February 21, 2018

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

Seattle’s Nonprofit Asian Pacific Islander News Source Since 1974

February 21 – March 6, 2018 — 1

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2 — February 21 – March 6, 2018

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

Welcome to our winter arts and reading edition!

The International Examiner It’s mid-February, a time of year many of us Puget Sounders know as the final stretch of the dark time. Winter is mostly behind us, there are a few early bird crocuses and leaf buds appearing out of the ground and on trees, and for those of us who get out the door to head home by 5 PM, there is actually a little bit of

daylight left at the end of the work day.

Spring is just around the corner – but it’s not here yet. We still have a little more time to spend hunkered down under blankets at home with a stack of books, tucked away in movie theaters and doing our roaming indoors in artistic spaces like galleries and museums.

issue, from young adult books about what it was like to be a youth experiencing Japanese American incarceration during WWII, to fascinating nonfiction reads on the history of the Hawaiian steel guitar, to many, many children’s books that take on themes of social justice, diversity and the value of exposure to If you’re looking for a good read, we different cultures at a young age. have many suggestions for you in this

This issue is packed with book reviews, film reviews, interviews with musicians, authors, local artists and more – and we hope to provide you with good artistic insights and inspiration to get you through the final stretch of the dark time. Spring will be here soon; let’s just take a little more time to enjoy the longer, darker nights and colder days with good books, movies and art.

Letter to the Editor: Support the South Asian LGBT community in Seattle Dear Editor, I wanted to inform you and International Examiner readers about an upcoming event for an organization called Trikone Northwest.

The South Asian community is large. As India itself contains over one sixth of the world’s population, it’s probably not surprising that thousands and thousands of Indians are part of the LGBT community. With the criminalization of homosexuality in India, almost all stay in the shadows. There are many queer people who will never come out of the closet, and instead will enter unhappy marriages that will ultimately be unfair to

them and to their spouses. And this is just in India. Throughout South Asia, those who are LGBT must often hide.

We almost never talk about what it means to be LGBTQ+ within the South Asian community. In larger conversations about being queer or trans in the USA, the South Asian community, often seen as more affluent and educated, tends to be ignored. But we face challenges here, too. Those born here struggle with balancing family traditions with American culture. Most come out far later than other Americans, and many are disowned. Additionally, when gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender South Asians

move to the USA, they often feel free to be themselves and to explore what it means to be who they were born to be. But when they return home or when parents visit here, they often go into hiding again. Put simply, being South Asian and LGBT is extremely challenging, but we typically don’t talk about it.

This is not to say that families are acrossthe-board non-supportive of their queer or trans children. Still, having a community of their own can help LGBTQ+ South Asians feel more comfortable being themselves.

Trikone Northwest provides this community.

Congratulations to the winners!

Gloria Basilio Ticket # 6653

Grand Raffle Raffle winners can claim their prizes in our office at 7301 Beacon Ave S, Seattle, WA 98108. You can reach us by calling (206) 587-3735 This fundraising project is supported by FAACPA and other civic-oriented organizations and is duly licensed by the Washington State Gambling Commission. Images are for illustration purposes only.

IE STAFF

Established in 1974, the International Examiner is the only non-profit pan-Asian and Pacific Islander American media organization in the country. Named after the International District in Seattle, the “IE” strives to create awareness within and for our APA communities. 409 Maynard Ave. S. #203, Seattle, WA 98104. (206) 624-3925. iexaminer@iexaminer.org.

IE BOARD OF DIRECTORS Ron Chew, President Gary Iwamoto, Secretary Peggy Lynch, Treasurer Arlene Oki, At-Large Sokha Danh At-Large Nam Le, At-Large COMMUNITY RELATIONS MANAGER Lexi Potter lexi@iexaminer.org BUSINESS MANAGER Ellen Suzuki finance@iexaminer.org FELLOWSHIP STAFF Bif Brigman Mitsue Cook EDITOR IN CHIEF Jill Wasberg editor@iexaminer.org MANAGING EDITOR Chetanya Robinson chetanya@iexaminer.org

Since the 1990s, it has helped to build a supportive system for the Seattle-Tacoma area’s queer and trans South Asian community. It’s important that we bring together many different communities to help us share our stories, and to help us come further out of the shadows.

Sincerely, Trikone Northwest Trikone Northwest celebrates its 20-year anniversary on February 24, 7:00 p.m. at El Centro de la Raza in Seattle. More information and tickets can be found at goo.gl/ Hfg81e.

ARTS EDITOR Alan Chong Lau arts@iexaminer.org CONTRIBUTORS Frances Lee Clarissa Gines Ken Mochizuki Maisy Chan Vinh Do Lalaine Ignao Tim Gruver Pinky Gupta Tamiko Nimura Fei Wu Huang Vince Schleitwiler Doug Kim Yayoi L. Winfrey Nalini Iyer Cliff Cawthon Chris Juergens Jo Un Eom Wingate Packard

Norma Sanidad Ticket # 36912

Pacita Dumo Ticket # 45231

INTERNS Timothy Kenney Elizabeth Alvarado Yukino Kumada DISTRIBUTORS Joshua Kelso Makayla Dorn Maryross Olanday Antonia Dorn Kristen Navaluna Kat Punzalan Eli Savitt Stephany Hernandez Vincent Trey Raleigh Haavig FELLOWS Annie Kuo Bunthay Cheam John Phoenix Leapai Nick Turner

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INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

February 21 – March 6, 2018 — 3

Authenticity of social bonds, community and empowerment comes through in dystopian novel about trans women

By Frances Lee IE Contributor If your world is determined to take you and your kind down, would you fight back?

Kai Cheng Thom’s semi-autobiographical novel, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl’s Confabulous Memoir takes this question to breathtaking and fantastical lengths. This book is squarely situated in the experiences of survival for transgender women of color in North America. Splattered over the news in the past several years have been increasingly regular accounts of violence against trans women (most notably, murder). Trans women of color are the targets of such disproportionate harm because of their multiple marginalized identities in a society structured around sexism, racism and transphobia. Kai Cheng Thom is a Chinese Canadian trans woman whose writings spring from these lived experiences. But rather than rehashing the trans narrative about being born in the wrong body, she crafts a magical story that highlights the resilience and power of her community members in Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars.

This novel centers around a young transgender woman of Chinese descent who grows up isolated in an environmentally degraded town called Gloom with her doting younger sister and abusive parents. At the beginning of the story, she makes the hard decision to run away from home and seek a new life in a new city where she can be among trans femme community. In her new surroundings in the City of Smoke and Lights, she quickly finds herself in a group of trans women sex workers of all races, sizes and ages. Among outcasts of society, our protaganist is kindly taken in as a little sister by their group leader, Kimaya. Her world explodes open as she discovers this chosen family network of femme mythology, tragic personal narratives and extraordinary skills.

There is also incredible suffering and injustice experienced here. When yet another one of their community members is murdered by a john, the group springs into action and forms the Lipstick Lacerators. This gang trawls the city by night to fight back their male abusers and keep each other alive, eventually making a name for themselves.

Thom has turned these stories of abuse and violence in the trans community into

an action-packed, dystopian novel where trans women are superheroes and in control of their own lives. This parallel world is a far cry from the realities of many trans women of color, who are subject to daily harassment, unemployment, homelessness and policing just for occupying their social identities. This novel is uniquely empowering because it rejects the narrative spun in the mainstream news that trans women are only dead victims to be mourned. In an interview with Teen Vogue earlier this year, Thom says, her book shows readers that trans women are “alive, are full of potential, and are dangerous – and deliciously so“.

In the novel, trans women have at their disposal a wide range of creative tools and weapons to ensure their survival and joy.

Prominent in the book is the way that the fierce, fabulous femmes perform to make themselves more feminine and “fishy”, not due to mere vanity, but so that they might be able to more successfully navigate the outside world as women. Of course, this leads to tensions and jealously within the group. Many of them, including our protaganist, visit plastic surgeon Dr. Crocodile for hormone replacement therapy or surgi-

cal alteration in exchange for participating in an exploitative science experiment, because they do not have money to pay. In a more literal sense, femme glamour such as tall heels (“a femme’s heels are her armour”, says a local shopkeep), luscious locks of hair, painted nails, and fabulous dresses are sources of power and pride for the fierce, fabulous femmes. In the harrowing crux of the story, the famed ancestral First Goddess who is believed to watch over all of the femmes makes an appearance to forever alter the future of our protoganist.

Besides being a thoroughly entertaining read, Thom invites the reader to reconsider the negative portrayal of trans women as passive recipients of injustice in our society, and recognize their humanity and value as our community members, friends, sisters, lovers, and partners. What would it look like to heal from family trauma, state violence, and patriarchy? What would it look like to build a more loving and open world where trans women of color belong? Thom asks us to listen to her and her community members’ stories, support more trans of color writing and not forget their struggles.

Silong Chhun brings light to Cambodia’s dark history through creative design and education

By Clarissa Gines IE Contributor Awareness by design – this concept fuels Silong Chhun, the Tacoma-based man behind Red Scarf Revolution, a clothing brand and platform that uses creative design as a conduit for education. Started in 2013, he was inspired to create shirts for himself and friends who lacked items they could wear that was representative of their Cambodian culture.

Born at the tail end of the Khmer Rouge, he and his family immigrated to Tacoma’s Eastside, where he grew up seeing jackets that had “Brazil” or “USA” emblazoned on them. Initially, he just wanted a way to showcase his pride and love for Cambodia, but as the brand grew, it manifested into a larger platform where Chhun could raise awareness of Cambodia’s dark history of the Khmer Rouge and its regime.

This Communist period between 19751979 brought terrible atrocities and cultural annihilation to the Cambodian people.

During this four-year period, an estimated two million people were brutally murdered due to executions, starvation and disease in what is known as the “Killing Fields” – sites across Cambodia where mass graves lay of those who were thought to be connected to the former government, foreign government, professionals and scholars.

The regime especially targeted intellectuals, teachers and artists – basically cultural gatekeepers and bearers of knowl-

edge. This cultural genocide, at the hands of a radicalized Pol Pot, erased traditional Khmer culture, arts, religious practices, free markets and more. Soon after Pol Pot’s takeover, he declared it the beginning of “Year Zero”, where all culture and traditions would be completely erased, and a new revolution will arise.

Through Chhun’s shirt designs and art, active social media presence, and community work, he aims to educate others about these atrocities and re-contextualize its history to showcase the strength and resilience of their people.

One of his biggest goals for Red Scarf Revolution is to bridge Cambodian youth with their history, while providing a sense of self-worth and identity in order to move the culture forward.

As a Cambodian refugee himself who was not aware of Cambodia’s history until his teenage years, he feels that it is a part of his calling to pass down this history and to provide a space for Cambodian-American youth to discuss history with their elders.

He explains that, “the concept of awareness by design is to provoke conversation and open the door to dialogue about Cambodia and what Cambodians are all about.

The name itself is a representation of the red Kramas, a red scarf that is associated with the Khmer Rouge. The Kramas were a staple of the Cambodian culture before it was a symbol of the Khmer Rouge; we’re taking it back and giving it back to the people.”

By recontextualizing the krama, he brings forth a new history to associate with them – a history that he and other Cambodians can be proud of.

For Chhun, Red Scarf Revolution filled the need of discovering his self-identity, and became a vessel for him to exhibit his

Cambodian pride. He hopes that by showcasing his love for his homeland, others in the community will see it too.

Red Scarf Revolution can be found online at www.redscarfrevolution.com, and on Instagram @red_scarf_revolution.

4 — February 21 – March 6, 2018

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

Novels address the experience of Japanese American incarceration from adolescent perspective

By Ken Mochizuki IE Contributor

residents on the same floor. Even though the father saves enough money to buy a Denver home – with the luxury of its own and bathroom – Marie and Brian The Little Exile by Jeanette Arakawa kitchen successfully lobby their father to return to Jeanette S. Arakawa’s The Little Exile San Francisco – their only true home. proves the maxim, “It’s never too late.”

Arakawa explains in the initial “Note In this Young Adult novel, Arakawa to the Reader” that over 70 years after vividly provides two aspects of the the actual incidents, her “collection of “camp” story – the forced removal and recollections” is “devoid of much detail” incarceration of Americans of Japanese and that “the details I have provided to descent during World War II – which accompany the incidents are as I imagined rarely receive coverage in both fiction they might have been.” She continues that and nonfiction accounts: the experience she changed the names of actual people at the Arkansas “relocation camps” – in to not only protect their privacy, but Arakawa’s case, Rohwer War Relocation also “as well as their innocence in the Center, and the ordeal recollected from a event the details of my memory deviate preteen’s point of view. significantly from theirs.”

Her story as “Marie Mitsui” begins at Arakawa needn’t worry even if she has age 9 in hilly San Francisco. As everyone added a little color to her recollections. once that age can remember, the priority is The story is an evocative excursion into making and keeping friends. For her and a young person’s life being drastically older brother Brian, their friends are from inverted. a multicultural cast with class differences.

