Twelve days ago, protesters from all backgrounds joined in a march from Waterfront Park to Occupy Portland’s long-term home, the Park Blocks of Chapman Square. Many of the activists are students who balance full schedules, often choosing to sleep in the Park Blocks and shower at PSU’s Recreation Center.
Twelve days ago, protesters from all backgrounds joined in a march from Waterfront Park to Occupy Portland’s long-term home, the Park Blocks of Chapman Square. Many of the activists are students who balance full schedules, often choosing to sleep in the Park Blocks and shower at PSU’s Recreation Center.
Matt Tietjen is one of those students. The 23-year-old sociology major grew up in a low-income suburb of Los Angeles and has a special interest in social movements. Fundamentally against capitalism, Tietjen joined the movement and began working in the facilitation department of Occupy Portland.
“The movement as a whole represents a plurality of grievances, from basic recognitions of financial impossibilities that students, homeowners and parents have to confront in our society, to people opposed to an unregulated capitalist democracy,” Tietjen said.
Tietjen has been a part of the movement since its inception, and has seen the evolution of the protests firsthand. Every decision that Occupy Portland makes is voted on in the general assembly—a twice-daily meeting of all occupiers—and contentious issues, such as whether to give up the occupation of Southwest Main Street (which the protesters did concede on Thursday, Oct. 13), have the potential to divide those within the movement.
“The city obviously wanted the street to be cleared, and the majority of [Occupy Portland] shared that sentiment, but the system that we adopted to make decisions allows for even the minority to be heard. So when a small group of people chose to stay in the street, a clear division within the movement emerged,” Tietjen said. “For someone who wants to see this movement grow, [it] was a very stressful scene.”
The importance of Main Street was a major debate amongst those occupying Chapman Square, and some felt that it wasn’t very important. Tietjen was one of them, saying that the issue was dividing rather than unifying the cause.
“When the police reclaimed the street on Thursday morning there was very little struggle and eight arrests were made. In the wake of the arrests, there was a unifying presence in the air as I feel everyone understood the importance of solidarity if we are to continue to fight for our cause,” Tietjen said.
Capturing the stories of those who have joined the protests is another PSU student, Maria Allred, who is making a documentary called Movement. Allred traveled to New York to film Occupy Wall Street when it first began, paying for the trip with student loans.
Allred—who is majoring in liberal studies with a focus on writing—has made documentaries before, but Movement is about capturing the zeitgeist of the times.
“It touches something inside of me. I think everyone in the occupation movement is having a personal journey, and right now there is something changing on a global scale,” Allred said. “I felt the impulse to go and see what it’s all about, why people feel they need to be there. To me, there is something shifting.”
Taking 12 credits and making a documentary that demands most of her time has not been easy for Allred, and she admits that she has had to forgo her usual zeal at school. “It was definitely a sacrifice to go out to New York. The week before I was crunching my homework. When I was there I was up all night taking video footage and then I had to fly back and catch up on homework,” Allred said.
Tietjen shares in the difficulty of balancing school and activism. “Given the unpredictable nature of the occupation, I have missed many classes. Fortunately for me, my sociology instructors have been very understanding and have allowed me to make up points by writing about the Occupy movement,” Tietjen said. “As for sacrifices, I have missed a couple reading assignments, and sleep, but I am maintaining my grades. Some days I just need to take a step back from the movement, and it’s on these days that I catch up on my neglected school assignments.”
It’s not just current students who are helping with the cause. Ilyes Imre graduated from PSU last spring, and is currently participating in Occupy Portland. “[The occupation] is an amazing place—you come down here, and every five minutes you find yourself in an amazing conversation,” he said.
Imre left his girlfriend, puppy and family to join the movement, which he believes represents a new way of thinking about our democracy.
“I feel like we are evolving,” Imre said. “We need some back checks to our democracy. This is a back check to city hall, to Capitol Hill, to Salem.”
The protesters have no plans to leave Chapman Square anytime soon and, considering that the American Jobs Act died on the floor of the U.S. Senate last week, the occupiers could be in for a long haul.
“Clearly there will be sacrifices made when you join a long-term movement, but it’s not without the hope that it will create a better society for us in the long run,” Tietjen said.
