The Ukrainian community in Portland is mostly made up of immigrant religious refugees who moved to the area after the fall of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had an unofficial policy of church versus state where leaders made attempts to eliminate religion. Many immigrants came after the U.S. allowed people from the former Soviet countries to enter.
Organizations usually form to serve the immigrant population. The Ukrainian American Cultural Association of Oregon and Southwest Washington is one such group. These types of organizations also advocate for the particular group and are the go-to when crisis like the Russia versus Ukraine conflict arise.
Portland State University researchers in 2014 estimated that about 22,000 people from Slavic countries lived in Multnomah County in 2011. Slavic people (Slavs) can be divided into three subgroups based upon their geographic and linguistic distribution: East Slavs (Russia, Belarus, Ukraine), West Slavs (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia), and South Slavs (Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Slovenia).
The Russian population in Portland and in Oregon is significant to the area. For instance, Russian is the third-most spoken language in Oregon, after English and Spanish. Oregon is number two in the nation for Russian-speaking newcomers.
The organization called ROSS (Russian Oregon Social Services) was established in 1994 to serve the needs of Russian-speaking refugees and immigrants. It’s website states that “More than 100,000 Russian-speaking refugees and immigrants from the former Soviet Union currently reside in the Portland metro area, and the numbers are expected to increase. Census figures show that no other place in the nation has had more of an influx from the former Soviet Union than the Pacific Northwest.” ROSS was established by Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon.
After the conflict started between and Ukraine, hundreds of Ukranians and supporters protested against the war in downtown Portland. The Saint John the Baptist Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Portland had a gathering of people seeking guidance from God. Ukraine and Russia both have a religious history of Christ portrayed as a Black messianic figure. However, there are online videos of Ukrainians mistreating Black Africans inside the country during the conflict.