The Little Exile is quite an Marie is reluctant to bring her well-heeled accomplishment for Jeanette S. Arakawa. white friends over to her family’s home – Her “collection of recollections” deserves in back of the dry-cleaning shop her Issei a spot on the shelf along with other classic parents operate. camp memoirs like Monica Sone’s Nisei Also at that age is the trauma of losing Daughter and Yoshiko Uchida’s Desert friends and being constantly relocated. Exile.

For Marie’s family, they are issued the infamous family number tags, attached to Paper Wishes by Lois Sepahban their clothing and luggage “like price tags Authors often discuss if they can write we had forgotten to remove.” Her prized about ethnic groups which are not their possession is the “princess coat” suited own.

The usual answer is along the lines for winter, but since she has no choice but to wear her luggage, she endures the of, “You have to know what you’re doing.” sweltering heat of the Stockton Assembly In Kentucky author Lois Sepahban’s Center. novel, Paper Wishes (Margaret Ferguson Then her family and hundreds of other Books, Farrar Straus Giroux, 2016), it’s Japanese Americans are packed off to true that some details do stick out like the Rohwer War Relocation Center in neon signs for those versed in Japanese – southeastern Arkansas. Unlike most and Japanese American – history, culture, other camp locations located on “a beach and the camp experience.

without the ocean,” as Arakawa creatively For instance, the 10-year-old protagonist describes the desert, the Rohwer camp sits is named “Manami” – a last name, but in a forested marshland filled with snakes in this instance, her first name. Her and chiggers. beloved dog is “Yujiin.” Her best friend is With thousands packed into a tight “Kimmi” – usually not spelled with two space, inevitable tension and gossip of the letter “m.” Another Japanese family wears on Marie’s parents and the camp has the surname of “Soto”. And Issei community. Marie’s grandmother frets parents holding hands? Not impossible, that camp life is depriving Marie of but not likely. training “to be a good homemaker.”

Another lesser known aspect of the camp experience is that, when the dubious “loyalty questionnaire” is issued, some Nisei youngsters attempt an escape from the camp – so adamant are they against going to Japan with Issei parents who are left no choice but to repatriate.

However, Sepahban has written an emotionally-wrenching story about the protagonist’s separation from her beloved family dog which prolific Los Angeles young reader and mystery novelist Naomi Hirahara described in The New York Times review of Paper Wishes as “a perhaps too familiar emotional story line Transient friendships are always the in literature about the camps.” bane of Marie’s preadolescent life. And, Told in first-person narrative with while leaving camp and returning home quick-reading, sparse sentences, Manami is the denouement of most camp memoirs, Tanaka and her farming family are Marie’s life struggles continue in earnest forced from Bainbridge Island and sent as her family relocates to Denver. Her by train to the Manzanar War Relocation father assumes another job as a dry- Center in east-central California. Before cleaning presser, her mother as a silk boarding the train, at the last second, finisher. Arakawa even edges into a bit Manami is caught trying to conceal and of surrealism when a friendless Marie smuggle Yujiin on board. During her time and her family live in a bleak apartment, at Manzanar, an emotionally traumatized sharing a bathroom and kitchen with other Manami becomes mute, possibly as a

protest against her situation. Her means of communication and emotional outlet is drawing, and she uses her illustrations to reconnect with Yujiin by throwing the papers into the incessant desert wind, hoping one will reach Yujiin and bring him to her.

Manami’s pain is palpable, especially for those who ever loved a dog. Sepahban’s repetitive sentence and word-play vehicle is sometimes effective (“I am not hungry anymore, but it is easier to eat my food than to listen to Mother tell me why I must eat my food.”); and sometimes headscratching (“She walks around the room, touching each student’s shoulder. It is not flitting, but it is not sitting either.”).

In her “Author’s Note” at the end, Sepahban writes that the Manzanar camp December 1942 riot was the result of tensions between the rural Bainbridge Island Japanese Americans and the city dwellers from Los Angeles. There were “tensions” between the disparate groups, as Sepahban notes, but the real reason was initially a clash between pro- and anticamp administration factions. This gave way to a riot and resulted in the deaths of two Japanese inmates.

She also writes of the 1988 redress bill: “The apology applied both to survivors and to their family members.” Only the survivors who were still alive at the time of the bill’s signing received an official letter of apology from President Bush.

Like Arakawa’s The Little Exile, Paper Wishes captures a young girl’s worst fears during that life-scarring trial – the loss of love and companionship, whether it be human or animal.

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

February 21 – March 6, 2018 — 5

Nathan Chan’s musical presence reaches from the Seattle Symphony stage to 6.8 million YouTube viewers

By Maisy Chan IE Contributor Nathan Chan is the third chair cellist at the Seattle Symphony. He is the youngest musician in the symphony and is praised with a list of musical performances from age three. Starting with Mozart and Beethoven at a toddler’s age, Chan went on to perform all through his formative years playing with the San Francisco Symphony, the Royal Philharmonic, Albany Symphony, Reno Philharmonic and the Hong Kong Chamber Orchestra.

Chan has a strong enthusiasm to make classical music a ‘must’ for anyone with the yen for the musical experience. “My fascination with the intersection between liberal arts and technology has led me to combine classical music with technology and social media…. It’s my life’s passion to make classical music exciting to our generation!” He tells interviewer, Maisy Chan. Nathan Chan recently graduated from Columbia University and the Julliard School. This interview has been edited for length. Read the entire interview online at www.iexaminer.org.

Maisy Chan: What were “beginnings” of your music?

the

Nathan Chan: My “beginnings” in music started quite humbly, but crucially set the tone and momentum for my musical journey. As a toddler, I used to watch LaserDisc videos of famous conductors such as Herbert von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa. The deep connection between the physical gestures I saw on screen and the music I heard became evident as I conducted with a chopstick alongside the music I saw on screen – I even splashed water on my face to simulate the sweat I saw on the conductor’s faces!

incredibly versatile and creative medium for expressing myself. They say the range of the cello is most like the human voice, from soprano to bass. I can very much step forward or step back in both supportive and leadership roles. One of the things I love about being third chair cello with the Seattle Symphony is that this group of cellists are risk-lovers and would rather communicate to our audience than play it safe. This translates to an electric and exciting cello sound that is unique to the Seattle Symphony.

MC: Is there an upcoming concert, recital or a recording that you like to talk about specifically? How do you prepare for a specific performance, which is unfolding in the next several months?

NC: I feel so grateful to not only be able to perform at a high level with the Seattle Symphony, but am also able to explore and engage with my creative passion projects outside of the hall. I love finding ways to express myself through music and technology, and am especially intrigued at the way the internet has magnified one’s possible reach outside the concert hall. I recently released my first music video featuring the city of Seattle on my YouTube channel. With the Seattle Symphony, I am so excited to be traveling on tour to California in April performing the music of John Luther Adams that we are so well-known for.

In addition, I am very excited to be performing the Schumann Cello Concerto with the Cascade Symphony in late 2018, as well as Tchaikovsky’s Andante Cantabile.

Being very prepared with a sense of clarity and precision makes me feel the calmest leading up to a performance, but

then in the moment, I love to embrace a more spontaneous type of improvisatory playing. This allows me to be the most free while making sure I’m still sounding good.

of performances because there are no preconceived notions. You must be able to communicate, connect and reach deep within to the most organic type of music MC: Who had been your most making possible. influential music teacher? Why is that?

MC: Where do you see yourself in five years?

In terms of your music creativity, NC: All my teachers have played critical roles in my development. I am your musical output and also how music so appreciative of my first teacher, Irene ‘molds’ you as a person?

Sharp, for surrounding me with the fundamental building blocks of cello playing, especially in grasping the major milestones of the repertoire. My second teacher, Sieun Lin, so expertly helped me navigate the nuanced strategies of focusing on one’s musical strengths and maximizing their potential. My teacher in college, Richard Aaron, really gave me the tools to be a strategic problem solver and detective in the practice room and on the stage. And my experience with Gautier Capuçon in the Classe d’Excellence du Violoncelle in Paris, France, taught me to embody “bigness” in sound, presence, intellect and how to think like a master of the cello.

MC: Do you improvise even in classical music? What is the most adlib performance you have had in your young career? What does improvisation mean to a classical musician?

NC: As a musician, I think we should always be improvising when we play, especially in how we react to our audience.

I constantly feed off an audience’s energy whenever I perform and eagerly find a space of empathetic communication with one another. I’ve always especially enjoyed unexpected types of audiences, like busking. Busking on the streets can be one of the most demanding types

Once when I was two, I attended a concert in which I began conducting in my seat, and as luck would have it, the assistant conductor of the San Francisco Opera (Sara Jobin) was sitting a couple rows behind me. She was astounded by what she saw and ended up introducing herself to my parents, later becoming my first musical mentor. She ultimately trained me for my conducting debut a year later of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony with the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra at the age of three. This confluence between visual media, technology and music resonates with up until this day, as I’ve always been fascinated between the intersection of liberal arts and technology.

MC: Does where musicians are trained such as the various musical observatories and schools of music help to springboard a musician on a successful path?

NC: I think the best musicians can take their identity and origin of study and turn those unique characteristics into their own. I’ve always admired European music making, but love the modernity and practicality of other cultures music making. I always learn something by studying and listening to others; where a person comes from not concern me too much.

MC: Is music competitive? Do you have to enter musical contests to get your name out there? Or, just to land an agent and a contract?

NC: I am a big believer that music is all about communication, not competition.

Once you begin to think about music competitively, you lose the essence of its meaning and twist it into something obtuse. Music has become too competitive; supporting each other as colleagues is the most important thing we as musicians can do. We are all in this together and when you help each other, the entire musical world is improved.

MC: Why the cello? As a cellist, do you feel that the cello’s sound with different symphony orchestras of the same musical work sound different, because it is a different symphony orchestra?

NC: I was actually initially drawn to the double bass because I loved the low sounds of the orchestra. But I was (and still am) a pretty small person, so my parents were wise enough to take it down a notch in size, and we settled on the cello. I’ve learned over the years that the cello is an

NC: I am a very project-oriented person.

This gives me short-term goals and longterm moments to reflect upon what went well and what didn’t, and adjust. To me, being a creative person means always having the itch to share things with others.

Ever since graduating from Columbia University and The Juilliard School last year, my collaborations with orchestras, students and artists around the world (and now as third chair cello of the Seattle Symphony) have consistently challenged me into thinking how my classical world fits into our modern, fast-paced society. My fascination with the intersection between liberal arts and technology have led me to combine classical music with technology and social media, resulting in a YouTube channel with over 6.8 million views and an Instagram account with 14.7k followers!

It’s my life’s passion to make classical music exciting to our generation!

MC: Finally, do you bond with a piece of music? What music would you use as an example?

Photo courtesy of the Seattle Symphony

NC: What I love about playing a piece many times is that knowledge is transferred back and forth between yourself and the music. As you inject your own sense of creativity into a piece, you find it reacts and teaches you something too. This is the bond that we as musicians feel! I’ve learnt to be quite humbled and be in awe of it.

6 — February 21 – March 6, 2018

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

“Bad Genius” elevates international attention to Thai filmmaking

By Annie Kuo IE Fellow Thanks to the enthusiastic suggestion of three officers from the UW Thai Student Association, I attended a screening of Bad Genius on campus and learned why the movie is the most internationally successful Thai film in history.

Released in May, 2017, the film ranked number one at the Thai box office for two weeks and broke Thai film earning records in Cambodia, Taiwan, Malaysia, Hong Kong and the Philippines, as well as China where it earned over $30 million. It also played in Australia to wide acclaim and has an audience rating of 92 percent on RottenTomatoes.com.

Bad Genius catapulted Thai filmmaking to the industry’s consciousness that there is serious talent in the Kingdom of Thailand.

Screened at multiple international film festivals, including the Fantasia International Film Festival where it won Best Director and the New York Asian Film Festival where it won Best Feature, the film has been described by critics as “as entertaining as Ocean’s Eleven” and “a work of craft that will help raise Thai cinema to another level of diversity.”

Structured like a heist film and inspired by the real-life story of students cheating on the SAT, Bad Genius is about a quartet of students who devise and execute an international exam-cheating scheme.

Lynn (played brilliantly by Thai model Chutimon Chuengcharoensukying in her movie acting debut) is a lower middle-class

student at the top of her class attending a private school in Bangkok. Though she is at the elite school on full scholarship, her single father struggles to pay the extra fees it costs to attend, so she begins to turn a profit by helping her classmates cheat, which starts with her only friend Grace, the president of the drama club who needs to maintain a certain GPA to perform in the school play.

The setup accelerates to mindblowingly lucrative proportions as Lynn is encouraged by Grace’s boyfriend to rake in large fees from the rich students for the real-time answers to an international college admissions exam. To execute their plan, the quartet manipulates another lower middle-class genius, Bank (played by Chanon “Non” Santinatornku), to join Lynn on a trip to Sydney, Australia where the two will sit for the fabled STIC test on the same day as their paying customers in Bangkok, commit answers to memory, and send them back during exam breaks in toilet stalls where they have concealed cell phones.

