Street outside Native center to be named after beloved Indigenous leader and student advocate

Rose Hill, seated at center, surrounded by family, friends, members of the PSU and greater Portland Native community, and the mayor and city councilors

The street outside Portland State's Native American Student and Community Center is being renamed for Indigenous leader Rose Hill, a fitting tribute for a woman who was integral in helping bring the center to fruition and has been an advocate for countless Native students at PSU.

Portland City Council unanimously approved a resolution this week to declare support and direct resources for the renaming of the three-block street from SW Jackson Street to SW Rose Hill Street - the result of a years-long education and advocacy campaign by Native staff, community members and students.

Trevino Brings Plenty, PSU's coordinator of Native American student services, said there's irony in that the very place that was built to be a safe haven for Native students, community and elders is located on a street named after former U.S. President Andrew Jackson, who signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830 that resulted in the removal of over 50,000 Native American people from their land east of the Mississippi River.

"We know here in Oregon, the tribes have had their own Trail of Tears in being relocated, removed and displaced," he said. "This is the relationship with Andrew Jackson. The other name that we Indians have for Andrew Jackson is 'Indian killer.' So we're at a place of education where we can talk about these historical issues and facts and also put that into terms of contemporary Indian Country news today."

That education and sense of community that students find at the NASCC is what Rose Hill envisioned many years ago. She began pushing for a center as early as 1985 while she was still a student at PSU, even writing a letter to then-Mayor Bud Clark that resulted in a feasibility study.

"I wondered why our community did not have a place to gather, a place to be together, to share," Hill said.
After several fits and starts, efforts picked up in the 1990s when Hill returned to PSU as the Native American student services coordinator. She brought together Native faculty, staff, alumni and community members - a group that began meeting monthly, then weekly and even bi-weekly until the opening of the NASCC in October 2003.

"One of the things that I learned as I traveled through this is that you take an idea and you don't give up on it and you let it go through time and then you have the reality of that idea," said Hill, who today serves as a culture keeper for Native American Rehabilitation Association Northwest.

Much like the building itself, the process to rename the street has been community-driven. In 2018, Brings Plenty and Robert Franklin, the former NASCC building manager, began a Native Caucus to discuss issues on campus, the greater Portland Native community and Indian country - and the decision to pursue a rename came out of that group. Progress stalled during the pandemic but resumed in 2021.

Serina Fast Horse '18, who worked at NASCC as a student and now serves as a project manager in PSU's Institute for Tribal Government, was tapped by university leadership to convene a renaming committee. The 17-member group - made up of current and former students, staff and faculty as well as Indigenous community members - identified a list of 12 names of Indigenous leaders, places and living things significant to the region and campus community to honor. Hundreds of votes came in, helping them to narrow down the list. During the 20th anniversary celebration of the NASCC last November, 65 votes were cast, with Rose Hill getting the vast majority.

SandeBea Allman, who's known Hill since the 1980s and continues to work with her at NARA NW, said Hill has made a lasting impact on thousands of PSU students, both Native and non-Native alike.

"She was advocating for them, helping them with that next step, helping these young people from their reservations or from across the country feel a place of home, a place of welcome, making sure they were fed, making sure other members of the community were aware of the need of supporting the students," Allman said. "Rose is well-known. Rose is highly respected. What she brings when she walks into a room is so amazing."

Hill said she never thought in a million years that she would have a street named after her - nor that she would live to see it happen.

"It is a truly remarkable situation that I've lasted this long, and I'm able to see the actual results of it," she said. "I'm going to have a street and I'm replacing Andrew Jackson the 'Indian killer,' so how about that?"