Heartily doused barbecue pork sliders, Indian fry bread, and stewed chile verde filled the plates of hungry guests at the Tradition Keepers Event and Exhibit. The June celebration, hosted by Four Rivers Cultural Center in Ontario, Ore., honored the region’s rich cultural roots, with dishes from each to boot.
In addition to cuisine, hands-on workshops and lectures, Four Rivers invited taiko drummers, Paiute dancers and cowboy poets to perform in the main lobby beneath four soaring paintings depicting the area’s most significant ethnic groups: Mexican, Japanese, Basque and Native American.
Although Oregon is noted as one of the nation’s whitest states, cities such as Ontario in Malheur County disrupt that narrative. As the largest city near the Oregon-Idaho border and the largest in the county with an estimated population of 11,009 residents, according to the U.S. Census, Ontario is among the 10 most diverse cities in the state.
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The annually updated Census program approximates the city’s demographic makeup to be 54.5 percent non-Latinx white, 41.7 percent Latinx, 4.4 percent multiracial, 1.7 percent Asian, 0.7 percent Native American, and 0.4 percent African-American. In comparison, 75.8 percent of Oregonians identify as non-Latinx white.
“Where Oregon Begins” is the city’s proud motto, but diving into Ontario’s own historic beginnings reveals a story of migration and a story about how Ontario itself became the truly multicultural community it is today.
Decades before the weaving highways, sprawling homesteads and big-box stores of Ontario were built, the land was home and belonged to the Northern Paiute tribes. While the Paiute had hundreds of tribes in places such as Nevada, Idaho and California, many bands established themselves in stretches of Eastern Oregon. After 10 years of treaties and settlement in Western Oregon, the Northern Paiute continued protecting their lands and the U.S. military became increasingly determined to take control of the land by the 1860s. In 1878, five years after the Malheur Indian Reservation was created to house the Paiutes and five years prior to the unveiling of the Oregon Short Line Railroad, the Paiute were uprooted, their land was taken, and the tribes were ordered into Yakima, Umatilla and Warm Springs reservations across the state.
David G. Lewis, a Native history researcher and anthropologist, explains in an essay: “Whole bands of Paiutes were hunted down and exterminated with extreme prejudice. … The Paiutes (lost) their rights and lands and (were) dispersed to other reservations by the 1880s. This area was a true western frontier with no laws and death coming easy to those who did not take care.”
Nearly a century later, descendants of the Paiute were able to acquire 771 acres of land now known as the Burns Paiute Reservation, about 130 miles southwest of Ontario.
The construction of the Oregon Short Line Railroad in 1883 was essential to Ontario’s economic successes and led to an influx of international laborers that included a large arrival of Basques, a sheepherding indigenous ethnic group hailing from the Iberian Peninsula near the Pyrenees mountain range that hugs France and Spain. Ontario wasn’t officially founded until 1899, but one of the five original white American settlers used the opportunity to pay homage to his hometown of Ontario, Canada, in a big way.
As the newly minted Ontario became the livestock industry hub of the region, the public lands provided ample opportunity for grazing. By 1900, the number of sheep in Malheur County had ballooned steadily. Hundreds of Basque inhabited Eastern Oregon and brought along family members. By 1940, the influx slowed, but 1.4 percent of Ontarians in 2010 still identified as Amerikanuak, or of Basque ancestry in the United States.
Agriculture quickly became Ontario’s main industry as farmers tilled the land to prepare for the crops that still dominate today – onions, russet potatoes and sugar beets, among others. Money order records indicate that, despite the Oregon Census of 1910 reporting no Mexicans or Latinx in Oregon, at least 85 Mexicans were in the state by that time. Mexican vaqueros, or cowboys, tended to cattle and Japanese Issei, first-generation immigrants, continued working on farms in their new home country. World War II, however, drastically changed life for Mexican and Japanese immigrants in Oregon and beyond.
On Feb. 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 effectively ordering the internment of thousands of Japanese-American citizens and families. However, Elmo Smith, then Ontario’s mayor and later governor of Oregon, called for the U.S. government to allow Japanese descendants to relocate inland to Ontario since living on the West Coast had been cited as a chief concern. Paired with Malheur County’s desperate need for agricultural workers, Japanese Americans in Oregon were able to abandon the makeshift living quarters at the Portland Assembly Center and escape internment on May 20 following the adoption of Civilian Restrictive Order 2.
The Japanese population quickly skyrocketed from 134 with the arrival of 800 additional Japanese American workers in the Ontario area. At the end of the war, many Japanese stayed in the area. They credit Ontario’s hospitality in part to Smith, who also published a local newspaper and penned positive, honest editorials about Japanese immigrants to subdue xenophobia. By 1950, Ontario boasted the highest Japanese-American population per capita in all of Oregon.
At the same time, thousands of Mexican migrant farmworkers were recruited as part of the Bracero program introduced in 1942 to similarly keep up with the agricultural labor demands. Nearly half a million Mexican workers migrated to Oregon, California, Texas and other states by 1947. Nyssa, Ore. – fewer than 15 miles south of Ontario – became home to the largest Latinx population due to its proximity to farms, and Ontario followed closely behind.
Although the Ontario Basque Club established in 1947 is still thriving, many Basque descendants have opted for bigger cities such as Portland and Boise. The Native American community in the area has never truly recovered, but two hours away in Burns, the tribe hosts regular language programs, spear-making workshops and an annual pow-wow event for families, featuring camping and lacrosse. And Snake River Correctional Institution, Oregon’s largest prison just 15 minutes from Ontario’s city center, has hosted pow-wows since 2002.
Ontario’s Japanese population remains the largest per capita in Oregon, albeit slowly declining, and the sister-city designation with Osakasayama, Japan, since 1973, continues a tradition of international exchange. The Latinx population has steadily risen, and from the 2000 to 2010 census alone, 1,173 residents of Latinx descent, or roughly 9 percent, made Ontario home. Latinx students now account for 67 percent of all students enrolled in the Ontario School District.
For Ontarians, cultural festivities like the Tradition Keepers event remind the community of the deep cultural roots that date back to the incorporation of the city. Residents say relations across cultures aren’t always perfect, but diversity is a proud legacy and tradition that continues today.
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