Family Stories of Jason Washington

  FAMILY STORIES OF JASON WASHINGTON (1973-2018) Collected in support of the Jason Washington memorialization project at Portland State University, 2024. To learn more, please see:   https://www.pdx.edu/president/jason-erik-washington-art-memorial Michelle Washington   I was 15 when I met Jason. He had moved from the Bay Area to Portland to be up here with his older brother because his mom had passed away. His dad and him moved here to be closer to his brother, who was attending PSU. The first time I saw him we were in the lunchroom. He was tall and had tall hair, because that was popular back then. I looked over and I saw him. I said: “Huh! Who is that?”  And my friends told me, “I think that's the new boy.”  And I thought: I'm gonna marry him. I was a sophomore in high school, and he was a junior. I found out later that he was asking around about me. Asking people: “Hey, do you know that girl?” So he asked me out a few times, but my parents were pretty strict, so I wasn't