By Sako Chapman
The office of BIPOC & LGBTQ+ Intersectional Support Services (BLISS) is the newest name for an office that has existed in support of students from historically marginalized groups since the early years of Evergreen’s existence. Student advocacy over the decades has brought to light the need for Evergreen to institutionalize support for groups of students who participate in a higher education environment that, at its roots, was not built with them in mind.
Evergreen’s multicultural services began with the student-led Non-White Coalition in the mid-1970s, and evolved into the Minority Coalition, the Third World Coalition, the First Peoples Office and First Peoples Advising Services. In 2016, the Trans and Queer Center was created, which in 2018 merged with the multicultural services and formed First Peoples Multicultural, Trans & Queer Support Services.
In 2022, the office added the Undocumented/Underserved Student Support Specialist to the team, offering support to undocumented and DACAmented Evergreen students.
The First Peoples office launched a campaign in the 2022-23 school year to rename. In doing so, it was crucial that the ties to the past were not lost, including having the work of the office informed by the current students. The office conducted multiple class visits with students and received over 130 suggestions for a new name. The renaming committee was immediately drawn to BLISS, which was approved as a new name over the summer of 2023.
The new name highlights BIPOC and LGBTQ+ to show that the focus is always on centering the office’s historically served populations. ‘Intersectional’ indicates the unique approach and broad scope of the office. The work that BLISS does is meant to embrace and celebrate the whole individual and community; to address the differences and commonalities that form the Evergreen community. And finally, the acronym. BLISS brings forth an image of positivity, celebration and joy. In the struggle to create a world – or at least an Evergreen community – that rises above the learned behaviors of the past and embraces a new reality which values and honors all, those fighting for change cannot allow the hardships to bring them down and hold them in a place of sorrow. Change makers need to bring joy to their work; they need to bring pride to the table and they need to unabashedly celebrate their whole selves. They need to create a BLISSful struggle.
The BLISS mission states:
BIPOC & LGBTQ+ Intersectional Support Services provides holistic support services to students, faculty and staff to foster an environment in which everyone can be their authentic self. We center BIPOC, trans, queer, undocumented and DACAmented students in order to dismantle barriers that have historically impacted underserved students in higher education. Community is built through events, workshops and offering a gathering space (the Student Equity and Arts Lounge), all of which value, uplift and amplify diversity, equity and inclusion on campus. Students are connected with resources on campus and in the greater Olympia community. We are committed to cultivating a culture of belonging that adapts to your needs.
Although the name has changed, the services available to students, faculty and staff remain. Programming throughout the year will celebrate and uplift Evergreen students’ multiple identities. The Student Equity and Arts Lounge (SEAL), located on the 3rd floor of the CAB is open Monday – Friday from 10:30 – 6:00 pm as a space for students to find community. The BLISS office, located on the second floor of the CAB is open for drop-ins or appointments if students would like to address their needs with the multicultural initiatives coordinator, trans & queer initiatives coordinator or undocumented/underserved specialist.
BLISS Renaming Ceremony
Speech by Natalie “Lee” Arneson
I’m very excited to share this space with you all today, and am grateful to have been offered the opportunity to share some words here. I’d like to begin with a quote from Min Jin Lee’s novel Pachinko;
“History has failed us, but no matter.”
This quote may seem unrelated to what we are here to celebrate today, but I would argue otherwise. As a student, I worked for our newly named BLISS office for almost three years, and in my time as a peer navigator I found my footing as a student and as a community member here at Evergreen. This college, as many of us know, can be wonderful and accepting, yet at the same time cold and difficult to navigate for those of us belonging to certain marginalized communities. I myself felt this most deeply as a first generation POC student. Evergreen is a majority white institution, and in my freshman year I felt unmoored, unsure of my place within this campus community, and within Olympia as a whole. then a friend introduced to the then First People’s Multicultural Trans and Queer Support Services office, and I applied to be a peer navigator.
It was this office that introduced me to community organizing, student advocacy, and two of my closest friends who started off as my coworkers here in this office. Suddenly, I felt tethered, I felt that I had a space here at Evergreen where I could relax and try my hand at things I was passionate about. With the support and encouragement of my friends and supervisors, I was allowed the space for the first time in my life to truly grapple with and eventually define the intersections of my identity. I am the mixed race, queer daughter of two loving parents who come from their own complex backgrounds that shaped who they became as people, and as I’ve gotten older I’ve realized that now matter how old we are, we are all constantly in the process of becoming, a sentiment I believe is beautifully held by the BLISS office.
