Southeast Portland's Jade International Night Market turns 10 this Saturday, and the event that started as a modest gathering to help immigrant vendors sell food and goods has grown into a night-long celebration drawing more than 100 vendors, performers, and activity booths to the heart of the Jade District. The market runs from 4 to 10 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 29, at Portland Community College's Southeast Campus, 2305 S.E. 82nd Ave., in a district centered on 82nd Avenue and Division Street that's home to many lower-income and immigrant families.
This year's theme, “Jade in Motion: Charging Forward with Hope,” reflects both the market's roots and its evolution, according to The Oregonian/OregonLive. Alisa Kajikawa, APANO's community development director, said the market began as a community vision focused on familiarity and community, and that it now honors the past while showing continued forward movement and community power, per the outlet's report. The Jade International Night Market was launched in August 2014 by APANO and Prosper Portland, modeled on traditional Asian night markets to give low-income and immigrant entrepreneurs a direct platform to sell cultural food and goods, according to Prosper Portland.
APANO — an organization that organizes and advocates with Asian and Pacific Islander communities — organizes the market and has expanded its Jade Dollar program this year, a voucher system that lets shoppers buy retail or food items in $5 increments. Individuals who show proof of SNAP, OHP, or WIC benefits can receive $10 in food vouchers on-site, the OregonLive report notes. A scavenger hunt using nine locations around the market will teach visitors about the district's history, its businesses, and its housing, which Kajikawa said will help attendees understand the area.
A Former Highway Reshaped by Housing and Safety Work
The scavenger hunt's housing stops point to a fast-moving pipeline of affordable development along the corridor. Legin Commons, a $58.9 million, 124-unit development, officially opened in July on Portland Community College's Southeast Campus, built on the former site of Legin Restaurant, which served as a hub for Portland's Chinese American community, according to the City of Portland. The project includes 63 multi-bedroom units for families and 20 deeply affordable apartments reserved for households earning 30% or less of the area median income, and it was built to Passive House energy efficiency standards with rooftop solar funded through the Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund, according to Bora Architecture & Interiors.
Legin Commons joins Orchards of 82nd, a 48-unit affordable housing community completed in 2019 by ROSE Community Development and APANO that also houses APANO's permanent headquarters. That project was named to honor Japanese American families who farmed East Portland orchards before being forced into incarceration during World War II, per ROSE Community Development. The Jade and Legin Commons are described in the OregonLive piece as affordable housing projects along 82nd Avenue, part of the same corridor where the Portland Housing Bureau awarded $4.76 million in Metro Housing Bond and Multnomah County funds in August 2024 toward The Jade, a 40-unit family-focused apartment project co-developed by APANO and Gorman & Company between 82nd Avenue and Interstate 205 — a project Hoodline previously covered.
Why 82nd Avenue Needed the Overhaul
The stakes behind that housing and safety push are laid out starkly in city data. Portland Bureau of Transportation safety figures designate 82nd Avenue as a High Crash Corridor, part of a street network that makes up just 8% of Portland's total street mileage but accounts for 62% of traffic fatalities. That danger dates back to the road's decades as a state highway, with narrow sidewalks and widely spaced signals, before the Oregon Department of Transportation formally transferred ownership to the Portland Bureau of Transportation on June 1, 2022, backed by a $185 million funding package from federal, state, and city sources.
The 82nd Avenue corridor now includes transit improvements, pedestrian-safety projects, parks investments, and climate-resilience work, the OregonLive report notes, and 82nd Avenue is considered one of the region's worst urban heat islands. Cooling corridor work is underway on the avenue, part of a Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund initiative to install roughly 250 trees and 5,000 linear feet of shaded sidewalk, according to the City of Portland. TriMet's Line 72 bus route, which runs directly along 82nd Avenue through the Jade District, is the highest-ridership bus line in the entire Portland metro transit system, per BikePortland.
Getting There, and What Else to Expect
Because parking is limited in the area, visitors are encouraged to use public transit or bicycles to reach the market. The Jade District's designation traces back to 2012, when Prosper Portland named it one of seven Neighborhood Prosperity Initiative districts, providing targeted urban renewal funding and technical support to small businesses around Southeast 82nd Avenue and Division Street.
Hoodline has followed the corridor's transformation closely, including pedestrian safety milestones reported in December and a major repaving push that hit East Portland streets in May. This weekend's anniversary market, per OregonLive, has transformed Southeast 82nd Avenue into a cross-cultural gathering space over the past decade — one where the scavenger hunt, the vendors, and the vouchers all point back to the same goal APANO has pursued since 2014: keeping the Jade District's small businesses and immigrant families rooted in place even as the street around them changes.
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