There is one nail-biting chase scene in the heist thriller, where Lynn attempts to complete her mission while being pursued by a test monitor in an underground subway station.

The popularity of Bad Genius in Asia and Australia is a credit to the engaging storytelling – an exciting and tense 130 minutes. The film boasts a strong cast and groundbreaking direction around a simple script.

Bad Genius is a fascinating commentary on the corruption of school institutions,

Bad Genius can be viewed on iTunes.

class inequalities, and teenage social issues. I suspect it also resonates with Asians who identify with the familial and societal pressure to excel academically, at whatever cost. Social currency – acceptance by peers, especially the cool kids – has influence even if money is not involved in a cheating exchange.

At my international high school in Thailand, I witnessed firsthand that average, arguably lazy, but wealthy students could easily gain their way to success with money and connections. My ex-boyfriend, our class valedictorian, confessed to me that he wrote the admission essays for his best friend to transfer into one of the

most elite private schools in the U.S. Even when cheating occurred right under their eyeballs, teachers cast a blind eye, ignored the obvious or looked away. Their failure to acknowledge and discipline the rampant cheating may have signaled their complicit attitude with the systemic corruption. The rich kids in Bad Genius – and at my school – spent more time figuring out how to cheat than actually studying.

Intriguingly, the film was not censored by the Thai government – perhaps a sound decision, since Bad Genius has brought worldwide acclaim to these issues and to the upward trajectory of Thai filmmaking.

100 essays on the fortunes and reversals of fortunes that make Việt Nam the country it is today

By Vinh Do IE Contributor I write this on the eve of a long-anticipated trip to Việt Nam. By a stroke of luck, a friend gave me Hữu Ngọc’s book, Viet Nam Tradition and Change, weeks earlier and since then the book has been an aid in my re-immersion into Vietnamese culture. Việt Nam is a culture of my birth and a culture that I want to keep at the forefront of my identity even if I have spent my adult years in the U.S. on the other side of the ocean from Viet Nam. When I land in Nội Bài International Airport tomorrow in Hà Nội I want to recall this culture. The author himself is from Hà Nội and was a director of a foreign language publishing house, a past editor of a scholarly quarterly called Vietnamese Studies, and a prolific author. He will be approaching 100 years of age and speaks and publishes in at least three languages: Vietnamese, English and French.

If you can imagine a teacher who is a great mind and a kindly soul, this is the image that comes to mind when you read Mr. Hữu’s approximately 100 essays on Vietnamese culture and identity. He writes with an eloquence, easiness, authority and compassion-

ate eye towards all his subjects. He talks about the fortunes and reversals of fortunes that made Việt Nam the country it is today.

Mr. Hữu instructs us that Việt Nam is spelled in two separate words and reminds us that the language is monosyllabic. Meaning is formed by making compounding words.

Thus, Việt denotes the people of the country and Nam denotes south. So the country’s name means the People of the South.

Mr. Hữu says of Việt culture: “The Vietnamese people have preserved the substratum of their own Southeast Asian culture while enriching it with foreign contributions, mainly Chinese (Vietnamese Middle Ages) and French (modern times), that Vietnamese have grafted into their own culture.”

Mr. Hữu adds: the country came into its own in August 1945 when Hồ Chí Minh organized an uprising in northern Vietnam and announced its aspirations for internationalizing and integrating itself into the world and declaring itself independent of colonial rule.

This turn towards its own authority continued into the late 1986 in an effort called Đổi Mới (or renewal) aimed at “an adoption of a market economy…. and an open-door

policy…with all countries irrespective of ideology” Mr. Hữu speaks of two dynamic forces within the psyche of the Việt: the role of Confucianism and Buddhism. From the former, a legacy of a 1,000 years of Chinese rule, the Việt have derived their sense of filial piety or loyalty and this is played out in relationships between king and subjects and husbands and wives. The downside is an over-adherence to this philosophy can be inhibiting to the liberation of women.

Buddhism, on the other hand, is an active religion, practiced daily by many in the country.

What is worth noticing is that it has the forms and flavors of Chinese Buddhism and not Indian Buddhism.

The author makes a point again that like other influences, once the Việt are introduced to an influence, they take that influence and add their own rendition to it.

For example, Buddhism can live side by side with ancestor worship.

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

Stephanie Han, author of Swimming in Hong Kong, discusses social justice and polyculturalism

by Lalaine Ignao IE Contributor Stephanie Han, a Korean American author and professor, found inspiration for her writing from moving around frequently throughout her whole life. Her book of short stories, Swimming in Hong Kong, came about from her experiences living in Hong Kong, in the high rises.

Lalaine Ignao: What is your background in writing?

Stephanie Han: I always liked to read.

This is how you become a writer. Also, moving a lot, I felt isolated. I told my mom, “I don’t have any friends,” and she would tell me to just read a book and find friends in there. Being a reader, I entered worlds, found solace, refuge and imagination, especially living in places like Iowa where I was a different kid. The only thing that I could do that was not monitored or stopped was read. I could read whatever I wanted. Nothing was censored. That’s how I came to enter different worlds and spaces. I think because I was never really instructed to speak and read, there was a great freedom in my writing. I didn’t feel like I was practicing.

LI: What inspired you to write the books?

SH: Writing short stories. That‘s how it came about. I have lived overseas, and I was an outsider to those places. Because we moved a lot, I was an outsider to a lot of American life. As an Asian American, you always live that mainstream American narrative. You are viewed as an other. I was writing short stories, and I see now that it reflected a lot of this idea of movement, different people and places I was encountering.

Most of the book was done by 20052006, but took years to publish because now we are better at accepting the characters in the book as normal and part of mainstream life. At the time when I finished the book, people thought it was unusual to have an African American woman be friends with an old Chinese man in a swimming pool. But now today we accept it because of globalization. If you are the type of person who is interacting and are in different locations, you know this is how people function. They reach out over their racial gender and national boundaries. But for a lot of

mainstream people, they cannot conceive this until now. I think that is why it took so long to publish.

LI: What do you hope readers will take away from your short story collection?

SH: I think that they can take away the idea that different people are experiencing and living in polycultural fashion, and that it’s possible. We can reach out across these lines, and it does not mean it is always successful, but this is a global society. In order for us as nation and planet to survive we have to think about the way we interact with the rest of the globe. We cannot be separatist about this effort, we must work together.

We must also recognize that everybody brings a different part of the puzzle.

All I’m hoping is that people enjoy the stories and hope they take the idea that we all have our moments of humanity and we developed moments of intolerance, tolerance, but we are all in this game together.

Most stories are about women, and I feel that it is very important for women’s voices to be heard, to be recognized. Women remain underrepresented in terms of main protagonist, in terms of authorship, in terms of all positions in leadership and power. It is time for women to step forward and it is time for our stories to be heard and not be shamed. Our stories are universal.

LI: After Swimming in Hong Kong, what are you hoping for next? Are you hoping to write another book next?

SH: I have a couple of projects. One is a book of poetry that is done, called Passing in the Middle Kingdom which is about living in small Chinese village outside of Hong Kong and touching upon family, marriage and motherhood. I also wrote a critical theory book on the aesthetic ways of Asian American literature. It is called the Art of Asian America, and I recast the term Asian American.

My big project that I have a deadline on is I’m co-writing a book with a friend of mine that is on boarding school. Specifically boarding school from a bit of a different take -- it’s a comic novel. Me and my friend both went to boarding school. I hope that the book can come out in a year. The central idea important to me is and for people to recognize is polyculturalism. The biggest problem we are all facing together is envi-

Author Stephanie Han

ronmental devastation, and we must face it. It will require us to go past our national boundaries.

LI: What is the key to our nation functioning as a Polycultural society?

SH: Part of it is the recognition of our diverse experiences, past and present; the teaching of these historical events, and also the idea of empathy. We have to be able to empathize with people’s different position, and we want to be united in the idea of moving society together. Because we are a young nation, we are still figuring this out. This is a time where we are taking one step back for sure, but we’re gathering forces and we will move forward.

We have to seize control of the people who are in control. We need to be prepared and educated and be willing to empathize and reach out. It’s about writing the narrative of who we are as a nation. Take the narrative away, and away from those who control this narrative to help them see that this is not the only narrative.

LI: How can people practice social justice in regards to those struggling to deal with our current situation as a country?

SH: You need to be aware and educate yourself of the issues, knowing the facts and being empathetic. You need to try to figure out how to reach out and educate, and to some degree, conserve strength also. You need to think of constructive approaches of how you will move and have empowered stance. Exchange and learn from everybody. You can’t do everything, but mobilize in what you can do. A lot of this is also participation. You must vote!

This is one tool that we all have and can employ. It is the most significant action.

LI: Finally, what kind of advice do you give people who aspire to become a writer or author?

SH: I say read. A lot of people want to be writers but don’t like to read. You cannot be a writer if you don’t like to read. If you really want to be a writer and write stories, you need to read. Read widely and read things that are difficult to read, classic texts, plays, poems, novels, just read.

Read from different types of writers, you can’t read from one type of writing.

February 21 – March 6, 2018 — 7

Executive Director

Headquartered in Seattle’s Chinatown/International District, Chinese Information and Service Center (CISC) is a 45-year-old non-proÞt agency providing full range of human services to immigrant communities. CISC is seeking an Executive Director to lead the agency to a new level of success. This is an exceptional opportunity for a visionary leader with a passion for serving the community.

Responsibilities: Developing and implementing long range strategic plans and initiatives, developing strategic relationships, leadership and management of the agency.

BachelorÕs degree or equivalent and 5+ years of executive level management experience. Knowledge and experience in fundraising, securing grants, managing a $6 million budget. A demonstrated success functioning in the Asian cultural environment, human services background with multi-ethnic communities, and bilingual preferred.

Send cover letter and resume by March 30, 2018 to: CISC Executive Director Search, 611 S. Lane St., Seattle, WA 98104 or email to Kevin Chan at kevinc@ciscseattle.org.

For more information about CISC, please see our website at www.cisc-seattle.org

8 — February 21 – March 6, 2018

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

A home away from home for Pacific Islander students at the Burke Museum

By Chetanya Robinson IE Managing Editor When she’s in the back rooms of the Burke Museum, Randizia Crisostomo enjoys spending time with artifacts from the Pacific Islands. On storage shelves out of public view sit woven bark cloth from Tonga and Samoa, jagged wooden “love sticks” for traditional courtship from Truk Lagoon, a navigation map of the Marshall Islands made of sticks and shells arranged in geometric patterns. Lately, her interest has been captured by outrigger canoes and sling stones from her home island of Guam. But holding any artifact from the Pacific Islands, thinking about its purpose and what materials it’s crafted from, is meaningful for Crisostomo, a graduate student at the University of Washington Bothell who also works as the Burke’s community outreach coordinator for Oceania and Asia.

to Salem, Oregon to meet with the Marshallese community there and mentor high schoolers. Or they’ll invite Pacific Islander community members, elders and family members to visit campus and share their experiences.

“What’s most rewarding is seeing how they take ownership of their education when it’s connected to who they are as people, because it becomes very personal for them,” says Barker. “They want to continue to work with their communities in the future...There’s always that desire to give back.”

In a storage area of the Burke Museum, Randizia Crisostomo, the museum’s community outreach coordinator

“They’re more than just objects to me, for Oceania and Asia and a graduate student at the University of Washington Bothell, holds an itabori, a story or like pieces that are sitting here at the board from the Island of Palau/Belau. • Photo by Chetanya Robinson museum,” Crisostomo says. “They’re ancestors, they’re voices of the commu- spokesperson: “The objects are really the academic world, to generate knowlnity, and they’re also stories that can be meant to be brought back to the commu- edge that can help their communities, and shared with everyone around you. It kind nity in as many ways as possible.” to get mentorship in academia and future of brings to life why I’m here.”

It’s Crisostomo’s job to meet with lo- grad school, according to Barker.

When she says “here,” Crisostomo cal Pacific Islander and Asian community Barker created Research Family soon means her dream job, reaching out to the members to hear their stories, and open after she joined the Burke Museum as cultural communities represented in the the museum to them however they need. half-time curator of the Oceanic and Burke’s collections to consult with them It might mean, for example, facilitating Asian collections. about how they want to engage with the a ceremony with indigenous Tao people Barker’s Ph.D focused on the devastatmuseum’s collection. But she also means from Taiwan with one of their sacred caing effects of nuclear weapons testing on “here” as a member of Research Family, noes stored at the Burke. “It’s more than people living in the Marshall Islands. Bean informal group of Pacific Islander stu- just a job for me,” Crisostomo says. “I feel fore academia, she spent 15 years working dents at the UW who have been meeting like it’s my way of giving back.” as Senior Advisor to the Ambassador of at the museum for the past four years to Crisostomo’s next dream career is to the Marshall Islands to the United States. research their cultures and work on projects that lead them out of campus to serve become a professor. One of her inspira- Now, she splits her time between teachtions is Holly Barker, a UW anthropol- ing Anthropology at UW and curator at local Pacific Islander communities. ogy professor who started the Research the Burke.

