In December I played a benefit set for the Interfaith Movement for Immigrant Justice Sanctuary Fund, part of a winter festival they organized at M&M Marketplace in Hillsboro. The event ran all afternoon and into the evening. Music, performances, raffle prizes, kids’ activities, and a table where people could sign up for direct community actions and learn ways to protect and care for each other.
If you’ve never been to M&M Marketplace, you should go. It’s a community anchor in Hillsboro since the Miranda family founded it in 2000 with twenty independent vendors. Today it has over eighty businesses under one roof. Food, clothing, jewelry, repairs, futsal, many stores selling huge speakers (a personal favorite!) – and it operates as a genuinely community-owned space, not a mall. They run events year-round: Día de los Muertos, Posadas Navideñas, Quinceañera Expo, Tamal Fest. It’s the kind of place that exists because people needed it to exist.
It’s also a place that takes the safety of its community seriously. Like any private property, M&M Marketplace has the right to control who enters and under what conditions. They exercise that right. ICE cannot walk in without permission. Sadly, the Nicaraguan food stall was closed due to the owner being scared to expose themselves to ICE.
Playing this event felt right. The soundsystem belongs in spaces like this – places and spaces built by and for immigrant communities, where the music is part of something larger than entertainment.
M&M Marketplace is at 346 SW Walnut St in Hillsboro. Open Friday through Sunday.