling some of the stories that have been told before, but also some stories that haven't been told. And the untold stories is RMI's, uh, role in the museum. And so we've been working at researching Japanese farm families. Super interesting work. We found five families that were in Ridgefield growing strawberries and working together to grow strawberries. They, they were such a big force in the agriculture community in Ridgefield in the 1940s, early 1940s, that they had advertised in The Oregonian for 1,000 pickers. So between those farms, they were really, um, a huge part of the strawberry industry in Ridgefield. And so we found, found them in the census. We've been talking to the descendants of those families. They all were taken and went to Tule Lake Concentration Camp or Minidoka, and so we're telling the stories about what happened to them and just, um, some people in our area don't realize that this, this history happened, and I think that the schools for the younger generations, it's been more, um, more… They've been a lot more mindful than when I was growing up. Like, they didn't talk about it at all when I was growing up and going to school in the late '80s. But I know the kids today are getting more exposed to that history, but there's still gaps, I think, in knowledge, and so part of our, part of the exhibit is filling in those gaps about, like, Executive Order 9066. We have these amazing maps of where the evacuation zones were. So, like, you can see, were you on this side of the evacuation zone or not? We have the original, um, posters, what they, they would put up posters and say,"Notice to all people of Japanese origin living in Longview and Woodland," and it tells you where you need to go to report. We have a lot of really interesting historical things for people to look at and see how it applies to their own town. And the reason that we're doing this is because we feel like the, the more that we as people who live in Ridgefield understand our history, the more we can feel rooted, and we're doing this for our youth so that they can understand more of Ridgefield history. Um, but for all of us really, so that we can feel more connected as a community. I think that if we don't know what happened, it's hard to feel a true sense of belonging and ownership of the place.
Adriana:Yeah. Wow. When we enter into the Greeley building-
Megan:Mm-hmm… Adriana: and, and you're Mm-hmm
Adriana:what other exhibits or what kind of displays are we going to see? Is there- Mm-hmm … interactive pieces?
Megan:Yeah.
Adriana:Is it mostly documents?
Megan:Yeah, there's some interactive pieces. We've been working with the Ridgefield Heritage Society, too. Um, and I was just talking to Beth Boyle, who's one of the volunteers there, and she's working on a, uh, an exhibit that tells history by decade. And so it'll have, like, world history and US history, but then a part about Ridgefield history, so what was happening in Ridgefield when these other things were happening, starting in 1900 and going through 2000. Ms. Nani Mack, who's a teacher at the Union Ridge Elementary School, is working on a school exhibit, so talking about the early schools. We're asking people to imagine what they want Ridgefield to look like in their future, their their vision for Ridgefield. Um, so there's interactive parts like that.
Adriana:This year, is there anything happening at the festival other than the- Mm-hmm … museum- Mm-hmm … that is specifically tied into history?
Megan:Yeah. The lineup has been particularly cultivated to, to reflect some of the history, like Mariachi Portland de Rafael Cervantes. Mariachi history is, you know, goes back a long time. And each year we have a Keeper of the Culture Award, and this year our recipient is Roberto Guitron from El Rancho Viejo. And we chose him because he's been in the community for such a long time, and he, he's brought mariachi to the 4th of July parade. Um, and he's also brought the dancing horses, and he is also a horse- a horseman, too. And so we thought that that would be a really, a really nice way to recognize someone in the community who's a- done so much cultural work. And also, because we have this mariachi band, having them together I think will be really, really fun. We have a couple new acts, um, who are coming in that will be really interesting. One of them is, uh, Roma, Michelle Alany and the Mystics, and then we have a hip hop artist whose name is Sharp Skillz. In between performances, there'll be people that are telling little short stories about life in Ridgefield or things in Ridgefield that have happened. And then Vancouver Ballet Folklorico is coming back, and Anna Cruz and, and her group are really wonderful to work with, so I think it's gonna be a good festival.
Adriana:The music performances and the dance performances at Overlook Park are always really beautiful and fun to watch, and I love kind of the back to back to back scheduling, where you can see representations of multiple countries and multiple cultures- Mm-hmm in, you know, just a half an hour of, of being there. Mm-hmm. You might see four or five different nations represented in- Mm-hmm … in their traditional art forms. So tell me about the vendors that are there.
Megan:Yeah. We always try to find vendors that are doing cultural work. I think that it's a great opportunity for folks because our festival's in September, and you're at the beginning of the holiday shopping season. And so it's a great time to get gifts for people and experience gifts that you might not see in other places. I feel like our vendors are great at incorporating kids in their booths. I feel like almost all the vendors have something set up to draw kids in, whether it's a game or a prize or something that they can teach them about.
Adriana:Fun. Thank you to our sponsor, The Bon Vivant Traveler, a boutique luxury travel agency based in Ridgefield, Washington. They specialize in culinary immersive experiences, river cruises, wine regions, and destinations you don't just visit, but taste and feel. And every itinerary is fully custom. Join The Bon Vivant Traveler's monthly travel club, find out about upcoming group experiences, or have them design your dream trip at thebonvivanttraveler.com. You can get $50 per person off your planning fee when you mention I'm Into This Place. So tell me m- a little bit more about the Ridgefield Multicultural Initiative outside of the festival. What is your goal with it? What do you guys work on?