Crisostomo was hired as the Burke Family group in 2013, which Crisostomo Over the years Barker has invited stuMuseum prepares to transport its entire joined that same year when she was a dents with backgrounds from Samoa, collection to a new building in 2019. As sophomore.

Tokelau, Fiji, Guam, Northern Mariana well as more galleries, the new Burke will Research Family is, among other things, Islands, Palau, Hawai’i, Yap, and the Marmake its objects even more accessible to a place for Pacific Islander students to conshall Islands to join Research Family. “We the living communities they come from, according to Andrea Godinez, Burke nect their cultures and communities with call it family because we operate as a family,” Barker says. “Being part of a community, a family, a network...it’s a source of strength for them.”

A Canoe House Post from the Solomon Islands on the bottom floor of the Burke Museum. The statue is a shark goddess. Suliana Aho and Latulitea Aho, two Research Family alums, provided essential Solomonese cultural knowledge about the object for the Burke’s Ethnology team. • Photo by Chetanya Robinson

In November, Research Family member Tita Alefaio stood by a display in the lobby of the Burke along with her classmates from Barker’s course on Micronesia, Nakea Ridders and Tulili TuiteleleapagaHoward. They were explaining to anyone who would listen about how Spongebob is connected to the largest nuclear weapons the U.S. military ever conducted, a bomb it detonated on the Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands that was 1,000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The secret nuclear test, called Castle Bravo, was just the peak of U.S. nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1962, but it had devastating consequences for Marshallese people, including many who live in Washington state. This month, the state Senate passed legislation that would help citizens of Palau, The Marshall Islands, and Micronesia -- many of whom were affected by nuclear testing but who don’t qualify for Medicaid here -- pay for healthcare premiums.

Downstairs in the Pacific Islander exhibit at the Burke, taking a break from showing museum patrons their project, Alefaio, a medical anthropology and global health major with family from Samoa and Tokelau, pointed to a wooden statue that two alumni of Research Family helped research for the exhibit. It’s a Canoe House Post from the Solomon Islands representing a shark goddess, and students Suliana Aho and Latulitea Aho provided essential knowledge about Solomonese culture about the object for the Burke’s Ethnology team. “It’s pretty awesome - I’m hoping I can do something like Every week, the students in Research this,” Alefaio said.

Family meet on the bottom floor of the For Alefaio, who grew up in a family Burke. They’ll talk about Pacific Islander issues, like the disproportionate rates of “assimilated to the American culture,” incarceration, health disparities, educa- the most rewarding thing about being part tion access, the negative effects of mili- of Research Family is connecting with tarism and tourism in their islands, or her cultural heritage. “There’s this battle climate change. Even if they’re from far- between identity and education,” Alefaio flung islands, says Crisostomo, the stu- said. “Sometimes those two just don’t go dents learn from each other. “A lot of us with each other.” She once struggled with do suffer from the same disparity or the the thought that exploring her identity just same type of oppression, but in a signifi- wasn’t as important as getting her educacant way to where we can each talk about tion. But Research Family helped her with “realizing that who I am does matter and it from our own standpoint,” she says. it can tie into my education, and I can do The students also work on their own something with it when I graduate.” research projects, usually ones that take Alefaio appeared in a video Research them off campus into local Pacific IsFamily students made responding to the lander communities; in the past they’ve gone to to Auburn for a day to work with Disney film Moana. The video explains the mayor’s office on health disparities, or that the animated film draws on Polynesian mythology and culture, but “told

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

February 21 – March 6, 2018 — 9

from a Western perspective.” So Research Family members found objects in the Burke to show the real versions of Polynesian culture, to educate people and share the message that Polynesian culture is thriving. The students explain concepts like the art of navigation in Polynesia, outrigger canoes, shark-tooth weapons, a Samoan ceremonial headdress.

Filipina) president of the student body, the Associated Students of the UW (ASUW), during 2016 and 2017 academic year, after serving as director of the Pacific Island Student Commission in her junior year.

Meñez was born in the Philippines and grew up in the U.S. territory of Guam from the age of four. The first time she came to the U.S. mainland was when she Alefaio is in the video showing a real flew to Seattle for college. version of a headdress like the one the anIt was a hard adjustment. Most of her imated character Moana wears. “My mom classmates hadn’t heard of her home issaw the video that we made and she start- land. She joined Research Family during ed crying,” Alefaio said. “She was like, her senior year, coinciding with a high‘Oh my gosh, you’re actually interested in pressure, tumultuous term as president of your culture, you’re learning.’” the UW student body that, as she recountBeing in Research Family has inspired ed in an article for Psychology Today tiAlefaio to ask her grandmother and par- tled “No, I’m Not ‘Good,’” put a strain on her mental health. ents for their stories.

“This is a really big university and we’re not given much space that’s dedicated to just us,” Alefaio said.

Pacific Islanders are the smallest ethnic minority among students at the UW. In winter 2018, there were 410 Pacific Islander students out of 44,611 in the student body.

“That can be really isolating and daunting knowing that there numerically aren’t that many people who look like you on campus, and not that many people understand the struggles of being so far away from home,” says Daniele Meñez, a Research Family alumna who served as the UW’s first ever Pacific Islander (and first

Members of Research Family meeting at the Burke Museum in January. Left to right: Natalie Bruecher (Kanaka ʻōiwi), Casierra Cruz (Chamorro), Deidre Weakley (Chamorro), Zoya Hartman (Chuukese /

“Research Family definitely helped me Pohnpeian), Jerusa Salas (Chamorro), Raelene Camacho, (Chamorro / Palauan) and Alina Aliaga (Samoan). feel more at home at UW,” says Meñez. It • Photo by Chetanya Robinson was a “refreshing” environment, “a really crucial space... to come together as a family of Pacific Islanders who are all very lese students being needlessly put in ESL pal from prison who wrote to say he was classes, and how to help Pacific Islanders inspired by Research Family and the work passionate about our community.” struggling in high school. Members brain- it’s doing.

In mid-January, Barker and six students stormed a possible future summer camp For Crisostomo and others, somemet in the back of the Burke on a grey, at the museum for young Pacific Islander times separated from their families by drizzly afternoon for the second meeting students to see objects from their cultures. thousands of miles, Research Family is of 2018. The meeting started with checkResearch Family member Natalie a home away from home. Now a mentor ins about how people are doing, moved on to discussing future projects and plan- Bruecher shared updates about her project to other students in Research Family, it’s ning for a Micronesia Night, and how the working with men incarcerated at Staf- rewarding for her whenever more Pacific group might be able to help a struggling ford Creek Correctional Center who are Islander students show interest in joining Pacific Islander student new to campus. organizing a Pacific Islander studies cur- and representing themselves in the uniThere was a conversation about Marshal- riculum. Brucher read a letter from a pen- versity. “I’m just happy whenever I see a new face,” she says.

South Seattle, CID legislators talk gun control, taxes, and transportation

By Tim Gruver IE Contributor On February 17, state Sen. Rebecca Saldaña (D-37), state Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos (D-37), and state Rep. Eric Pettigrew (D-37) met with constituents from the 37th Legislative District at Seattle’s Ethiopian Community Center. The 37th District encompasses the Chinatown International District, Little Saigon, the Central District, Beacon Hill, Rainier Valley, Columbia City and Renton.

About fifty people attended the meeting and prompted discussion about issues ranging from gun control to the creation of a state income tax.

Transportation In January, the state House passed a bill to reduce state car tab taxes after voters agreed in 2016 to raise it in order to help fund Sound Transit’s light-rail and bus expansion.

Framed as a way to balance inflated car tab calculations, House Bill 2201 will cost Sound Transit $780 million in direct revenue and up to $2.3 billion in added debt service from increased borrowing.

The bill, according to Sen. Saldaña, could minimize the financial burden of car tab taxes for low-income drivers.

“For some folks, particularly if you just invested in a new car so that it does have better mileage, they’re seeing a large increase in their car tabs...and that’s a real burden for lowincome folks,” Sen. Saldaña said.

Sen. Saldaña said that she sympathized with advocates who have expressed concern that the loss in revenue could create project delays or water down the voter-approved transit plan.

“We need to get it built as fast as we can,” Saldaña said. “If we start delaying, we know

Legislators from the 37th District, which encompasses the Chinatown International District, Little Saigon, the Central District, Beacon Hill, Rainier Valley, Columbia City and Renton, meet with constituents in Seattle’s Ethiopian Community Center. Left to right: State Sen. Rebecca Saldaña, state Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos, and state Rep. Eric Pettigrew • Photo by Tim Gruver

that things that will get cut.”

Property taxes Earlier this year, the state was estimated to bring in $1.3 billion more in taxes than expected through 2021 – enough to pay for cuts in state property taxes.

Last year, lawmakers raised property taxes by roughly 81 cents per $1,000 in assessed value to fund the state’s plan for meeting the state Supreme Court education order known as the McCleary plan. The plan is expected to pump $7.3 billion into the K-12 system in the next four years.

Washington is one of nine states without a capital gains tax.

If the state is forced to contend with a downturn in the real estate market, Rep. Santos said that it should be prepared to create a capital gains tax to make up for lost revenue.

“Even though we have seen this enormous, positive economic revenue forecast recently, it’s not sustainable,” Rep. Santos said. “It’s not

sustainable because it’s based on the ups and downs of what the valuations of our properties may be. We’re living in another bubble and that bubble is going pop and we’re going to be right back where we’ve been unless we come to grips with something that’s more rational and more sustainable.”

Capital gains tax proposals have seen repeated defeats in the Legislature in past generations. House Bill 2697 is latest iteration this year.

The state’s constitution does not include a provision banning income taxes, but a 1930 amendment provides, among other things, that “all taxes shall be uniform upon the same classes of property.”

The state supreme court has held that income is subject to ownership and thereby a form of property taxes—which must be applied at a flat rate under the constitution.

Gun control People attending asked the three lawmakers

whether the Legislature would pass new gun control measures in light of the recent mass shootings across the country, including last week’s mass shooting in Parkland, Florida.

A state House committee approved Senate Bill 5992, that would ban bump stocks — trigger devices which allow semi-automatic rifles to fire more rapidly like those in the Las Vegas mass shooting in October.

The ban would make it illegal for anyone in Washington to manufacture or sell bump stocks beginning July 1. By July 2019, it would be illegal to own or possess a bump stock in Washington.

For Pettigrew, gun control will only be possible once voters get organized.

“We’re going to have to go district by district and get the support of all those folks in those districts that will actually see and be willing to give the courage necessary for their Senators to vote for some impactful legislation,” Rep. Pettigrew said.

Sen. Saldaña said gun control is a bipartisan issue that will require statewide conversations between all sides of the debate.

“If we stay polarized and we’re only listening to ourselves, we’re never going to change,” Saldana said. “We have to have conversations with people who are NRA members.”

For Sen.Saldaña, getting voters involved and civically engaged in the gun control debate will ultimately encourage legislators to come to a solution — including in the 37th district.

“People that start in the 37th don’t always stay here,” Sen. Saldaña said. “What if they had their first positive experience engaging with democracy here? That way, when they go to vote, they know, ‘I’m going to get involved.’ Those are going to be the way things have to happen change the way things happen in Olympia.”

10 — February 21 – March 6, 2018

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

Spouses of temporary foreign workers fear Trump will take away their work visas

By Pinky Gupta IE Contributor Imagine hunting for a job in a foreign country you have never been to. Now, imagine that involves securing a work visa too; every time you submit your job application, employers ask about your visa status.

That’s something Priya Chandrasekaran struggled through for five years before getting her H-4 Employment Authorization Document (EAD) in 2015. But after Donald Trump became president, Chandrasekaran lived in fear that the new administration would revoke the H-4 EAD, causing her to become unemployed and leaving a gap in her work experience.

The H-4 EAD is a work permit issued to the spouses of temporary foreign workers in the U.S. who hold a H-1B visa.

The Trump Administration proposed a change that H-4 dependents (spouses and children of workers who hold an H-1B visa) would no longer be authorized to work on their own. The Trump Administration is reportedly moving ahead with its decision not to give work permits to the spouses of H-1B visa holders, arguing that this displaces American-born workers.

Chandrasekaran was working as a team leader in the Accounting and Finance de-

partment for Ajuba Solutions, a leading U.S. healthcare revenue cycle Management Company in India. When Chandrasekaran moved to the U.S. in 2010, she wasn’t ready for the hindrance of being surrounded by jobs for which she qualified but which were off limits to her under U.S. immigration laws.

“I never thought I’d be stuck in this visa process for so long,” Chandrasekaran said.

“The transition hasn’t been easy, moving from one country to another.” With regret in her voice she added, “I had a flourishing career and if I had never moved to the U.S. after my marriage, I would have been in a manager position back in my home country.”

