It was a late August day when T.J., 29, first met a Street Roots vendor in Pioneer Square, only a few months after he had left his job in health care. At that point, T.J. had been staying with the Portland Mission and hadn’t a dollar to spare for the paper.
After striking up a conversation with the vendor, T.J. asked him “how he did it,” referencing becoming a vendor for the paper. A few days later, he attended orientation and became a vendor.
“Orientation was two months ago,” T.J. said. “It was with (Carly Ng, vendor program manager). She (showed us) the video and gave me a cap and my first newspapers. We went over the do’s and don’ts of Street Roots.”
Being a distributor of the paper has been a humbling experience, according to T.J., seeing as he had been a former associate editor-in-chief of his high school news broadcast. He helped lead his peers in multiple radio broadcast competitions around the nation, covering a variety of current events.
“We’d do the script, and then we’d air it, and then people would judge it based on our locations and our school,” T.J. said.
T.J. left the Philippines with his family as missionaries and settled in Long Beach, California in 2016. By 2017, T.J. began working in health care as a lab technician.
T.J. eventually took contract jobs up the West Coast from his new home, all the way to Portland. In November 2022, he made the first trip up, working long hours at a clinic and making his way back home to Long Beach when he could.
In May and June of 2023, T.J. fell ill and had to leave Portland before returning in July. It was around that time when T.J. left the job, taking his first break in years from the health care industry. A month later, he began selling Street Roots as his main source of income.
The adjustment period didn’t take long, according to T.J., thanks to Street Root’s resources and his own determined attitude. Few things get to him when he’s out interacting with the public. T.J. thrives on the ability to meet people where they are and have meaningful conversations about the current political climate in Portland.
It doesn’t come without its obstacles. Aside from the rain that sends him running for cover a lot of the time, T.J. has also come to learn when to disengage with some people.
“I just walk away. I learned my lesson, I learned the hard way,” T.J. said. “If you know that the conversation will end up with something aggressive, it's like, okay, have a good day, just walk away.”
T.J. is normally around Pioneer Square when he sells Street Roots. You can support T.J. via @StreetRoots Venmo by entering his name and badge number (962) in the notes.
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