Collection is open for research.
Gift of The Immigrant Story, July 2020 (Lib. Acc. RL2020-018).
Lori Stegmann was born in South Korea in 1960. Shortly afterward, she was adopted by a couple in the United States through Holt International, an Oregon-based adoption agency founded by Harry and Bertha Holt. She spent her early life in Placerville, California. A few years later, her family relocated to Oregon, where they lived in Lincoln City and in Gresham. She attended Mount Hood Community College and earned a bachelor's degree in business from Portland State University in 1998. She worked as an insurance agent with Farmers Insurance. She served on the Gresham City Council for six years, including as the council's president in 2014. She was elected as a Multnomah County commissioner in 2016. A lifelong Republican, she changed her party affiliation to Democratic in 2018.
Oral history interview with Lori Stegmann, by Sankar Raman and Alia Burck, SR 12290, Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
This oral history interview with Lori Stegmann was conducted by Sankar Raman and Alia Burck on September 7, 2018. The interview was recorded for The Immigrant Story, an organization that documents and archives the stories of immigrants and refugees in the United States. In this interview, Stegmann discusses her adoption in 1960 from South Korea through Holt International. She describes her early life in Lincoln City and in Gresham, Oregon, including encountering racism at a young age, her family life, and her early education. She talks about attending high school reunions, her involvement with school stage productions, and her early role models. She also talks about the lack of Asian representation in Western media. She discusses the career path that led her to become a member of the Gresham City Council, including working as an insurance agent. She talks about her decision to change her party affiliation from Republican to Democratic in 2018 and the rise of overt racism in the Republican Party since the 2016 election. She talks about her daughter, her adoptive family, and her connection to the Asian and Pacific Islander communities in east Multnomah County. She also talks about a trip she took to South Korea in 2017. She closes the interview by discussing her experience being a person of color raised by a white family, and her interest in Korean culture.
Joint copyright for this interview is held by the Oregon Historical Society and The Immigrant Story. Use is allowed according to the following statement: In Copyright – Educational Use Permitted,
An article about Lori Stegmann, "An All-American Korean Gives Back" by Alia Burck, was based on this interview and published on The Immigrant Story website at