In the Obama era, H-4 EAD visas extended employment eligibility for a limited group of spouses of H-1B nonimmigrant employees seeking employment-based lawful permanent resident (LPR) status or a Green card. The H-1B spouse visa rule under Obama gave employment to the spouse of an H-1B visa holder.

Chandrasekaran got a job within weeks after getting her EAD in 2015. She is working as an accountant in Seattle. “Due to the visa status I had [an] employment gap in my career, but still I was able to get a wellpaid job, because I had skill sets to offer that

made me a better candidate than any other,” she said. She added that it’s wrong that people out there think that H4 professionals work for lower wages than American workers. “The current company where I’m working, they are paying me more than they were approved of because I have better and more skills to offer to the particular position.”

The current administration has wanted to change the rules around H1B visas for a while, under the assumption that such visas are unfair to American-born workers.

Chandrasekaran worked with Immigration Voice, a nonprofit advocacy organization for highly-skilled foreign-born workers, and other women association to get a work permit. Now she is worried that if the EAD is revoked, she will have only one income to support her family and expenses.

If there is any change in the rules around visas which would prevent her from working in the U.S., she will not hesitate to go back to her home country. “I moved with my husband into a country after my marriage so that I can be with him,” she said. “I am a working woman, and it has given me financial independence and utilize my ability to do some productive work. I won’t give up my career again,” she added.

Immigration reform was a centerpiece of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. He

Photo courtesy of Pride Immigration Law Firm PLLC

has backed an immigration overhaul that would reduce the number of permanent, legal migrants allowed in the US each year.

Tahmina Watson, an immigration attorney and founder of Watson Immigration and Law, said that to rescind H4 EAD will be shortsighted of the Trump administration.

“It took many years to create and implement this rule H4 visa holders with EAD are making important contributions to the US economy as doctors, nurses, engineers, teachers, entrepreneurs and much more,” she wrote in an email. “They are very much job creators making a meaning[ful] difference to America.”

OneAmerica, an immigrant advocacy organization, pushed to get work authorization granted to H-4 visa holders during the Obama administration. Reacting to the proposal to repeal H-4EAD, Rich Stolz, executive director of OneAmerica, said: “The President’s attempts to revoke work authorization for H4 visa holders is just wrong.

The spouses of immigrants have important contributions to make, and they should have the ability to work in the United States to earn (if they choose to) additional income for their families, and to make direct contributions to our economy. Allowing them to work also makes American companies more competitive in their efforts to recruit the most talented workers from across the world. But this action, if Trump succeeds, is consistent with his xenophobic and misnamed America First agenda to push immigrants, primarily immigrants of color, out of the United States.”

The Federation of American Immigration Reform (FAIR), however, supports the Trump administration move to amend H4 EAD. “Rules that allow spouses of H-1B workers to be employed effectively double the impact on U.S. workers,” said FAIR media director Ira Mehlman. “Whereas H-1B visas theoretically are supposed to be used by workers who possess skills that are not readily available in this country, H-4 visas allow the workers to seek jobs in any sector of the economy.”

People who come to the U.S. for work face staggeringly expensive costs.

Often H4 visa holders are highly educated hardworking professionals,” said Watson. “Rescission of the rule may result in such people leaving the U.S. By doing so, they will contribute to wherever they chose to relocate, not America and that will be our loss.”

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

February 21 – March 6, 2018 — 11

12 — February 21 – March 6, 2018

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

History, community and realistic portrayals of Asian Americans in children’s literature

By Tamiko Nimura IE Contributor As a reader and a parent, I’m especially happy to see so many Asian and Asian American illustrators for kids’ books. It’s refreshing to see more nuanced and realistic ways of visually representing kids of Asian descent. In other words, there are more and better avenues for our kids to see themselves in picture books. Each of these picture books will encourage children to see their worlds through new or changed lenses.

Lovely by Jess Hong

Recommended ages: 4 years and up Out of the dozen books in my review pile, my youngest daughter returned to Jess Hong’s book Lovely several times over. It might be Hong’s cheerful and quirky cartoonish illustrations, showing a diversity of people not only with different skin tones but with a range of features: a “sharp” punk rock granny in a spiky jean jacket, for example, or a child with one blue and one brown eye. She liked the hands spelling out “lovely” in American Sign Language, each wearing a ring that also shows its corresponding written letter. Bodies with tattoos, freckles, a pair of braces, fluffy hair and straight, hairy legs in heels – all of these, accompanied by a reassuring label of “lovely.” I think that she also liked the book’s simple message: “lovely is different, weird, and wonderful.”

I’m New Here by Anne Sibley O’Brien

threatens his family’s plans. As the storm Wells’s book Yoko will also appreciate Kim’s builds, he falls asleep and his imagination treatment of food and acceptance. empowers him to face and transform his fears.

(Translated from the Japanese edition, Taifuu Chef Roy Choi and the Street Food Remix ga kuru.)

Look Up!, by Jung Jin-Ho

Recommended ages: 4-8 years This cleverly illustrated book, told entirely from a bird’s eye point of view, will delight kids who like visual puzzles. After a few pages, the puzzle begins to make sense: the scratches and circles on the left are trees, the mass of squares in the middle is a city sidewalk, the black bar on the right is the railing of a balcony. And the feet at the far right belong to a little girl in a wheelchair, asking passersby to “look up!”

Sharing the little girl’s view, we see people “like ants,” like stones in a river. Eventually, one little boy does look up, and what ensues is one of the most charming acts of kindness that I’ve seen in children’s literature.

The Sound of Silence by Katrina Goldsaito and illustrated by Julia Kuo

Recommended ages: 4-8 years Where is the sound of silence? Among the “stream of sounds” that is Tokyo, a koto player tells young Yoshio that the sound of silence is the most beautiful sound. And he sets off to find it. This book treats a complex philosophical question in a beautifully simple way that children will understand.

In the afterword, writer Katrina Goldsaito explains that she drew her inspiration for the book’s exploration of ma, the sound between sounds, from Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu. Illustrator Julia Kuo used her own memories of Tokyo artists, authors and companies to add details to the city scenes in the book. Kuo’s use of pen drawings, combined with digital color, add up to a wonderful series of illustrations that are reminiscent of Japanese woodblock prints: vibrant colors that become somewhat muted, as if overlaid on actual wood.

Recommended ages: 5-8 years This book follows immigrant students Jin (from Korea), Maria (from Guatemala) and Fatimah (from Somalia), who have come to a new school and are beginning to adjust. Students who are immigrant (or other “new students”) may recognize some of their experiences: longing for the familiar, learning a new language and acclimating to new surroundings. Schools and students who are welcoming new students will learn useful ways to create community from this Grand Canyon by Jason Chin book. Writer Anne Sibley O’Brien, who also Recommended ages: 7-12 years illustrated this book, says that she leaned on For slightly older readers who prefer her own experience of being a new elementary school student in South Korea. My daughter nonfiction (and/or enjoy hiking), Jason Chin’s recognized this book as a “Children’s Choice” book is a marvelous achievement. I was especially moved by this educational book, contender and was happy to read it again. built around an Asian American father and his daughter on a hike through the canyon.

The Storm by Akiko Miyakoshi There aren’t many images of contemporary Recommended ages: 3-7 years people of color enjoying the outdoors. Chin Charcoal drawings and clever uses of color is a master of meticulously detailed and splashes make this a good read for our many researched illustrations, which include rock Northwest rainy days. A young boy has been layers and approximate dates, an explanation promised a trip to the beach, but a big storm of sedimentary rock formation and portraits of the animals one can find along the hike.

However, even with all of this information, the book’s generous size and spacious layouts mimic the expansive feel of the canyon, and a breathtaking four-page foldout at the end of the book shows readers a panoramic view from the top.

No Kimchi for Me! by Aram Kim

Recommended ages: 3-7 years Can eating kimchi be a rite of passage?

This is the premise of Aram Kim’s charming book about Yoomi, a Korean cat whose older brothers exclude her from playtime until she’s willing to eat kimchi. Yoomi tries kimchi as a condiment on several different foods, with no success. But Yoomi’s halmoni (grandmother) has a solution – and a recipe from the author’s mother – that saves the day. Fans of Rosemary

by Jacqueline Briggs Martin and June Jo Lee, illustrated by Man One

Recommended ages: 6-12 years Published by local company Readers to Eaters, this book – a mini-biography of Chef Roy Choi and his Kogi street food trucks and restaurants – is an earnest tribute to the power of food to cross boundaries and bring people together. This theme perfectly mimics Choi’s street tacos with Korean barbecue toppings, cooked with “sohn-maaash” (translated by the book’s co-authors as “the flavors in our fingertips,” or handmade food cooked with love). Rather than using a glossary at the end, the book uses occasional sidebars with translations of Korean words, which somewhat distract from the flow of the story. Nevertheless, many readers will recognize the feeling of Choi’s family restaurant in his childhood: “Family together, making food. Roy’s best good time.”

One of the most exciting aspects for me about the book is its abundant use of vibrant graffiti art, created by Latino graffiti artist Man One. The book’s characters walk in front of street murals, but they also walk down graffiti-splattered pages, spray painted with bold brushstrokes. This crossover of street art to children’s book art is one that that I hope will pave the way for different segments of potential readers.

A Different Pond by Bao Phi, illustrated

by Thi Bui

Recommended ages: 5-10 years What an exquisite book about immigrant family life, aching through lovingly rendered details. From the peeling labels on the reused Miracle Whip jars, to the Spanish/English signs on the 24-hour bait shop, to the young boy who asks why his father must work two jobs – this is a picture book unlike most others I’ve ever seen. Unlike the other fishermen who visit this “different pond” past midnight, the young Vietnamese American speaker and his father are fishing for their family. Between jobs, the father awakens the young boy in the middle of the night to take him fishing. What they catch is not just the food for the family table, but also glimpses of the father’s life in Vietnam before their escape to America.

From poet Bao Phi’s lovely descriptions of minnows that swim “like silver arrows” to Thi Bui’s gorgeous, emotive illustrations in muted blues and greens, this is a quietly powerful book that will resonate across and beyond immigrant and refugee families.

The Fox Wish by Kimiko Aman, illustrations by Komako Sakai

Recommended ages: 2-4 years (Originally published in Japan as Kitsune no Kamisama) Roxie has left her jump rope at the park, and she and her younger brother Lukie set out to retrieve it. At the park they find a group of young foxes using it – but the foxes still want something more. Winner of the Japan Picture Book Award, this whimsical book focuses on the tiny but significant wishes of childhood.

Sakai’s charming acrylic gouache, pen, and oil pencil illustrations might remind readers of Charlotte Zolotow’s books for children, with the adorable foxes playing a starring role.

La La La by Kate DiCamillo, illustrated by Jaime Kim

Recommended ages: 4-8 years Renowned children’s book author Kate DiCamillo is known for stories of small figures struggling in big worlds, such as The Tale of Despereaux and Flora and Ulysses.

She conceived of this book as one young girl’s search for companionship, using the word “La” as a beacon. When her concept met illustrator Jaime Kim, the book became a call-and-response journey through orange autumn landscapes and glowing purple starlit skies. Kim’s illustrations carry the bulk of the storytelling work, but do so admirably.

Chibi Samurai Wants a Pet by Sanae Ishida

Recommended ages: 3-7 years My daughters and I have hoped for a series about Little Kunoichi, the tiny ninja girl, and our hopes were answered this year. Seattlebased Japanese American author Sanae Ishida returns with a spinoff in the Little Kunoichi universe, the adventure of Chibi Samurai.

Children’s books almost always involve a “want,” and Chibi Samurai wants a pet.

Ishida’s watercolor illustrations are, as always, delightful, and this book is filled with even more “Easter egg” treasures for children to find: the cloth-weaving crane of a Japanese folktale, the Space Needle, and Little Kunoichi’s pet ninja bunny doing what she does best. Envying the friendship of Little Kunoichi and her bunny, Chibi Samurai sets off on a quest for a pet of his own. The “reveal” of his ultimate choice as a pet steals the show and will send readers eagerly paging back through the book for more.

Where’s Halmoni? by Julie Kim

Recommended ages: 7-10 years Noona and Joon have come over to visit their Halmoni (grandmother), but she’s nowhere to be found. A search through her house leads them to her bedroom, where a covered painting on the wall is revealed as a doorway to another world. The sister and brother set out to find their grandmother, aided and hindered by various creatures from Korean folktales including the Moon Rabbit, the Tiger, the Dokkebi and the Fox. (Even worse, Joon’s fox backpack is running out of juice boxes and snacks.) This graphic novel format for younger readers might be somewhat confusing – we never quite find out where Halmoni was, or why she left at first – but the end papers at the front and back of the book provide important plot and context clues.

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

February 21 – March 6, 2018 — 13

Three children’s books about home and adventure

By Fei Wu Huang IE Contributor

Mama and Papa Have a Store by Amelia Lau Carling Mama and Papa Have a Store invites readers into the lives of a Chinese family living and working in Guatemala. Told from the point of view of a young Chinese girl, her story is one that perpetuates the idea of resilience and the notion of making the best out of a life situation.