There is a profound care that Mike, Juanita, and Sam have instilled in this office that helps to make the work done here so impactful, and so meaningful. For me, this office has always strived, and often succeeded, in embodying the quote, “History has failed us, but no matter.”
This office was founded by students, for students—specifically those of us that history and institutions have continuously failed. At its heart, I believe this office has always strived to uplift not only those that pass through its doors, but the Evergreen community as a whole, because there can be no true progress—no true change, unless we uplift those most denied by these systems that seek to oppress us. No matter that history has failed us, because we have taken up pens to write our own.
To me, Min jin lee’s quote is an acknowledgment of how we’ve been wronged, and the promise of resilience in spite of this. And I have seen first hand this bright resilience in the many students I have had the joy to meet and to know who have come to the SEAL just upstairs, and I am grateful that I was given the opportunity to join them in this resilience. I am grateful that Mike, Juanita, and Sam encouraged this every day, and have done their best to provide support so that these students can live and thrive in all their complexity. So that they too can find a sense of place in the transience that is college.
To close, I would like to share a little poem of mine that I wrote when reflecting on transience and what it might mean to never see the impact your efforts at brighter future make.
“it’s like hearing the notes of a song
through a stranger’s car window
you’ll hear 30 seconds if you’re lucky
& it will be a song you’ve never heard before
or one you heard so long ago lyrics & name
no longer have home in your memory
& in that moment it will be your favorite song
& then you will most likely never hear it again.
it feels like that.
that is to say, it feels a lot like trying to capture wind between your palms
futile, but determined.
& isn’t that what it is, too?
perhaps futile, but determined to matter even if, in the end, it has changed nothing
Fleeting is a word that comes to mind.
Fleeting, yet dependable
Like how here, in the PNW you can always count on all four seasons coming & going
No matter how reluctant the sun may be to shine
& how determined the rain is to fall
summer still comes, riding the coattails of a chilly spring.
Perhaps it is not futile or fleeting at all,
perhaps nothing changes
Yet determined and dependable, we still ask; but what if it changes everything?
Wednesday, October 14, the second floor of CAB held a modest crowd to celebrate the newly renamed BLISS office, or BIPOC LGBTQ+ Intersectional Support Services office. Formerly known as First People’s Multicultural Trans and Queer Support Services, the official renaming celebration came from a year-long search for a new identity that captured the goals of the office in supporting Evergreen’s traditionally marginalized students. While future installments of the Cooper Point Journal will better feature the history of the BLISS office, student organizing, and students of color at Evergreen, the CPJ wishes to congratulate the current hardworking pro and student staff of BLISS on the new directions and initiatives that they take on this year!
If you are a trans, queer, or a student of color seeking further support or community within the offices of the college, find BLISS in their office on the 2nd floor of CAB past the bookstore or reach out to BLISS via firstpeoples@evergreen.edu. Find student-hosted events and hang outs on their instagram @tesc_bliss, or by visiting the SEAL on the 3rd floor of CAB
Wednesday, October 14, the second floor of CAB held a modest crowd to celebrate the newly renamed BLISS office, or BIPOC LGBTQ+ Intersectional Support Services office. Formerly known as First People’s Multicultural Trans and Queer Support Services, the official renaming celebration came from a year-long search for a new identity that captured the goals of the office in supporting Evergreen’s traditionally marginalized students. While future installments of the Cooper Point Journal will better feature the history of the BLISS office, student organizing, and students of color at Evergreen, the CPJ wishes to congratulate the current hardworking pro and student staff of BLISS on the new directions and initiatives that they take on this year!
If you are a trans, queer, or a student of color seeking further support or community within the offices of the college, find BLISS in their office on the 2nd floor of CAB past the bookstore or reach out to BLISS via firstpeoples@evergreen.edu. Find student-hosted events and hang outs on their instagram @tesc_bliss, or by visiting the SEAL (open 10:30-6) on the 3rd floor of CAB, to the left of the Cooper Point Journal office.