Megan:The Ridgefield Multicultural Initiative is our nonprofit. Our main goal is to really create events where everybody feels welcome in downtown Ridgefield, and that's what we work towards with our festival in particular, which is our biggest event of the year. Everything e-else kind of feeds into that and leads up to it, including partnerships that we have with other organizations. Because we're the only nonprofit doing cultural work in Ridgefield of this kind, we feel an obligation to reach out to other organizations in the community to lend support where we can and to hear the concerns of people in the community as well, so that we're able to respond if needed.
Adriana:How do you see your work progressing forward as Ridgefield grows?
Megan:I think one way that we impact the community is through education, so we're exposing people that might not have been exposed before to other cultural ways of being, whether that's through food or dance, music, but also in ways of thinking'cause the way that we, for example, conduct a meeting is very culturally specific, and, uh, that's something that people might not think about. And so even when we have our meetings, we try to embody that. And, and for us, relationships are the most important thing, relationship building, and that takes a long time. So, like, building trust with other organizations, um, is slow work but necessary work, um, to lay this foundation of a fabric of the community where we have each other to lean on.
Adriana:Yeah.
Megan:And it's kinda vague because we don't know, you know, what the things may be. One thing that we do know, for example, and something that's heavy in the hearts of our board, is that even in our school district, which is fantastic, we have one of the best school districts, I think, in Clark County in the state, but there are racial incidents happening in our schools where kids are being called racial slurs, and so that's something that the school district's struggling with. And we see our work representing cultures and being welcoming to cultures and people of different backgrounds as part of supporting those kids, too, who might not be seeing that support in other areas of their lives.
Adriana:That's an important statement. And that relationship building builds trust. Mm-hmm. And that's where people can be vulnerable and share what's really going on with them.
Megan:Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
Adriana:If you could imagine forward, like, five or 10 years, what are we seeing happening more and more?
Megan:I mean, one of my personal visions is that it's self-sustaining. But I would really love to, to see the next generation engaged and seeing the value in it and continuing it. So that's a big goal five to 10 years down the road. But otherwise, I see us being more present, being able to do more events and growing the festival even. In Ridgefield, it's been tough because we've had such rapid growth, and so we have families that have been there for generations, and then we have a lot of families moving in. And so there's, there is some conflict between old Ridgefield and new Ridgefield, and how do we bridge the gap between the two? And I'm hopeful and excited about our theme because I think that will help with some of it, bringing out the stories of People that have been in Ridgefield forever and people that are new, so that we can see each other's common humanity. I think that will be a really nice project for our whole community to get involved in.
Adriana:Yeah, absolutely. Megan, you work with so many different amazing groups and so many people who come and volunteer their time and support the work that Ridgefield Multicultural Initiative and the festival are doing. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So I'd love to ask you to shout out some of your favorite people. Mm-hmm. Um, while you're thinking about that, if you are listening and you are not already signed up for our newsletter, please do that. It's super easy. The link is in the show notes and on our website, and it's the best way to get special ticket offers, arts and culture event alerts, to see photos and videos of our podcast guests. And when you sign up for our newsletter, you really help us grow and gain sponsors who support all of our free arts and culture coverage. So Megan- Mm-hmm … who would you like to shout out today?
Megan:Yeah. I would like to shout out, um, our sponsors for the, both the museum and for the festival. Kaiser Permanente, who's been a sponsor f- with us since the very first festival. Inatai, uh, who's an amazing organization out of Seattle area. The Northwest Health Foundation. Lava Java. Phung over there has been a, a true friend and supporter for so long. And the City and Port of Ridgefield. We couldn't do the work that we do without them. Um, I also wanna give a shout-out to the new North County LULAC, and Amanda Medina is the president, and she is an amazing person, and I think without her vision and drive, it wouldn't, it wouldn't have happened. And so I'm, I'm really excited to see what they're gonna do.
Adriana:Well, Megan, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me today. Mm-hmm. I can't wait to see you at the festival.
Megan:Great. Thanks for this opportunity. Really appreciate it.
Adriana:And now let's hear from you. This is our Community Voices segment, where you call in and let us know what arts, culture, and heritage places or people are you really into these days?
Guest:Hi, my name is Jen Midas. I'm with Cone PDX, and I wanna celebrate Marshall Park, and I love the space for its sustainability and inclusive design, and it's just so fun. And I wanna give a shout-out to Harper's Playground and everything they're doing for, um, sustainable play and inclusive play.
Guest 2:Hi, I'm Joanna Blade, and I'm really into gourmet coffee. My favorite in town is called 360 Coffee.
Adriana:Wanna give a shout-out to your favorite spot? Give us a call and leave a message, or send us a voice note via email. All the details on how to do that are in the show notes, or click on Community Voices on our website. I'm Into This Place is produced and hosted by me, Adriana Baer. Editing by Chris Martin Studios. This episode was recorded at The Sound Stage, Clark County's premier voiceover and audio recording studio. You can find out more about the Ridgefield Multicultural Initiative and Annual Festival and us at imintothisplace.com. See you out there!
