PBOT hosts cultural anthropologist Adonia Lugo at ‘Bicycle Brown Bag’ series

Adonia Lugo at a panel during the
Women’s Bicycling Forum in
Washington D.C. in March 2013.
(Photo © J. Maus/BikePortland)

Adonia Lugo, who received a doctorate in cultural anthropology from the University of California, Irvine who spent years as a community activist in Los Angeles, will speak at the Bureau of Transportation’s monthly “Brown Bag” discussion series this Thursday. Lugo earned her undergraduate degree from Reed College in Portland but returned to town only recently after stints in Los Angeles and Seattle.

In recent years, Lugo has emerged as a respected voice among transportation advocates due to her experiences and perspectives on how gender and race figure into bicycling policies, projects and priorities. During her time in Los Angeles, Lugo co-founded CicLAvia (that city’s version of Sunday Parkways) and City of Lights/Ciudad de Luces, a volunteer effort to provide bike lights and safe cycling information to Spanish-speaking immigrants, that has since become a stand-alone non-profit named Multicultural Communities for Mobility.

Thursday’s talk is titled, Lessons from L.A. – Recognizing, Supporting and Celebrating Diversity in Bicycle Culture. Here’s the blurb from PBOT:

“Yes, L.A. has a head start on Portland in the realm of diverse bicycle culture. But a tour of St. Johns or East Portland will reveal the variety of people riding bikes here. As we work to encourage everyone who wants to use a bike for transportation to do so, are we missing the “ Invisible Riders”? Adonia Lugo will draw on her experiences at Ciudad de Luces (now Multicultural Communities for Mobility) and CicLAvia, as well as her academic work, to address this topic.”

Many people have been introduced to Lugo’s perspectives via her blog, Urban Adonia, where she ruminates on topics like “The distance between bike economics and social justice”, whether or not “the bike movement” is “too cynical for social justice”, and “Bike share and body-city machines.”

Given all the attention to the intersection between race, class and bicycling in Portland, Lugo’s talk is sure to be a hot ticket. The Lovejoy Room in City Hall isn’t that large, so I’d suggest getting there a bit early if you want a good seat.

Learn more about Lugo on the about page of her blog.

Adonia Lugo at PBOT Bicycle Brown Bag discussion
Thursday, October 17th, Noon to 1 pm
City Hall – Lovejoy Room (1221 SW 4th Ave, 2nd Floor)