Think Out Loud

Rep. Maxine Dexter (D-Portland) escorted a family — including a 7-year-old girl — from an ICE detention facility in Texas back to Oregon on Saturday. The Crespo-Gonzalez family was detained last month while bringing their sick child to urgent care. We sit down with Dexter to hear about that experience and her work in Congress focused on ICE funding and policy. OPB reporter Holly Bartholomew covers Portland’s suburban communities as a Report for America Corps Member. We also talk with her about how the family is doing now and the latest developments around federal immigration actions in Oregon.  

In books like “Breathe” and “South to America,” National Book Award and MacArthur “genius” grant winner Imani Perry writes about Blackness in America with clarity, elegance, rage, and joy. Perry is a Professor of Studies of Women, Gender and Sexuality and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. Her latest book is “Black in Blues,” a meditation on the color blue and its role in Black history and culture. Perry talks to us in front of an audience of students at Woodburn High School.

When Chuck Sams was sworn in as director of the National Park Service in 2021, he became the first Native American to lead the agency. Sams previously served as a member of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council and as executive director of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation.   Not long after Sams returned to Oregon after leaving the agency last year, the Trump administration fired nearly 1,000 park service employees without warning. The agency lost nearly a quarter of its permanent staff in the following months.  Sams has denounced the loss of institutional knowledge within the National Park Service. He joins us to share his thoughts.

 Lawmakers are meeting in Salem to discuss and decide the fate of a flurry of bills during Oregon’s short legislative session this year. One of those is a bipartisan bill that would hike the state’s lodging tax at places like campgrounds, hotels and Airbnbs from 1.5% to 2.75%.    The tax increase is expected to raise tens of millions of dollars for wildlife protection, habitat conservation, anti-poaching efforts, combating invasive species and mitigating wildfires. It would also compensate ranchers for cattle killed by wolves.    The bill’s sponsors – Rep. Mark Owens (R-Crane) and Rep. Ken Helm (D-Beaverton)  – join us to share why they support it and why they revived it this year after it died in the final days of last year’s session. Jason Brandt, President and CEO of the Oregon Restaurant and Lodging Association, also joins us to share his opposition to the bill.  

Logan Patterson graduated in May 2025 from Washington State University’s College of Medicine and is currently a resident at the Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane. During his four years of medical school, he says that he got almost no formal training in end-of-life care, including how to talk with patients and their families about death and dying.       It turns out that his experience is hardly unique, according to a new study Patterson co-authored and recently published with his former colleagues at Washington State University.   The researchers reviewed the two largest medical journal databases to look for papers published between January 2010 and April 2025 about death and dying instruction  in U.S. medical schools. They found only 43 articles on this topic and wide variability on how death and dying is being taught, from a single seminar on advanced care planning to required rotations in hospice and palliative care settings. The researchers argue that U.S. medical schools lack a consistent and evidence-based curriculum for end-of-life care.    Dr. Patterson joins us for more details, including the social and academic challenges of effectively teaching death and dying to students to help prepare them for some of the toughest conversations they may soon be forced to have with their patients.  

In 2024, Oregon State University assistant professor of psychology Steven Sanders created a scale to measure toxic masculinity. Researchers say for masculine behavior to be deemed as “toxic,” it  must be damaging to the person or people around them. But why should we study this? What impacts does it have in our society? Sanders joins us to answer these questions and more.

 Portland filmmaker Jan Haaken has a new short documentary called “SUMUD: A doctor’s report on genocide and survival in Gaza.” “Sumud” in Arabic means “steadfast perseverance.” The film follows Oregon Health and Science University anesthesiologist Travis Melin as he provided volunteer medical care in Gaza in August of 2025. We’re joined by Haaken and Melin who share more about making the documentary -- and what effect they hope the stories in the film will have.

Ten of Oregon’s 34 rural hospitals have no labor and delivery units, and even more are at risk of shutting their doors. This raises concerns for those seeking maternal healthcare in rural areas as residents face high drive times to the remaining providers, limiting their access to prenatal visits and increasing risk in cases of emergency.   Late last month, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek announced $15 million in funding for maternity care in rural hospitals across the state. This will provide payments to rural hospitals with labor and delivery units that have “fewer than 50 beds and may or may not be within 30 miles of another hospital.”   Jeanna Romer is an obstetrician and gynecologist at Grande Ronde Hospital in La Grande. Nora Hawkins is a direct-entry midwife in Wallowa County. They both join us to give us a sense of what that funding might mean, and the general state of obstetric care in Northeast Oregon.    

Like many ideas, it started over a round of drinks. Musicians, Shorty Delgado, James Jones and Joshua Josué were discussing where they stood in the world of music, each of their sounds not classically Country music, Americana and having spanish thrown into the mix, doesn’t make them Tejano either. Thus, Electric Chololand Records was born. An indie-start up record label celebrating Chicano musicians, stories and heritage, with a specialty in Chicano Rock. Delgado is the head of the label, which launched in 2024. Josué is one of the artists under the label whose new album, “Broadcast to the Surf Ballroom,” is a tribute album made up of demos and unfinished songs from artists Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens, two musical inspirations for Josué. Delgado joins us to share more on the record label and its creation. And Josué joins us to discuss his music and share a few songs, with performances from Ben Rice, Nick Skalberg, Marilyn Darrel and Yoshi Sheetz.

The Columbian recently reported that Clark County recorded the highest rate of evictions per capita in Washington state for the third year in a row. In 2025, Clark County landlords filed 2,275 cases to evict tenants, an increase of roughly 33% since 2023.    Washington has passed legislation in recent years to help tenants, including a new law Governor Bob Ferguson signed last May that limits rent increases  to no more than 10% in a year. In 2021, Washington became the first state in the nation to establish a right to free legal counsel for low-income tenants facing eviction. But amid growing need and rising caseloads, the Washington State Office of Legal Aid is seeking $3 million in supplemental funding from lawmakers for the next fiscal year.    Mia Ryder-Marks is a reporter for The Columbian covering homelessness, affordable housing and veterans. She joins us for more details.