Throughout the story, the girl opens up to the reader about the events that take place throughout the day in her neighborhood. Having the responsibility of looking after her parent’s shop, her mind is filled with curiosity and her face is lit up with joy from the many people of different cultural backgrounds that stop by the shop throughout the day. As this is happening, she overhears the many loud conversations between the people reminiscing of the life back home and realizes that life isn’t all that different in the place she’s from to the place where she lives now.

Living a very simple life without any type of technology, her family finds enjoyment in casual interactions within their shop through family gatherings and the family rituals of operating a family business.

One day when it rains, the electricity in the shop goes out. But the protagonist refuses to let this dampen her spirits, and she begins entertaining her customers with a shadow puppet show along with her siblings. As the rain stops and the day comes to an end, her family is assured of today’s victory. Not worrying about what tomorrow might bring, she sings and dances the night away to the tunes of her father’s abacus. Through this book’s unique and rich multiculturalism, it sends a clear message that home is where the heart is.

Also an Octopus by Maggie TokudaHall and Benji Davies Also an Octopus explores the process behind building a story and all the components that go into it. Readers will bounce along with delight as a friendly octopus becomes the center of attention in this writing journey that leads to unexpected results.

How does a story start, you might ask? Do you need a magical formula? According to Hall and Davies, all you need is just a little bit of nothing. But how can a story start with nothing? Every story, by whatever author, has always started with nothing or very little, apart from a dream and some imagination. Starting with nothing more than an idea, you gradually add layers to the story until you have a final product.

Thus, through this process, the author invites the reader into her mind of imagination.

In it she introduces us to a loveable ukuleleplaying octopus who in the beginning of the story starts out with nothing. From there, Octopus shows readers how to create a story from nothing as Octopus encounters a conflict that needs continual fixing, suggesting that a story’s main component is conflict. As the story progresses, the author suggests that within a story there is also a process of trial and error where stories are molded and refined to the finish. This process is seen through the many different scenarios the Octopus finds itself in while trying to find the right pieces to the story. Unable to do so, the Octopus find solace in playing the ukulele, only to discover that the one thing it was holding had become the resolution to the unfinished story. As he is joined by many friends and strangers to celebrate, one is left to wonder what happens next. The possibilities are endless as readers are reminded that all it takes is imagination.

a better life, Tuan describes and recounts the horrors of leaving everything behind and having to escape into an unknown world.

His journey to freedom begins on a dark and hazy night when a truck drops them off close to the water’s edge. Running for their lives, dodging soldiers and their bullets, they are picked up in a skiff. Still narrowly avoiding gunfire, the overcrowded skiff takes them to a fishing boat further out in the sea. Having escaped the many bullets shot at them by the military police, Tuan and his family find themselves going from one dire situation to another, as Tuan and his family find themselves adrift at sea in the hot and humid Pacific Ocean.

Adrift At Sea by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch with Tuan Ho

As his family and the many people aboard the ship gaze upon the ocean floor for any sign of hope, they can’t help but notice the many others who were on the same frightening journey to freedom. Seeing nothing but hopelessness, tragedy and panic on the ocean floor, Tuan’s mother quickly realizes something lying beneath the ocean floor that would turn around their fortunes and deliver them a glimmer of hope.

Adrift at Sea is the true story of Tuan Ho, a young Vietnamese boy who escapes his country’s military regime in 1981 and becomes part of the wave of “boat people” refugees hoping to reach America. Given no other options but to leave their homeland in hopes of

As Tuan and his family are delivered to safety, they can take comfort in knowing that it can only get better from here. Filled with colorful and vibrant drawings that engages readers from start to finish, Adrift at Sea is a powerful historical nonfiction story.

Video links Muslim and Japanese American histories at Manzanar

By Vince Schleitwiler IE Contributor Perhaps a wet Seattle street in winter is not the ideal place to watch a video of a trip to the desert. But here you are, staring at an impossibly bright landscape, spread across four screens in a Pioneer Square storefront. The camera speeds down the road, mountains at the horizon and a fence at the fore, and suddenly a watchtower comes into view. Then a sign, and an entrance: you are at Manzanar.

Funny thing is, now you can’t shake the feeling that you’re just the shadow of someone else’s dream.

In My Shadow Is A Word Writing Itself Across Time, which launched at Seattle’s 4Culture gallery in December and will remain on view for a year, Gazelle Samizay presents images of her visit to the notorious concentration camp in California’s Owens Valley. The Kabul-born artist first learned about Japanese American incarceration in grade school in Pullman, WA. After the last election, she decided to face her worst fear – it could happen to Muslim Americans, too.

So she went to Manzanar, following in the footsteps of other Asian American artists who have reflected on the traces of camp, including Janice Mirikitani, Lawson Inada, Rea Tajiri, Brandon Shimoda, and others. While thousands have attended annual pilgrimages at Manzanar since 1969, Samizay traveled alone.

“I didn’t have a guide,” she told me. But Samizay was not without people. The Afghan American poet Sahar Muradi confirmed her impression that the landscape recalled their ancestral homeland. Even the little white stones – “baby teeth,” Muradi called them – looked like the ones marking landmines left over from the Soviet invasion. Together, the two collaborated via YouTube, Google Docs and text message, sharing research and drafts of Samizay’s video and Muradi’s original

poem, which accompanies it.

“I have come / to remember,” Muradi’s voiceover intones. “Something in the shape of Kabul, / this dry earth, / this crown of mountains, / this canopy of blue.” In the video, the landscape is empty, except for Samizay’s shadow and dry crunching footsteps. This Manzanar is “a ghost land,” thronged not only by the spirits of Japanese Americans, but also by the original inhabitants of the land, Paiute and Shoshone.

Yet these could also be ghosts of the studiously forgotten U.S. war in Afghanistan, the video suggests, or of others subjected to indefinite detention at Guantanamo. Or are they immigrants from ICE’s jail just down I-5 in Tacoma? The German Jewish refugee Walter Benjamin, who died fleeing fascism, described the work of the historian as taking “hold of a memory as it flashes up at a moment of danger.” Being Japanese American in 2018 sometimes feels like you’re living in someone else’s memory.

Pioneer Square, where the video screens, is haunted by more than ghosts. Its current Native presence traces back to when the neighborhood was called the Lava Beds, in the early days of Seattle’s growth on Duwamish land. The Native presence persists in the Owens Valley, as well. A recurring phrase in the video – “Coyote’s children living in the water ditch” – invokes one name by which the Paiute refer to themselves.

Water struggles in the Owens Valley are legendary, beginning a century ago when the city of Los Angeles bought up water rights for a new aqueduct. Most of Owens Lake, where 35 Pauites died in an 1863 massacre, was drained to slake the growing metropolis to the south. Manzanar, Diverted, a documentary by the filmmaker Ann Kaneko, draws these threads of Owens Valley history together more explicitly.

Samizay’s video alludes to this history, lamenting “the river dragged south / the valley

Photo courtesy of 4Culture

emptied.” The resulting transformation of the landscape undoubtedly shaped the decision to build Manzanar, as camps were always built in godforsaken terrain. In fact, the initial idea was to house the entire incarcerated population in a single place – an all-Japanese American prison city hidden between the mountains!

For Samizay, it was important not to “equate” Japanese American incarceration to today’s Islamophobia. Instead, she settled on the shadow. As she explained, it evokes the recurrence of the past, like “the nation’s repressed psychological shadow rearing its head” in the election. But it also offers solidarity, across difference, as Muradi’s poem insists: “my shadow upon shadows / painting the earth / writing itself across time.” The great black intellectual W.E.B. Du Bois used a similar image in a 1924 essay, predicting the rise of an Afro-Asian movement against colonialism and white supremacy, which he called “the shadow of shadows.”

In the video, Muradi’s words seek solidarity, but there is no sign of another living person, just rocks, dead trees, dry scrub, and the neat little sets of steps, one-two-three, marking the entrances to now-vanished barracks.

Then, in a shock of dazzling colors and patterns, the camera finds origami cranes: first one, then another, then in long strands heaped along weathered wood. Soon after, there are carvings, in Japanese and Roman characters, and a repeated name and date – “Tommy 1943.” The voiceover shifts to the first-person plural: “we have come / to remember.”

“All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was,” Toni Morrison once wrote. “Writers are like that: remembering where we were, what valley we ran through, what the banks were like, the light that was there and the route back to our original place.” The video concludes with images of water, sparkling with memory.

This is “wuzu,” Samizay explained, “the Afghan pronunciation of an Arabic term denoting the Islamic purification ritual.” In fact, the footage of feet being cleansed before prayer comes from Samizay’s trip to Tunisia before their revolution. She added, “This was a small nod to Muslim culture and also reflected my own prayer that this all ends peacefully.”

Back on the street, the association of memory and prayer reminds you that solidarity in dangerous times demands giving your own stories over to others to be transformed by them, memories of Manzanar finding restoration in a Muslim ritual, like the Japanese American activist Yuri Kochiyama secretly converting to Islam in the 1970s.

The six-minute video is part of an hour-plus program at 4Culture, but anyone interested in a specific work is invited to call ahead. On the day I viewed it, the screening conditions on the street were difficult, but while I strained to make out the words, I was happy to let Pioneer Square provide its own soundtrack.

From time to time, the images were interrupted by the faces of passersby, lost in their own thoughts or stopped short by my interest in the screens, their curious faces reflected in the glass, floating above the image like ghosts.

14 — February 21 – March 6, 2018

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

A refreshing and authentic reboot on the history of the Hawaiian steel guitar

By Doug Kim IE Contributor John W. Troutman could have made Kīkā Kila: How the Hawaiian Steel Guitar Changed the Sound of Modern Music a relatively simple book. Most attempts to tell the story of the Hawaiian steel guitar start with Joseph Kekuku, who reportedly found a spike while walking along the railroad tracks, hit on the idea to slide it along his guitar strings, and invented the sound we all know so well.

The problem with that approach is it’s a little too quaint, and doesn’t do much to upend the notion that the Hawaiian steel guitar is a niche, slightly kitschy instrument that reached its peak with some Bing Crosby tunes. Troutman, a history professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, has a more ambitious goal than that. He wants to overturn “current understandings of the most significant U.S. musical genealogies, understandings marred by a tendency to erase Native people from their central roles in not just American music but the nation’s history.”

Kīkā Kila goes on to paint a picture of a sound and technology born in the throes of political and cultural turmoil, with an important role in asserting Hawai’i’s cultural independence and identity. It went on to influence music throughout the globe, to such an extent that much of the world has forgotten or willfully ignored its origins in Hawai’i.

Troutman does get to Joseph Kekuku, but first he tells the history of Kekuku’s family,

a prominent family from Kahana, deeply involved in attempting to reclaim some of the land lost in the “Great Mahele,” or the loss of native land ownership orchestrated

by American interests. Troutman does recount the railroad track story, but convincingly makes the case that this was likely made-up. Regardless of whatever the true first moment of Kekuku’s inspiration was, Troutman argues that it was Kekuku’s years of experimentation and the time he spent modifying instruments in the Kamehameha School’s shop facilities that really gave birth to the phenomenon. Troutman’s version of Kekuku is not a kid walking along some railroad tracks; he’s a deeply invested, inspired musician and inventor who used his gifts in service of his patriotism and love for his culture.

The book goes on from there to describe a breathtakingly rapid, worldwide embrace of the steel guitar, led by Kekuku’s extensive touring and later by slide masters like Sol Ho’opi’i and Frank Ferreira Jr. In the first half of the 20th century, Hawai’ian music was hugely popular, and Hawai’ian musicians toured the world to adoring audiences.

Even Adolf Hitler was a fan, and one daring music troupe, the Moe family, used that fact to help smuggle their Jewish friends out of Nazi Germany. Where’s the movie of that story?

There are local connections too, as the Pacific Northwest was one of the very first beach heads for the new sound. Kekuku toured extensively in the area, and inspired local guitar maker Chris J. Knutsen to start building the hollow-necked guitars that

could withstand the demands of the new technique.

Throughout the book, Troutman admirably does the difficult work of confronting issues of cultural identity and appropriation.

He recounts both the obsessions and trivialization of Hawai’ian culture as its popularity grew and ultimately subsided in the latter half of the century. One of the great ironies and inequities that Troutman portrays is the fact that while Hawai’ian culture and music were gaining popularity throughout the world, American missionaries and businessmen were ruthlessly suppressing Hawai’ian culture and language at home.

Troutman is not just a painter of big cultural landscapes, however; he’s also obviously a big steel guitar fanboy, and occasionally indulges in some very meticulous documentation. (If you’re the kind of person who’s daunted by thick books, relax, half this book is endnotes and the index.) He makes some surprising and convincing arguments, like his assertions that Hawai’ian musicians touring through the South were the most likely source of inspiration for the great blues slide guitarists like Robert Johnson. Who started what is hard to prove, though, what’s compelling is his case that Hawai’ian guitarists and music undoubtedly influenced guitarists in the American South, and helped shape the direction of blues and country music.

He glosses over most of the latter half of the 20th century, until he gets to the Hawai’ian Renaissance, which began in the 1970s. We’ve seen a great reclamation of Hawai’ian language songs and instru-

ments in the past few decades. But even today, when the local music scene is bursting with virtuoso talent on instruments like the Hawai’ian slack key guitar (kī hō’alu) and the ukulele, you don’t see as many people reclaiming the steel guitar.

If anything, “Kīkā Kila” is a call to remind us that despite everything that’s happened to it since, the Hawai’ian steel guitar was invented as a uniquely Hawai’ian expression of culture. He never states it quite this way, but you can feel Troutman’s fervent wish to spur a renaissance in steel guitar, so it retakes a more secure place amidst the resurgence of Hawai’i’s great musical traditions. Personally, I’m going to sign up for some lessons. Who’s with me?

Legend of the Mountain takes viewers on a journey into the afterlife

by Yayoi L. Winfrey IE Contributor

Out of nowhere, Mr. Tsui’s housekeeper and goblins, Hu masterfully unravels a narrative that shines with believability pops up. Shouting in a loud, overbearing Originally released in 1979, “The while showing off sparkling eye-candy baritone, Madame Wang (Rainbow Hsu) demands Ho dine with them that night.

Legend of the Mountain” is a gorgeous- locations.

During the Song Dynasty (960-1279), After Ho rests for awhile in a separate ly shot film by Taiwanese director King Hu. Now restored in 4K by the Tai- Ho Yunqing (Shih Chun) is an optimistic cottage, a maid arrives to fetch him for wan Film Institute, the movie features but uninspired scholar who’s been sum- supper. But while walking in the dark breathtaking views of lush countryside moned to complete the important task of with Ho, she spots a lama in saffron robes washed in brilliant hues. Although the translating a Buddhist sutra, or chant. By (Ng Ming-choi) and expresses her fear of storyline in anyone else’s hands might doing so, he’s told, he’ll put to rest all the the holy man despite Ho’s reassurances of have resulted in a cheesy tale of ghosts uneasy souls of dead soldiers killed under their safety.

sembles a ghostly flute player he’s seen before. When the innkeeper points to a Taoist (Chen Hui-lou) on top of the hill across from the inn, yet another character is added to the growing cast of otherworldly figures.

Ho accepts the assignment, but only because it’s a matter of commerce. He needs the money. Dismissive of the sutra’s potential power, Ho admits to not believing in it despite his theological studies.

At over three hours long, this film has plenty of staying power. Besides visually rich backgrounds like crimson maple leaves and the misty, mossy hillsides of Korea (where it was shot), it uses special spellbinding effects. Created before CGI became the industry standard, this movie offers clanging cymbals, hypnotic drumming, powdery explosions and the viewer’s own imagination to create fantastical results. And, although director Hu was known for his wuxia films, he uses few martial arts fight scenes and, instead, highlights the emotional drama created by the spiritual battle between good and evil.

General Han (Sun Yueh). Stuck somewhere between life and death, the restless spirits are condemned to an eternity of immobility and despair that only the sutra can free them from.

After agreeing to the job, Ho travels to North Fort in order to tackle the arduous mission without any disruptions. Instead, his journey begets one disruption after another. First to arrive on the scene is Old Chang (Tien Feng), a mute in rags, who attempts to suffocate him. Or is he just trying to scare Ho away for his own good? Fortunately, or perhaps not, Mr. Tsui (Tung Lin) intervenes. He also just happens to have accommodations available for Ho.

Once Ho arrives for the lavish meal, Mrs. Wang shows off her stunning daughter Melody (Hsu Feng) who entertains them by playing her hand drum. But her rhythmic tapping is so intoxicating and, along with the wine Ho gulps like water, he’s soon suffering from delirium. Unable to regain his bearings, he wakes up the next morning with no clue of what occurred the night before or how it has sealed his fate.

As Ho attempts to painstakingly transcribe the sutra with meticulous calligraphy, one disturbing calamity after another befalls him. Soon, it becomes difficult for him to separate humans from spirits among all the phantom-like creatures that appear and interfere with his work.

At one point, Mr. Tsui and Ho visit an inn where Ho becomes infatuated with the innkeeper’s daughter, a lovely woman named Cloud (Sylvia Chang) who re-

Throughout numerous battles involving demons and sorcery, Ho seems strangely disaffected. Is it because of his happy-golucky personality or is he in complete disbelief of his haunted surroundings? Even though he possesses powerful prayer beads and the ability to use his mudras (Buddhist finger gestures) to subdue any evildoers, Ho always reverts back to a state of naivety.

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

February 21 – March 6, 2018 — 15

Three South Asian authors will present their work at this year’s 2018 Search for Meaning Festival The 2018 Search for Meaning Festival is Seattle University’s annual community festival dedicated to topics surrounding the human quest for meaning and the characteristics of an ethical and well-lived life. Hosted on the university’s campus, the festival draws over 50 nationally and internationally known authors and artists for an interactive, introspective experience. There will be presentations on social justice, cross-cultural, racial and inter-religious dialogue, history, poetry and spirituality. Also featured are pop-up bookshop author book signings, art exhibits and a theatre performance. Speakers include Ruth Ozeki, Taylor Branch, Rev. Dr. Barbara Brown Taylor and many more.

ality by proposing marriage which also coincidentally allows him to manage his visa problems. The couple leads a double life – straight in the Sri Lankan commuIn the title story, Mad Country, the fo- nity but in private they have an agreement, cus is on an accomplished Nepali woman and each pursues their own sexual relationentrepreneur, Anamika Gurung, who has ships outside marriage. Neither is happy.

Although Lucky was born in the U.S., an invalid husband and a troubled teen son.

When seeking justice for her son who is her parents have fled the civil war in Sri arrested for an unknown crime, she is ar- Lanka and while they seldom speak of the rested and inexplicably labeled a “political civil war, it haunts their daily lives. The loprisoner.” A year in prison in the company cal Sri Lankan families are close-knit and of another woman, Sita, Anamika’s world are deeply aware of the people they have all of wealth, power, and family is totally lost and the culture they have been forced stripped away, and she emerges as an en- to leave behind, and so the local social tirely different person. What will become gatherings, weddings, cultural rituals and of her? The reader does not know but her practices become intensely important.

As a preview of this event, we present journey is the story.

Each woman in Lucky’s family is forced reviews by Nalini Iyer of recent books In two of the narratives in this collection, to sacrifice something to maintain the fabby presenting authors S.J. Sindu, Samrat Dreaming of Ghana and America the Great ric of the community. Lucky’s mother enUpadhyay and Anuk Arudpragasam. Na- Equalizer, Upadhyay explores questions of dures social stigma because she is divorced, lini Iyer is Professor of English and the co- race. In the novella, Dreaming of Ghana, the oldest daughter gives up the love of her author/co-editor of three books including a young Nepali man working for a travel life to have an arranged marriage with a Roots and Reflections: South Asians in the publication rescues a mysterious black Sri Lankan, the second daughter runs away Pacific Northwest (2013) and Revisiting woman who is mute and who he assumes from home and cuts herself off from her India’s Partition: New Essays in Memory, is African. He names her Ghana for the entire family so she can be free, and Lucky Culture, and Politics (2016). - Alan Chong country he dreams of but knows nothing is caught in a false marriage that she does Lau - IE Arts Editor about. The story, that seems at least in part not care for while yearning to be with her

By Nalini Iyer IE Contributor

Mad Country by Samrat Upadhyay Author of three novels and several collections of short stories, Samrat Upadhyay is the first Nepali anglophone writer to gain prominence in the West. Mad Country, his most recent collection of short stories, features seven short stories and a novella. The central theme in these stories is of people (mostly young) adrift in a world that is perplexing, violent and indifferent. There is no comforting end to any of these narratives about the characters making the world a better place; the characters just have flashes of insight that may or may not clarify their universe.

The protagonist in the first story, Flash Forward, is an investigative journalist who fights a corrupt government minister. Her magazine’s reportage makes her vulnerable to the despotic power of the minister and she refuses to relent in her pursuit of the truth. At the same time, she also struggles with her best friend’s descent into alcoholism and suicidal depression. The story documents both these struggles and the violence that accompanies everyday life.

In Freak Street, Upadhyay writes of a young white American woman who comes to Nepal in 1978 and is looking for more than drugs or Himalayan treks. She becomes increasingly connected to the family that rents her a ramshackle room and soon adopts a Nepali name and sees herself as the daughter of the family. The story traces the varying responses of other white tourists and of Nepalis to her transformation and explores the sexual violence and exploitation to which she is subjected. The story ends with her recognition that despite her best efforts to differentiate herself from

other white tourists she seemed “like any other hippie who passed through Freak Street on a journey from somewhere to somewhere” (123).

a dreamscape, critiques Nepali perceptions best friend and lover, Nisha. of Africa and their colorist and racist prejuNisha is unable to walk away from her dices. impending arranged marriage and emIn a parallel critique of South Asians brace Lucky as her lover. Nisha’s friendand their hypocritical stances on race, ship with a group of American lesbians Upadhyay sets his final story in Ferguson, who live in a shared home offers her a temMO, during the uprising that followed the porary refuge, but Nisha feels that she can murder of Michael Brown. His character, never be like them because family is imBiks, a Nepali graduate student in Illinois portant. Neither Lucky nor Nisha can construggles with his girlfriend’s colorism and front another loss or rupture with their Sri class prejudices while trying to change the Lankan families that are already scarred attitudes of fellow South Asians toward by loss. As the reader follows the complex black people. At the same time, he expe- emotional lives of these characters, Sindu riences extreme prejudice from custom- elicits nuanced sympathy for each of them ers who come to his convenience store. from her readers. We are engrossed in the On an impulse he goes to Ferguson and narrative and the characters’ dilemmas. finds himself in a riot and suffers from a Will Lucky figure out a way to be both a tear gas attack. As he writhes in pain, he good daughter and pursue her own desires? realizes that “he knew ultimately nothing Will Nisha succumb to family pressure? would happen to him, that he’d come out of Will Vidya, the second sister, return to the this fight unscathed, at most only bruised” family? These are the questions that haunt (293). the reader and sustain the flow of the novel.

This collection of short stories offers Sindu’s narrative is well-paced and the insightful glimpses into a complex, glo- novel breaks apart the heteronormativity balized world where most ordinary people that drives much of South Asian American seem to be fumbling through life. writing. While writers like Shyam SelvaSamrat Upadhyay will be presenting at durai, Rakesh Satyal, Sandip Roy and othSeattle University’s “Search for Meaning” ers have written about the gay male South Asian experience, Sindu’s novel explores festival on February 24. the complexity of lesbian lives in the South Asian community. Although this is Sindu’s Marriage of a Thousand Lies by S.J. Sindu first novel, it has a maturity of voice and A Sri Lankan Tamil family in New craft that suggests we have a new and exEngland with three daughters all of whom citing writer in the South Asian American struggle to manage familial and cultural literary world. expectations with their needs and desires S.J. Sindu reads at Elliott Bay books regarding love, sex, and relationships – that on Feb. 23 at 7:00 PM and on Feb. 24 at is the broad canvas on which S.J. Sindu the Search for Meaning Festival at Seattle maps the life of her protagonist Lucky.

Lucky is a young lesbian woman who University. loves her childhood friend, Nisha, but marries Kris, an Indian gay man, so she can The Story of a Brief Marriage by Anuk fit into the heteronormative expectations of Arudpragasam her family. Kris rescues Lucky when she is The Sri Lankan Civil war that lasted 25 exiled by her mother because of her sexu- years and ended in a fragile ceasefire in

2009 has been the subject of lot of fictional and cinematic works. From Shyam Selvadurai and Michael Ondaatje to Ru Freeman and Nayomi Munaweera, many writers living in the diaspora have written powerful narratives about ethnic violence, psychological trauma and displacement brought about by the war. Anuk Arudpragasam, a young graduate student at Columbia University is the newest writer to join that cadre of authors.

The tightly woven narrative that spans a couple of days is set in a relocation camp where Dinesh, a young man, finds himself after his village is destroyed and his mother has died during their attempt to evacuate the village. Dinesh digs graves to bury the dead – people who have been severely wounded during air attacks on the camp by rebel or state forces. He is approached by another resident of the camp, an older man who has arrived there with his daughter, Ganga, after they have lost the rest of their family in the war. As rebel groups scour the relocation camps to recruit young people to fight, the father fears for his daughter’s safety and asks Dinesh to marry her.

Married couples are more likely to evade recruitment, and the father fears for his daughter’s safety should he also die. This is the sparse plot line of the novel, but each paragraph in this story delves deeply into the psyche of Dinesh and every moment of survival in the camp. There are starkly naturalistic descriptions of the body and bodily functions such as the impact of a diet consisting of starchy water and foraged leaves on bowel movements or descriptions of wounded people whose limbs are being amputated. This is the stark reality of war and those struggling to survive within it.

As the couple enters a marriage in which all elements of a traditional ceremony are either abandoned or transformed to suit the conditions of the camp, the narrative explores how two people, both traumatized by war experiences, might find something that brings them together despite the precarity of their situations. Arudpragasam’s narrative compels the reader to look closely at relationships and what makes people retain their humanity even within the direst of situations. A beautiful chapter describes Dinesh’s late night foray to a well on the outskirts of the camp where he takes a bath and washes his clothes so he may be clean and fresh for his new bride who remains asleep in a relatively safe spot in the jungle away from the main camp.

Arudpragasam’s narrative filled with minute details takes readers into Dinesh’s experience while simultaneously reminding them that ordinary daily acts like bathing, trimming one’s nails or washing clothes become extraordinary luxuries for displaced people. The novel is a compelling but difficult read as each excruciating detail of the displaced peoples’ precarity is piled on leaving the reader deeply unsettled.

Anuk Arudpragasam will present at Seattle University’s Search for Meaning festival on Feb. 24, 2018.

16 — February 21 – March 6, 2018

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

The CID Advisory Committee begins its work to address displacement

By Cliff Cawthon IE Contributor In response to pressure from the community around the Mandatory Affordable Housing Upzone plan and new private-sector developments, the City of Seattle has created a CID Advisory Committee. Since Seattle’s and the CID’s earliest days, the CID and its residents have experienced and endured racism, disinvestment and most notably economic and political disenfranchisement. This special advisory committee is meant to break this cycle of institutional racism and deafness to the issues of the CID. The advisory committee is a result of the companion legislation passed in 2017 after anti-displacement campaigners denounced the controversial upzoning plan that passed, which would allow taller market-rate and private-sector developments to be built in exchange for affordable housing investments. By this summer, the CID Advisory Committee plans to develop an implementation plan, share it with the community and the City Council and provide a path forward on five key issue areas: Community development and stabilization; design review; Charles Street campus master plan; coordination on investments in the neigh-

borhood’s economy, and community services and life in the CID. City Hall reached out the members of the CID Coalition as well as InterIm CDA to populate this advisory team.

Marlon Dylan Herrera, a member of the CID Coalition and the co-chair of the Community Stabilization Work Group within the Committee said, “The advisory committee is supposed to give a voice to the people in the CID...these are open public meetings, so anyone can come and participate if they’d like.” According to Herrera, the selection process for the committee was opened after the companion legislation was passed and city hall reached out to activists specifically in recognition of their work.

Despite past contention with city hall in the last couple of years, city councilmembers and former Mayor Murray made steps towards closing this input gap. In November, 2017, then-City Councilmember Kirsten Harris-Talley hosted the CID Community Displacement meeting, and in June, 2017, there was the rushed Navigation Center Community meeting. Missed meetings and cultural missteps aren’t the only example of this input-gap with city hall as the construction of Interstate Highway 5 through the CID, over South Jackson St. has always

been criticized for having been built in a manner that ignored the disproportionate impact on the neighborhood’s health and livability.

Despite the legacy of disinvestment in the neighborhood, Hererra said, “I’m coming into this with an open mind and open heart, and [community members] will hopefully be able to voice concerns about displacement.” Displacement is a major area of concern for the CID. This issue connects to the five issue areas on which that the committee will make recommendations.

Pradeepta Upadhyay, executive director of InterIm CDA and Maiko Chin Winkler, executive director of SCIDpda will co-chair the committee. In 2016, InterIM CDA partnered with Swedish Hospital, Seattle and King County’s Department of Public Health and released the CID 2020 Healthy Community Action Plan.

The community action plan shaped the work of the current commission. Public health is a major focal point of this report insofar as it identified major health disparities that residents face, including a life expectancy that’s decreased by several years and deaths from flu, stroke and heart disease are exceedingly common beyond the rate for King County as a whole.

While the CID Advisory Committee’s work isn’t specifically focused on public health, in ‘the public realm workgroup’ in their November 2017 meeting, they discussed public parks and access to public space. InterIm CDA identified in their 2020 Healthy Community Action Plan that “the community repeatedly mentioned the following as barriers to health: feeling threatened by violence and crime, homelessness, and poor environmental quality; experiencing social isolation; and having limited opportunities to be active and engaged in the neighborhood.”

The availability of space was found to reinforce many of these challenges, according to the report the CID has “the least amount of open and green space per person compared to any other neighborhood….Garbage, litter, traffic and poor street and sidewalk infrastructure discourage [activity].”

On Wednesday, February 28th from 4:30pm- 6:30pm, the committee meets at the CID community center for an open house to discuss affordable housing, small business issues, public safety and health and the city’s work with the community. In general, the CID Advisory Committee typically meets the fourth Wednesday of the month from 5:30pm to 7:30pm in the CID Community Center off of S. Dearborn St.

Human Acts tells the story of the little known Gwangju Massacre in South Korea

By Jo Un Eom IE Contributor

democratization movements in South Korea in May of 1980. It began as a peaceful protest which turned violent as the military fired upon students and civilians. Later civilians took up arms, which further escalated the violence and ultimately led to severe government crackdown.

You may have heard of or even learned in a history class about the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protest in China as well as other well-known prodemocracy movements, but somehow the Gwangju Massacre in South Korea In a heartbreaking novel based on has slipped through the fog of history. historic events, Han Kang brings into Also known as the Gwangju Uprising, light the violence and destruction the Gwangju Massacre occurred experienced by those fighting for during the anti-authoritarian/prodemocracy in South Korea. In Human Acts, Kang masterfully weaves the narration of seven individuals who have been affected by the events in 1980. The novel is written in the perspective of the victims and gives voice to those who have been previously silenced by the authoritarian government. It draws attention to South Korea’s dark past when books and other works were heavily censored, universities were shut down, youth were killed and civilians were wrongfully arrested and tortured.

crushed as they were tortured and saw friends and relatives die in front of them. The “why” question – why did the government which was meant to protect its people instead murder its own civilians – is never answered, and in reality an adequate answer has yet to be provided.

Furthermore, the brutal acts of violence that occurred during the massacre and also in jail cells were not brushed aside. In fact, Kang includes the gruesome details and allows readers to begin to understand what those individuals must have gone through. In the midst of depicting the violence, the novel also questions what it means to be a human. It shows how fragile, yet resilient a human being can be.

In a way, Human Acts restores the humanity of those who were killed and affected by the events in 1980. By sharing their story, these individuals become more than skeletons buried in mass graves somewhere. They become than a number, more than a past, and more than mere animals that were gunned down for no apparent reason.

Though the authoritarian government may have tried to eradicate their humanity by killing civilians, carrying them to mass graves through garbage trucks, and eradicating memories of them through censorships, the novel restores their humanity. Though fictional, Human Acts gives face to these individuals and allows us to remember them.

This is not a feel-good novel in which there is some kind of redemption and reconciliation.

There is no hero or some soldier who shows compassion and gallantly saves civilians. However, it is a novel that speaks truth. Kang is not afraid to portray a story that simply has no closure. There are bodies that have yet to be uncovered and individuals living like a shell Though some of the depth and mastery of person because their souls were of language may have been lost in

translation, Human Acts is a beautifully written work that captivates readers. It allows readers to empathize with the victims and may leave you in tears and with feelings of anger and frustration.

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

February 21 – March 6, 2018 — 17

The Arts, business and computers in one – Manish Engineer is the Seattle Art Museum’s new CTO

By Chris Juergens IE Contributor “When I went back to get a masters in art history in my mid-30s, my parents were supportive. They were a little confused but they did not shun me or anything like that,” said Manish Engineer, an Indian-American originally from Cleveland, Ohio, who was recently hired as the Seattle Art Museum’s first Chief Technology Officer (CTO). “Like many Indian families, my parents were focused on their kids becoming engineers, doctors or lawyers. However, I am lucky they accepted my interest in art. My parents are overall pretty liberal.”

Part of their acceptance of Engineer’s path may have been the fact they themselves integrated into American careers, his father as an engineer and his mother as an echo-cardiogram technician.

Just as Engineer’s parents are a fusion of their native India and their adopted United States, Engineer is a professional and educational fusion, given he studied computer science as an undergrad, has a masters in art history and an MBA from Duke University.

tral to his upcoming role as CTO at the technology to create a better museum SAM. experience. He mentioned a revamped “Seattle’s place as a tech hub is one website and the possible development of the major things that drew me to the of a SAM app. More than anything, he city,” said Engineer. He said that the said he wants to go on a self-described SAM – which encompasses the Seattle “listening tour” before making any deArt Museum itself, the Asian Art Mu- cisions or starting any large projects. seum, and the Olympic Sculpture Park – is by itself something that excites him.

However, the combination of this with Seattle’s technology scene makes him especially eager to work at the SAM. Manish Engineer. • Photo courtesy of the Seattle Art Museum (SAM)

“My MBA allowed me to move beyond just computer science and connect to other realms,” Engineer stated. In his current job at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City (MOMA), Engineer said the skills and knowledge from his MBA have allowed him to communicate effectively with the marketing and financial departments. His masters in art history helped him get his foot in the door in the museum world as a volunteer from which he secured permanent employment up to where he is today. His computer science background explains his love of technology, obviously cen-

Engineer said he hoped to potentially partner with Amazon, Microsoft and other tech firms to see how to use their products to enhance the visitor experience at the SAM. For instance, he mentioned possibly using voice-assistance technology to help the visually impaired. He said he is excited about hearing what ideas people in the tech community have for the SAM. He did note that he is part of a team at the SAM and that he will be working with their A higher profile, innovative art mumarketing team and museum curator on seum scene coalesces well with a rapmany of his efforts. idly growing local economy and world Engineer is also excited to possibly tech hub. Just like Engineer’s profesuse Meetup groups and other commu- sional and educational background is a nity outreach to meet with SAM patrons fusion of many worlds, with Engineer’s and hear their ideas about how to use help, Seattle too will become a fusion of technology, business and art.

Chemistry is a stylistically sharp tale of romance and uncertainty

By Wingate Packard IE Contributor

the girl a question. It is a question of marriage,” he says. “Ask me again tomorrow,” she says. “That’s not how In Chemistry, Weike Wang’s debut this works,” he says. novel about a graduate student in Instead of responding to the proposal Boston who is failing to thrive in her chemistry PhD program and in love, the in an emotional way, the narrator first-person narrator is arguably both thinks, “Diamond is no longer the smart and dumb. She is smart about hardest mineral known to man. New science, but also so emotionally choked up that she is nearly mute.

The child of Chinese immigrants, she is struggling with identity issues – as a Chinese child, as an American, as a young woman, as a woman in science. She reveals her quandaries in simple sentences, minimalist scenes and paragraphs and a mordant pessimism. She is clearly devoted to scientific truths and beauties, which she tries to rely on to affirm what is knowable, if not her own self in the world.

While the unnamed narrator is watching herself stall out in her studies, her lab mate is publishing papers. Her white boyfriend, Eric, has graduated from the same program and is applying for tenure-track jobs elsewhere. All at once, her future in chemistry and her life with Eric come into question, and she has to decide what to do.

Eric’s marriage proposal sets things in motion: “The boy asks

As an employee of the world famous MOMA in New York City, Engineer went to national conferences where representatives from art museums gather as a way to hear new ideas he can bring to the SAM and to increase the SAM’s national presence. Internationally, Engineer hopes to possibly reach out to international tourists – especially those from China – to increase interest in visiting the SAM. At the MOMA, Engineer said they fell far short of the cross-town Metropolitan Museum of Art’s efforts to attract Chinese tourism. He is excited to possibly apply the lessons he learned at MOMA to the SAM.

Scientist reports that lonsdaleite is. Lonsdaleite is 58 percent harder than diamond and forms only when meteorites smash themselves into Earth.”

Her characteristic shift to data sets up the comedic but deeply anguished tension between the scientific certainties she knows and the difficulties she has with personal “chemistry.”

Wang has created a narrator whose indirect style is the only evidence we have for who she is. Her clipped sentences seem to echo social media-length communications, and she uses strange locutions like always referring to her best friend as “the best friend,” and to her lab mate as “the lab mate.” At first this was confusing, then it seemed archly funny; later it seemed part of her larger emotional disconnection.

What can be her model for a new kind of marriage, different from her parents’ marriage? What is her identity if she is not in science and if she marries a white man?

Wang has found a stylishly sharp, elliptical way of responding to these questions and telling this fractured, anguished and sometimes funny story. By the end, her narrator is still asking questions, but is perhaps closer to self-understanding and engagement with her feelings.

18 — February 21 – March 6, 2018

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

February 21 – March 6, 2018 — 19

Seeing red! On Feb. 6, staff at International Community Health Services encouraged patients at its International District clinic to join them in wearing red for a national day of demonstration. The act sent a message to Congress to support renewed federal funding for health centers. • Photo courtesy of ICHS

YOUR OPINION COUNTS Please share your concerns, your solutions, and your voices. Send a letter to the editor to editor@iexaminer.org with the subject line “Letter to the Editor.”

20 — February 21 – March 6, 2018

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER