October 19, 2016 International Examiner

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

October 19, 2016 – November 1, 2016 — 1

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Encampment ordinance raises concerns in CID

By Chetanya Robinson IE Staff Writer Ever since the Seattle City Council proposed an ordinance that would allow more leniency toward shutting down homeless encampments in the city, it’s been met with concern from Chinatown International District community members. The future of the ordinance remains uncertain, and discussion from the Council has most likely been shelved until late November or early December. For the CID community, which has worried about the impacts of homeless residents on public safety and health in the neighborhood, the concerns remain.

The ordinance began life early in September, based on policy ideas from the ACLU and other homeless advocacy organizations.

The proposal would change the city’s priority level when it comes to sweeping homeless encampments—that is, forcing homeless people to move from the area they’re sleeping. These sweeps would no longer be prioritized unless the encampments were located somewhere dangerous, or a public place that’s particularly unsuitable. What counts as “unsuitable” isn’t clear, partly because the proposal has since been split into three different versions with differing interpretations of this.

City officials clear out encampments in the CID under the I-5 on July 18, 2016. • Photo by Anakin Fung

Councilmember Mike O’Brien’s version of the proposal, which closely resembled the ACLU’s, also required the city to provide 30-day’s notice to homeless residents if it chooses to evict them from encampments, and to offer them another place to stay, whether this be housing or another authorized encampment.

A version of this ordinance was originally supported by a majority of City Council members: Lisa Herbold, O’Brien, Kshama

City Council approves Green Pathways resolution

By Rhea Panela IE Digital Media Editor

On Monday, October 3, Seattle City Council unanimously passed the “Green Pathways” resolution proposed by Got Green to help recruit young people of color in green careers and build better access to resources like internships, apprenticeships, and job training programs. Green careers include jobs working in the areas of green energy, urban farming, and waste reduction.

Younger generations are faced with the responsibility to help save communities from the dangerous impacts of climate change and contribute to a big part of the solution. Organizations like Got Green are led by young leaders who are driven by their passion to bring awareness to environmental changes. Got Green has been working to provide more opportunities for young people to learn skills that can lead to greater jobs in the growing environmental sector.

Environmental advocacy can open up more jobs and internships for people of color who are striving to find job experience.

“Even while struggling to make it, young people have environmental values and want to make a difference. Our city has an obligation to make sure this potential does not go to waste,” said Mo! Avery, program organizer for the Young Leaders in the Green Movement.

There are many internships and opportunities for students to gain enough experience to increase their chances of acquiring entry-level jobs. However, many of these internships are unpaid and only an option for those with access to other means of financial support. Because of the need to support themselves, people from underrepresented groups and working-class families are the ones left struggling to find paid jobs that will enhance their chances of getting advanced careers.

The resolution outlined $150,000 in support of recruiting, retaining, and fostering low income young adults of color in green . . . GREEN PATHWAYS: Continued on page 5

Sawant, Rob Johnson, and Lorena Gonzales.

Meanwhile, Councilmember Sally Bagshaw proposed her own version.

The ACLU and other homeless advocates expressed their support for the ordinance. “The ordinance addresses the reality that Seattle does not have enough shelter to house homeless people,” wrote Doug Honig, spokesperson for the Washington ACLU, in an email. “People will continue to sleep outdoors until the lack of housing is resolved.

The City’s current approach has been a failure that chases people from encampment to encampment. We need efforts that provide actual answers toward solving these very real, very human problems.”

The ordinance was also supported by the U.S. Department of Justice, which in a statement warned against policies that criminalize homelessness.

However, the ordinance was strongly opposed by Councilmember Tim Burgess and Mayor Ed Murray. Even Republican candidate for governor Bill Bryant waded into the cityfocused debate and proposed his own policy on encampments—a “zero tolerance” one.

Ever since the ordinance was proposed, CID community members have voiced their concerns, including testifying at Council meetings.

Jessa Timmer, Executive Director of the Chinatown International District Business Improvement Area (CIDBIA) heard from many CID residents at community meetings that she and Sue May Eng of the Chong Wa Benevolent Association held.

“Many residents and business owners in the CID are not supportive of the ordinance . . . ENCAMPMENT: Continued on page 5

Mixed Match: Asian donors needed

By Eva Cohen IE Contributor

at the same time while sharing unique stories from across North America of patients first hand who are experiencing this.”

Stearns was initially approached by Athena Mari Asklipiadis, the founder and director of Mixed Marrow. It recruits donors for Asians for Miracle Marrow Matches (A3M), a recruitment center for the Be The Match Registry and the Puget Sound Blood Center in Seattle. Asklipiadis is of mixed-race heritage, and Mixed Marrow is one of the only groups that actively recruits people of mixed race background to donate. She felt this could be a compelling topic for Stearns as a filmmaker who is also mixed race to cover.

In the United States and Canada, around 80% of the registry is comprised of people who identify as Caucasian or of European descent.

In other countries such as China or India, their stem cell registries are quite new or just being developed. And in many Third World countries, they may not even have a bone marrow registry, Stearns said. So, if you have someone from a Southeast Asian country who gets a disease curable by stem cell transplants, they have to look outside of their country to find a match.

If you could easily save a life, would you do it?

Asians and people with mixed-race heritage are severely under-represented in bone marrow donor bank registries, and people with otherwise terminal illnesses can be saved by having their bone marrow match with someone who has similar genetics.

Filmmaker Jeff Chiba Stearns, who is of European and Asian ancestry, set out in 2010 to raise awareness about the need for people such as himself to sign up for the National Bone Marrow Registry.

Six years later, his full-length documentary film, Mixed Match, has been completed and recently premiered at the Vancouver International Film Festival, with upcoming November screenings at festivals in the U.S. and Canada.

“I read a lot of headlines saying ‘it’s hopeless for mixed race people,” and it’s ‘like finding a needle in a haystack,’ so I wanted to go into more of an investigative mode to see if this is really such a problem, and if so, why?” Stearns said. “So I went on a journey to find out why this is happening, . . . MIXED MATCH: Continued on page 5

2 — October 19, 2016 – November 1, 2016

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

IE OPINION

Proposition 1 is a key step toward regional health equity

We can redefine journalism through the power of citizen journalism

By Matt Chan Special to the IE I believe the word “journalism” has lost its meaning. A once trusted news media that led our nation through some of its most trying times by providing facts, context, and understanding has given way to an era of “junk journalism,” where information is used as power and propaganda, where false-equivalency is passed off as “fair and balanced.”

But during times of change and turmoil opportunity presents itself. We can redefine journalism and fill the void by exploring the power of citizen journalism, to tell the stories that need to be told. This is the subject of an October 26 workshop I am conducting in partnership with the International Examiner and 21 Progress.

The sheer amount of content being produced right now is staggering; virtually everyone has the ability to produce stories. Technology has provided us with tools to use video, print or audio to tell the stories that need to be told. No longer constrained by corporate media that curates the stories that they deem important and filter what we see, hear, and read.

The goal of the workshop is to help people understand the concepts of citizen journalism and how to use it to create stories that are meaningful and thoughtful, with an emphasis on using video. We will explore what makes a good story and its technical construction to achieve impact, and reach the audience who needs to hear your message. The days where an audience would come to you are gone, the goal now is to get your stories in front of the people who need to see it. Not all stories need to go viral to be successful. If just one person is moved to action by your story, well that may be the greatest achievement of all.

The goal to network individuals to produce

of this first workshop is a group of media-smart who can come together stories that will change

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.

and challenge the communities. To contribute to change in ways that’s only possible through media. To share in the experience and have a say to each other’s work for a greater purpose while learning and honing their skills.

Media professionals always tell you to tell your own stories, which is true to a certain extent. I like to frame it a different way. The real skill is to tell other people’s stories through the lens of your world experience. It’s especially true for communities of color, whose stories and issues are seldom reported by corporate media, stories that need to be told. Your work is to be the bridge between subject and audience.

I’ve spent my entire life developing skills as a storyteller in the television industry. As an Asian American who worked behind the camera, one of the very few, it was a lonely path, not having role models or mentors in the industry that could help me. I made a lot of mistakes, but I stuck to it and learned as much as I could about my craft and had a successful career. I retired from the industry four years ago, but continue to learn more about the nature of storytelling and capturing audiences.

I’m really excited to share my insights and knowledge with people who want to make a difference through citizen journalism.

By Rich Stolz Guest Contributor We often hear that it’s time to update our transportation infrastructure in order to keep up with the region’s booming economy and population growth, but there is a much more important reason to improve mobility and build better transit systems; health equity.

The benefits of a fast-growing economy are not reaching all of our communities. In fact, research shows that zip code is the strongest determinant of health, and the walkability and connectivity of the neighborhoods we grow up in tell us more about how long we’ll live and how healthy we’ll be than almost any other factor, including genetics.

In the Seattle area, life expectancy varies significantly by neighborhood, as does access to transit, walkability, and access to high-quality, affordable housing. Traffic emissions are the biggest culprit of lifeshortening air pollution, and our congested freeways force us all to spend too much time on the road and not enough time with our families. In order to build the types of healthy communities where everyone can thrive, we need to invest in the kind of infrastructure that enables us all to live healthier lifestyles. In November, we’ll have the opportunity to choose a healthier future.

Sound Transit Proposition 1 is toward the very bottom of November’s ballot. If it passes, it will be the largest public investment in state history, but it will only cost each of us

an average of about $14 per month. Proposition 1 adds 62 miles of light rail, extends the Sounder commuter train, adds buses, bike paths, parking structures, tens of thousands of jobs, and of course, vibrant station areas in communities across the region. Once Proposition 1 is complete, 93% of the region’s jobs will be connected to mass transit.

But perhaps the biggest contribution Proposition 1 will make to health equity is in the unprecedented opportunities for affordable housing near transit. In 2015, when the State Legislature granted Sound Transit the authority to put Proposition 1 on the ballot, they created a new affordable housing mandate that makes a lot of the extra land near the light rail and transit stations available to nonprofit and affordable housing developers. That means that wherever Sound Transit builds light rail, we can expect to see mixed-use developments with lots of affordable housing nearby. In a region with very expensive land and very scarce housing, this requirement is a game-changer.

For too long, we have been building the kind of infrastructure that separates us from our communities, that pollutes our air, and creates barriers to healthful lifestyles. In November, we can choose to reverse that trend by voting for a step toward building the region where all of our communities will thrive.

Rich Stolz is the executive director of One America.

The International Examiner is teaming up with 21 Progress and Matt Chan, founder of Screaming Flea Productions, to develop a workshop series on citizen journalism. The first session will take place at 21 Progress (409 Maynard Ave S, Ste 202, Seattle, Washington 98104) on Thursday, October 27. This will be an informal meeting focused on learning what storytelling and video skills participants would like to develop, mapping out future workshops in the series, and exploring citizen journalism. For more information, email lexi@iexaminer. org.

IE BOARD OF DIRECTORS Ron Chew, President Gary Iwamoto, Secretary Arlene Oki, At-Large Jordan Wong, At-Large Edgar Batayola, At-Large Heidi Park, At-Large COMMUNITY RELATIONS MANAGER Lexi Potter lexi@iexaminer.org

BUSINESS MANAGER Ellen Suzuki finance@iexaminer.org

DISTRIBUTORS Joshua Kelso Makayla Dorn Maryross Olanday Tiger Song Rachtha Danh

EDITOR IN CHIEF Travis Quezon editor@iexaminer.org

NEWS EDITOR Izumi Hansen news@iexaminer.org

ARTS EDITOR Alan Chong Lau arts@iexaminer.org

CHIEF COPY EDITOR Anna Carriveau ASSISTANT EDITOR Alia Marsha STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Isaac Liu

DIGITAL MEDIA EDITOR Rhea Panela rheapanela@iexaminer.org

DIGITAL MEDIA SPECIALIST Anakin Fung STAFF WRITER Chetanya Robinson CONTRIBUTORS Eva Cohen Matt Chan Rich Stolz Nick Nolin Joshua Talosig Cindy Domingo Roxanne Ray Vinh Do Russell Leong Rumi Tsuchihashi

International Examiner 409 Maynard Ave. S. #203 Seattle, WA 98104 Tel: (206) 624-3925 Fax: (206) 624-3046 Website: www.iexaminer.org

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INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

October 19, 2016 – November 1, 2016 — 3

IE OPINION

Students agree, presidential candidates should focus on the issues

By Nick Nolin IE Columnist On October 9, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump met at Washington University in St. Louis for the second of three presidential debates. Unlike the other two debates, this would be the only debate to follow the town hall format where average citizens ask questions directly to the candidates. This form of debate is beneficial to the democratic process as it requires the candidates to confront the concerns of the electorate instead of relying on rehearsed talking points and espousing their standard stump speeches. However, a careful screening process that helps to determine not only who gets to ask a question but also what the nature of that question will be (as well as the obvious constraint of time) does, in effect, limit which topics will be covered during the debate.

While the questions put forward by the audience members were well thought out and helped to facilitate a meaningful dialogue, they were not the only ones on campus that sought to have their voices heard. From the early morning until well after the debate had ended, activists lined the streets and surrounded the university with signs and banners in hand, each with

a wide range of thoughts and opinions on their mind. The views of protestors and supporters outside of the main debate hall reflected in many ways what the nation as a whole has been forced to consider as we draw closer to Election Day. Whereas some past elections have focused primarily on one or two pivotal issues, the concerns of those present touched on a number of themes such as the economy, revitalizing inner-cities, the treatment of women, immigration and penal reform while also touching on deeper structural concerns like the limitations of a largely two-party system.

Ed Johnson was one of the many people on campus that felt the issues closest to him had not been adequately treated by either of the candidates taking part in the debate. When asked what topics he would like to see receive more attention, he said that he “would want them to talk about issues that relate to the inner-cities” and “would like to talk to [the candidates] about the mass incarceration of black people” throughout the country. On the deeper level of race relations in general, he stressed that there is a real need for us to see each other as human beings and not enemies.

“When the cops pull me over, they shouldn’t see an enemy, they should see a person that probably sped a little bit and [they] shouldn’t have their guns drawn immediately,” he said.

While this might seem like common sense, the events that took place in Ferguson and many more cities across the United States indicate that this is something that requires not only attention but action as well.

International students Daji Dvalishvili and Candice Wang said that they both had an increased interest in the debate because it was taking place at their university. In fact, this was hardly the first time that students of Washington University in St. Louis have experienced the frenzy of a presidential debate as the meeting of Trump and Clinton marked the fifth time that the university has hosted a presidential debate.

Both students listed the economy and job market as their top issue. In light of the recent revelations concerning Trump and his alleged acts of sexual harassment, Dvalishvili said, “I would ask about violence towards women and children because it has become a hot topic recently.”

Beloved Seattle artist and former teacher Frank S. Fujii passed away on October 3 at his Mercer Island home at the age of 86. A public memorial will take place on Saturday, November 12 at 1:00 p.m. at Town Hall Seattle (1119 8th Ave, Seattle, WA 98101).

Dress for the memorial is casual. Organizers are asking people to bring a dish to share and to also wear a T-shirt Fujii designed or a shirt you feel appropriate, such as a sports shirt. For more information, contact fujiilyndwall@comcast.net.

Kiku Hayashi receives Lifetime Achievement Award

The Metropolitan Democratic Club (MDC) awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award to Kiku Hayashi for her lifelong commitment to social justice at its recent Diamond Jubilee Celebration. Hayashi is the immediate past president of the MDC and is a precinct committee officer for the Democratic Party in the 37th Legislative District. She also is a board member of the Food Bank at St. Mary’s, King County League of Women Voters, Seattle Chapter Japanese American Citizens League, and the Squire Park Community Council.

Helping Link Gala on November 5

Helping Link’s 23rd Anniversary Strength in Community Gala happens November 5 from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at Blaine Memorial UMC (3001 24th Ave. S., Seattle, WA). For more information, visit www.helpinglink.org.

Welcoming Mami Hara on November 4

An invitation to the community to welcome Mami Hara, the newly confirmed Seattle Public Utilities Director happens

Hospitality

Washington State Convention Center (WSCC), located in downtown Seattle, is accepting applications for On-Call Admission Attendants.

Responsibilities include greeting guests, providing directions, taking tickets, checking credentials/badges, and providing general information about WSCC and Seattle. Requires HS diploma or GED and experience in a service or hospitality environment.

Applicants must be available to work flexible hours including weekends, evenings and nights.

Visit www.wscc.com for further info or to download an application.

Apps are also available at the WSCC Service Entrance, 9th and Pike, MonFri, 8am – 5pm. WSCC application must be completed for consideration.

Jobline: (206) 694-5039. EOE.

On a night when Clinton and Trump addressed the American public and sought to win over the remaining undecided voters, their supporters outside also hoped to win over indecisive passersby.

Whereas the candidates outlined their visions for the future of the country, those outside of the debate hall largely relied on pointing out the opposition’s past political controversies and personal shortcomings instead of heralding the virtues of their preferred candidate. Despite these tactics, supporters of Trump, Clinton, and even the sparse contingent of Gary Johnsonbackers coexisted in a state of mutual respect and civility. In an election cycle that has had its fair share of odd, crude and even reprehensible moments, the actions of those at Washington University should be viewed as proof that our democratic process is not as fractured as it may appear.

Employment

Announcements Frank Fujii memorial on November 12

Zuoxian Hou, also a student at Washington University of St. Louis, said that a continuation of current immigration policies, especially those concerning international students, would be welcomed.

When asked about his opinion on student visas, he said, “I think the [current system] is fine, no change would be good.”

on November 4 from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. in the Nagomi Tea House (519 6th Avenue South, Seattle). RSVP by e-mail to dms2015@msn.com or okamoto.strategies@gmail.com.

Help Wanted—Parking

Washington State Convention Center (WSCC), located in downtown Seattle, is accepting applications for On-Call Parking Cashier. Duties include monitoring incoming vehicles, collecting parking fees & providing customer service to WSCC guests. Requires HS diploma or GED and one year of cashier experience.

Applicants must be available to work flexible hours including weekends, evenings and nights.

Visit www.wscc.com for further info or to download an application.

Applications are also available at the WSCC Service Entrance, 9th and Pike, Mon-Fri, 8am – 5pm. WSCC application must be completed for consideration. Jobline: (206) 6945039. EOE.

Landscaper Foreperson Washington State Convention Center (WSCC), located in downtown Seattle, is accepting applications for Landscaper Foreperson. Responsible for work involving propagation, transplanting, soil preparation, pruning, mowing, edging, fertilizing and spraying of trees, shrubs, plant beds and interior foliage, as well as, providing leadership to the landscaper position and assisting in the design of planters and landscaping in and around the facility.

Required Qualifications: Four years of experience in commercial landscaping maintenance and a minimum of an AA in horticulture or related field; or equivalent combination of training and experience.

Visit www.wscc.com for further info or to download an application.

Applications are also available at the WSCC Service Entrance, 9th and Pike, Mon-Fri, 8am – 5pm. WSCC application must be completed for consideration. Jobline: (206) 6945039. EOE.

4 — October 19, 2016 – November 1, 2016

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

IE NEWS

North Beacon Hill Council hosts gathering, presents survey results

By Alia Marsha IE Assistant Editor

The results for the Beacon Hill Survey completed in early summer have been released, yet many questions still linger among residents on the future development of their community. The survey focused on housing affordability and zoning changes in the neighborhood.

On Sunday, October 16, the North Beacon Hill Council (NBHC) hosted a community gathering event at the Centilia Cultural Center.

The survey results were presented

by Maria Batayola, NBHC chair of the board of directors. Out of 12,592 surveys in six languages most commonly spoken in the neighborhood—Chinese, Somali, Spanish, Tagalog, Vietnamese, and English—that were mailed out and put online, over 1,100 of them were completed. That is almost nine percent participation. Batayola mentioned the significance of the fact that 48 percent of the survey respondents have been living in Beacon Hill for more than 11 years.

She also said that the survey shows 47 percent of respondents spend a third or more of their household income on housing. Only 51 percent of respondents supported the Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) program, which requires developers to include affordable housing units in their buildings or give financial support to build them.

houses to rentals, lack of bus service, school capacity affected by increased population density, and displacement of homeowners and renters. It also addressed non-housing priorities such as safety and food access. However, this survey will not be mailed to residents.

“There is just no time,” said Batayola.

At the event, the Office of Environmental Justice of the United States Environmental Protection Agency presented NBHC a competitive grant of $120,000. The grant will fund a two-year project in which NBHC will develop curricula to teach workshops in different languages to the Beacon Hill community about environmental concerns in the neighborhood, particularly when it comes to air and noise pollution caused by proximity to three airports, according to Batayola and Roseanne Lorenzana, a NBHC director.

“Sometimes people from the city council and other people promoting the programs use the words interchangeably so we’re not sure when they’re talking about what,” said Sherbina. “They say the average income here is $50,000, $54,000 and if you’re paying a third of your income in rent, just figure that out. It’s not affordable for the whole city, really.

So I’m concerned about that. We can’t make decent decisions because they’re not being honest about what they mean with affordable housing.”

Though NBHC board members and directors said they were happy with the survey response turnout of nine percent, Cacima Lee, who recently joined NBHC as a council member, said that the Beacon Hill Survey did not reach a substantial amount of residents whose voices should have been heard. Lee said she noticed that most of the people who filled out the Sam Assefa, the director of City of survey were those who came to community Seattle Office of Planning and Community events or the Beacon Hill public library.

Development, was in attendance along “I know that there are a lot of nonwith Geoffrey Wentlandt, a senior English speaking community members in city planner. Wentlandt gave a brief presentation of Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA), the city’s plan to fix its housing, and the MHA program.

In the Q&A session afterwards, several residents voiced their frustration and confusion about the future development of the neighborhood.

Susan Sherbina, Beacon Hill in the NBHC distributed a follow-up survey conversations about at the event. Some of the concerns it is often confusing addresses are the ideal ratio of affordable transparency.

this area and they often don’t go to these community spaces and they’re sometimes left out when we make decisions. It’s great they made the survey in six different languages, but if they can’t get it, there’s no point in translating it,” said Lee. Lee is a sophomore at the University of Washington applying to be a public health major. She said that she joined the council to keep her parents—who immigrated from China and do not speak English well, according to Lee—informed about their community.

The Beacon Hill Survey was assembled after NBHC looked at the proposed changes to the neighborhood by the city last year. NBHC partnered with Beacon Hill Merchants, El Centro de la Raza, International Drop-In Center, and Friends of Lewis Park to create the survey.

Students from Dearborn Elementary School kicked off the event on Sunday afternoon with a Chinese lion dance performance. Catering was provided by El Centro de la Raza.

who grew up in mid-1950s, said that housing affordability because of lack of

Answers to this puzzle are on Wednesday, November 2.

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

October 19, 2016 – November 1, 2016 — 5

IE NEWS . . . GREEN PATHWAYS: Continued from page 1

careers. Ultimately, the goal is to close the racial gap in Seattle’s green jobs.

The legislation is primarily for people from underrepresented groups, particularly youth and millennials of color who have difficulty seeking a paid internship because they cannot afford an unpaid internship or a post-secondary education due to financial barriers. The resolution was co-sponsored by councilmembers Lisa Herbold and Mike O’Brien.

Councilmember O’Brien described a green job as one that “preserves or enhances environmental health as well as the economic and social well-being of people and communities, centers on communities most negatively impacted by climate change, and pays a living wage while providing career pathways.”

Green Pathways preserves environmental health, aims to improve the city socioeconomically, and centers on communities affected by environmental dangers. The resolution supports sustainable entrepreneurship not just throughout the city but throughout the region. . . . MIXED MATCH: Continued from page 1

“For a long time, people in China had to look outside of China to find matches in Taiwan because China didn’t have a registry set up. In China, there’s also a stigma surrounding cancer, so there’s a great need in some communities to create awareness that a lot of the time when you’re donating stem cells, it’s as easy as giving blood,” Stearns said.

What ends up happening in the United States is that “a lot of first generation communities have more reservations about joining a bone marrow registry because maybe there’s some religious issues that surround the idea of not giving of yourself in that way, or there’s a stigma toward donating parts of yourself,” Stearn said. “And so I think a lot of second and third generation minorities and multi-ethnic people sometimes face pressure from parents who don’t quite understand the importance of why people should donate to help someone else.”

Stearns described joining the registry as “a really selfless act” due to the ease with which one can donate, and the potential to save someone’s life. Many people have the misconception that giving bone marrow requires constantly drilling into the hip, but technology and methods of retrieving stem cells has greatly advanced, and it is now just as simple as giving blood. One method of donating is to donate umbilical cord blood to the national cord blood registry.

“During the course of the film, my wife gave birth to our first child, and at the end of the film we actually donate the cord blood,” Stearns said. “This would otherwise just be thrown out as medical waste, and instead it can be used to help save a life.”

When Stearns joined the registry, he learned that out of 25 million people, he is matched with one man in South Korea. So, if this man decided not to donate, Stearns would not have a match. Siblings only have a one-in-four chance in matching, due to each parent carrying genes from four grandparents, so because of this, many people need to look outside of their families for a bone marrow donor.

Doctors are trying to transplant an immune system to someone who’s own immune system is failing. When they look to try and match someone’s immune system they need to find someone who is genetically matched to the patient. That means, it has nothing to do with

Green Pathways stemmed from Got Green’s concern for people of color who are disproportionately affected by environmental dangers and how they have limited access to paid internships and careers that may help uplift them and their community from such dangers. People of color find it difficult to progress in careers related to the environment.

“Thirteen out of 14 of the heaviest industrial polluters in Seattle are within half a mile of the places where communities of color live,” said Councilmember Herbold.

“The jobs intended to fix that environmental degradation are most important to our world, but often pay the least.”

O’Brien said ethnic minorities are concentrated in the lower ranks with less than 12% holding leadership positions in green careers. Many people from lowincome and immigrant families do not have the financial support to be able to take unpaid internships that will provide them with professional experience.

Council President Bruce Harrell said: “In order for a pathway to be constructed, you need to fight. It takes energy.” blood type or blood, it has to do with stem cells and DNA. For Caucasians, there is a 95% chance that a person will find a match, and 65% for African Americans, since there is a long history of mixing between people who do not originate from the same tribes in Africa, and due to lower representation in the registry. But for Asians and people who are multi-ethnic, it really takes the spreading of awareness for more people to sign up, and increase the chances of helping someone with similar genetics, Stearns said.

“Through these home testing kits for genetics, people are finding out that they are, for example, of 65% Native American ancestry, and people are shocked they actually carry genes they didn’t know about, so this film really encourages anyone and everyone to join the registry because you don’t know who you have the potential to match to and to help save the life of,” Stearns said.

At each of the screenings, Stearns said he and his team are aiming to have a bone marrow drive afterward, so that people who have come out of the theatre inspired can join the registry. The documentary team has also set up a website, www.themixedmatchproject. com, where people can learn how they can join the registries, watch bonus footage and learn about current news stories and scientific developments to do with stem cell donation. Stearns captured over 200 hours to make the film, so the website serves as an online portal to showcase a lot of the stories that we weren’t able to fit into 96-minute film.

Mixed Match will be screened as several festivals in November, including the Hawaii International Film Festival, Vancouver Asian Film Festival, San Diego Asian Film Festival, in Toronto at Reel Asian Film Festival, and Philadelphia Asian Film Festival, and Stearns hopes to screen at several more, including in Seattle.

“This is one of the only curative treatments for cancer that really exists, and everyone who joins the registry is really a hero when you think about it, because they are increasing the chances of saving someone’s life, which is really a miracle,” Stearns said. “We’ve been told even people who just saw the fundraising trailer before the film was complete have signed up. And that’s the goal, if we can save even one life with this film then the entire six-year journey was worth it.”

CIDBIA and Chong Wa Benevolent Association held meetings to gather responses from the neighborhood about the proposed city ordinance addressing homeless encampments. • Photo by Travis Quezon

. . . ENCAMPMENT: Continued from page 1

in general,” Timmer wrote in an email.

“It is seen as a distraction to the real issue they would like to see fixed—sheltering and housing the homeless. The neighborhood is very compassionate to the homeless situation and feel there is not enough being done to get them into the services they need. Putting unnecessary restrictions on the City to clear illegal camps is seen as a costly band-aid that does nothing to alleviate the concerns of housing.”

Dorothy Wong, Executive Director of the Chinese Information and Service Center, echoed the concerns of CID residents and Councilmember Burgess that the ordinance would cause problems for public health and safety.

“The prolonged presence of the homeless encampment, and the associated activities and individuals that it has attracted, have created severe health and safety problems that are threatening the viability

of this neighborhood,” Wong wrote in an email. Areas of concern for the community include trash and human waste, crime, violence, and drug dealing she attributes to the homeless encampments, Wong said.

“I have heard that the elderly living in the CID are afraid to go out nowadays. Businesses have indicated that people are not coming to the area and their incomes are dropping.”

Until budget discussions conclude in late November, the differing proposals on the encampment ordinance likely won’t be discussed further or voted on by the Council.

Until then, Timmer said she hopes the City Council listens to C-ID community members’ concerns on this issue.

According to Wong, community members have not yet discussed what they will do as a group. Some community members will be working on writing a letter outlining more long term solutions to homelessness in the neighborhood.

6 — October 19, 2016 – November 1, 2016

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

IE NEWS

Marcos atrocities remembered in two new books

By Joshua Talosig IE Contributor “Never forget!”

“Never again!”

These are the sentiments that echo across Mila De Guzman’s Women Against Marcos and Myles Garcia’s Thirty Years Later, two books that chronicle the 20-year regime of Ferdinand Marcos, albeit in different ways.

With their different perspectives, the two books explore with deft the trials and horrors imposed upon Philippine society by a power-hungry dictator. The sentiment is clear: never, ever forget what happened.

And with that knowledge, do your best to pave a bright future where these atrocities will not be committed once more.

Women Against Marcos was enthralling from the start. De Guzman frames the book so the spotlight is on the people under Marcos’ rule—six individual women, plus her sister Violeta.

All the women made a valiant stance against Ferdinand Marcos and his corrupt, freedom-suppressing rule.

With that focus in mind, she also clearly organized the accounts of the women chronologically. Starting with the “First Quarter Storm,” the surge of unrest that resulted in the implementation of martial law, the books segues into life in the underground, as the women—from journalist Mila Aguilar to activist Aida Santos—worked to discredit Marcos while trying to maintain the difficult balance of staying hidden and protected.

The book then shines a light on Filipino American women, as they rallied for the same cause in the United States. Geline Avila, who leaves the Philippines in the beginning of the book for her safety, returns triumphantly in this later portion as she becomes a leading figure of the opposition movement, which raised awareness of Marcos’ crimes during his U.S. state visit in 1982. The People Power Revolution is covered in a satisfying climax, and the ousting of Marcos from power and the aftermath is personalized through the accounts of Sister Mary John Mananzan and Cindy Domingo. Short accounts are then given of what the book’s women have done since then. It’s inspiring to read that many of them have stuck to activism—setting examples for generations to come.

Many details of the book emphasize that real humans lived and fought for their just causes. Across the many accounts, the women recall their upbringing, with much of their past influencing them to become the people they are today. And when they lived in the underground, their struggles felt real and personal, like including Aurora De Dios’ and Aguilar’s balance of childrearing and activism.

Moreover, they all face sexism, both in the movement and in society at large.

The focus of this book allows the reader to experience a unique understanding of what these women went through. Sexual assault of female political prisoners was rampant, and while they worked within the movement their capabilities were doubted

solely because of the fact that they were women. Male resistance leaders did not trust their ability to lead and act, much to women’s chagrin. However, the character they all display throughout their journeys is admirable. Women Against Marcos is a solid testament to the enduring strength of the human spirit, particularly the female one, to challenge the status quo and demand that true equal rights be bestowed upon the people.

The byline of Thirty Years Later… is “Catching up with the Marcos-Era crimes.”

Myles Garcia focuses his book on just that: the many, many actions of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, and the light that needs to be shown on what they did.

Garcia’s writing takes the serious subject matter and recounts it with his own witty and often sarcastic take on these political figures he despises. To his credit, Garcia is aware of his bias, and addresses it early on in an admirable way: His derision of the Marcos family is his own way of taking a stand against them.

It would be frivolous to stay objective in a book about the crimes of corrupt politicians, and his writing takes no punches. It’s an engaging way of holding the reader’s attention. From describing the Malacañang Palace as the “self-insulated cocoon” of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos to Imelda’s extravagant globetrotting making her “like a bat out of hell,” Garcia imbues his accounts with humorous yet piercing criticism.

The Last Mistress a multigenerational story

By Joshua Talosig IE Contributor

“We heard her story from various people— distant aunts, family compadres, strangers.

With each telling it was never quite the same.

It traveled across family lines and continents, passed down generations, saved like candy wrappers kept tucked into family albums.”

In Brian Ascalon Roley’s The Last Mistress of Jose Rizal, this poignant passage can be found on the last page. Its placement is very fitting—it encapsulates the novel’s mission of telling the generational tales of a Filipino family. The book is structured as a compilation of short stories, each spotlighting a different family member, each tale building up to a greater narrative about this bloodline.

These people live a significant legacy—the members of this family are descended from Jose Rizal, Filipino nationalist and icon. However, they contend with the ever evolving history of the Philippines and the changing social circles they dwell in. The Japanese occupation of the Philippines during WWII, the decision to immigrate to the United States in hopes of opportunity, and reconsidering their identities in a new land are some of the struggles the novel’s numerous protagonists have to deal with. And, although these people are different in many ways, it’s striking how the thoughts they have and the problems they deal with are

often the same. It is to Roley’s credit that these journeys are written with the nuance such a premise deserves.

Some of the book’s interesting characters include Candida, who worries that her Americanized granddaughter isn’t getting a proper Catholic upbringing she needs. There’s also Em, who’s caught in the strife between a distant father and a worried mother. Dina, who we see go from a child mourning the loss of her father to her struggles raising a family in the United States, is one such highlight. She’s a little girl in one story, a caring sister in the next, and a mother butting heads with her son in a third.

Ambitious as the story is, the events that transpire on page are often mundane—and beautiful in their simplicity. Depictions of practicing religion, connecting with family, and romances turned sour are some of the issues Roley covers. But inside his writing is a distinctly Filipino identity. What does it mean to be Filipino in an American society? Why is it so often for Filipino Americans that we feel like we have to struggle between different levels of expectations and cultural values? Also, how do the circumstances of our past affect the situations we find ourselves in everyday?

One event that plays out mostly in the background of this family’s history is Japan’s occupation of the Philippines during WWII. We meet a boy named Pepe as a guerilla rebel sol-

dier in one story, only to see him as a traumatized man with PTSD who the aforementioned Dina does her best to care for. The story of Filipinos is not one single tale. It takes endless forms, through a countless number of people.

The Last Mistress of Jose Rizal, through its 12 stories, show just how different—and yet, often similar—the threads of our lives can be.

If there’s one partial criticism to these stories, it’s a minor one. Yet it needs to be addressed: the dialogue can feel stale. The characters, for all their positive facets, can sound a little too formal, whether it’s a young boy named Em or an adult man named Rafaelito.

The overall message carries through fine, but the narrative would benefit all the more if the characters were a little more colorful in the way they spoke.

The Last Mistress of Jose Rizal is a story that deserves a second read. By virtue of its format, I reached the end page and found myself wanting to go through it all again—to connect the dots once more, to see how one story settles in the context of the others before it. I would love to read an extended edition with even more stories that focuses on the family members that did not make the cut, or got a sparse level of focus—Malaya, Juliet, Tessy, and the rest. But what is written easily fulfills that space for the Filipino generational tale the literary world needs more of.

By all means, Garcia has compiled a very extensive list of the activities and shady undertakings of the Marcos family.

Garcia’s organization of his research is clear, partitioning his writing between Marcos’ exile in Hawai‘i, the attempts to discover what became of their stolen wealth, and their climb back to power.

Reading about Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., Marcos’ son, in this book was chilling, given that the book was released before his failed attempt at securing the vice-presidency earlier this month.

At times, however, there is an overflow of information given to the reader that is a bit difficult to digest at first read. Also, topics switch constantly within the chapters. That may be a consequence of the sheer amount of coverage that Garcia has compiled, though.

The grievances of what has been done are so many and so varied.

Both Women Against Marcos and Thirty Years Later” succeed in revealing to their readers a showcase of important knowledge and voices that have gone unheard. Much is forgotten in the tides of history—the contributions of everyday people, the crimes of those in power. De Guzman and Garcia alike do a justice in utilizing their voices to bring about much needed awareness. Reading these books will leave anyone feeling closer to the people who suffered and fought for later generations, and cognizant of how far the influential will go in asserting their power. Never forget, never again.

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INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

October 19, 2016 – November 1, 2016 — 7

IE OPINION

The War on Drugs in the Philippines: A step toward fascism?

By Cindy Domingo Special to the IE On September 22, 1972, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in the Philippines, resulting in the dismantling of the Philippine Congress, suspension of a free press, freedom of speech, and right to due process, and an overall violation of peoples’ human rights. Over 75,000 human rights cases have been filed under a law passed by the Philippine Congress for people seeking compensation for torture and death under the Marcos dictatorship.

Forty-four years later, many are concerned that the specter of martial law may be on the horizon under newly-elected President Rodrigo Duterte, wiping out the democratic gains of the “People Power” movement that overthrew Marcos in 1986.

Duterte won the Philippine elections last May in a field of five candidates. Running on a platform of implementing law and order and ridding the country of drugs, Duterte has made good on his promise. However, human rights activists and lawyers and sectors of the international community, including President Barack Obama and UN General-Secretary Ban Ki-moon, have raised concerns over the extrajudicial killings, numbering over 3,500 as of September 22, under Duterte’s “War on Drugs.” According to a report from the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, just from July 1 to September 8 of this year, 1,445 people have been killed in police operations, 15,762 have been arrested, and 704,074 have “surrendered.”

In long-drawn-out press conferences, Duterte has repeatedly given power to the police and vigilantes to kill drug dealers and users with impunity. Shortly after his election, Duterte said he would kill 100,000 criminals during his first six months in office. In a response to the United Nations’ experts urging

President Duterte to stop the extrajudicial killings, he responded that at least half of the Filipino population is involved in drugs-related trades and, given that, he was not going to stop the killings until the population is reduced by half. The latest government survey in 2012 found 1.3 million people in the Philippines were drug users.

In response to these extrajudicial killings, a Senate hearing in the Philippine Congress’s Justice and Human Rights Committee, chaired

by Senator Leila de Lima, was convened. De Lima, former Chairperson of the Philippine Commission on Human Rights and Secretary of the Department of Justice, later ousted as chair of the committee in a coup by her colleagues. They charged her with spreading disinformation and revealing a self-confessed hitman who accused Duterte of ordering killings in Davao, where Duterte had served as mayor. An outspoken critic of Duterte even when he was mayor, de Lima has stated that Duterte’s placement of the Philippines under a “state of lawlessness” after a recent bombing in Davao is martial law without a declaration. The “state of lawlessness” will ensure coordinated efforts between the police and the military in the government’s fight against terrorism and illegal drugs. Human rights advocates claim this is one step toward officially declaring martial law.

Duterte, however, remains highly popular amongst the Philippine population, with a positive rating of 91%. This popularity, similar to that of Donald Trump in the United States, reflects the disgruntlement of both populations with ongoing contradictions in our societies. In the Philippines, people face ongoing problems with corruption in the government, especially highly publicized cases of politicians from the traditional political parties, including some of the 2016 presidential candidates; persistent poverty and lack of health care; a large overseas workforce due to limited economic opportunities within the

country; high crime rates; and, in the largest cities, huge traffic and public transportation issues. Duterte has been able to build a cross-class popular movement, because he is not from the traditional political circles that people have become disillusioned with.

He became well known for his “successful” war against crime in Davao, although it is rumored that over 1,000 extrajudicial killings took place during his mayoralty.

While the drug situation, especially around a synthetic drug called shabu, is a real issue throughout the Philippines, it may not be as extensive as it is here in the United States. In a September 18 article on Philstar.com, based on a national survey, drug use in the Philippines could range from 1.8 to 4.74%, which falls below the global average of 5.2 percent.

Free or government-run drug treatment centers are nonexistent, and so the war on drugs is targeted at the poor. For those who surrender, jail and prison is the protocol, where overcrowding and violence were at an extreme before Duterte’s drug war.

The extrajudicial killings have reignited activists from the former anti-Marcos movement, both in the Philippines and the United States—especially the victims of torture and detention and the families of those who died under the dictatorship. In response to Duterte’s intention of giving Ferdinand Marcos a hero’s burial in the Philippine national cemetery Libingan Ng Mga Bayani (LNB)— comparable to Arlington National Cemetery in the United States—protests were held in the Philippines and in front of the U.S. consulates in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York.

These coalitions have expanded their call for a halt to the extrajudicial killings to include “No burial for Marcos at LNB!” and “No to dictatorship.” But in the years since the Marcos dictatorship, the lack of education about the repression and acts of corruption the Marcoses and their cronies committed, including robbing the national treasury of billions of

dollars, has left a generation ignorant about that period. Over 50% of the Philippine population has been born since the People Power Revolution led by Cory Aquino overthrew the Marcoses. Now, the country is feeling the impact of a generation of Filipinos that knows nothing of a dictatorship, and, in fact, is open to the idea that drugs are to blame for the ills of Philippine society and that some must be sacrificed so that others can live better lives.

Duterte’s war on drugs is his main initiative.

Without sufficient attention, economic development, antipoverty initiatives, land redistribution, closure of the largest foreign-owned mines, and reproductive health have fallen by the wayside. Duterte has had some success with his peace initiative with the Communist Party and the New Peoples’ Army, garnering a cease-fire, and, it is hoped, moving toward negotiations. He also appointed three members from the left to key positions in his cabinet.

The international community plays an important role in bringing attention to the human rights violations in the Philippines. As the situation in the Philippines worsens, and fear takes hold of its society in the midst of vigilante and police extrajudicial killings, it may be up to us in the United States to lobby Congress and make our voices heard that we will not allow fascism to take hold in the Philippines again. As the slogan in the Philippines says, “NEVER FORGET! NEVER AGAIN!” Cindy Domingo has been doing Philippine support work for over four decades. Her brother, Silme Domingo, and fellow trade unionist Gene Viernes were murdered in the United States by the Marcos regime in 1981.

In 1989, their families won a landmark civil suit in federal court against the Marcoses, winning a $23 million judgment, the first of its kind in the United States.

First Filipina/Pacific Islander UW student body president aims to raise AAPI voices

By Rhea Panela IE Digital Media Editor

Daniele Meñez, a senior at the University of Washington, is juggling a full schedule this school year as the newly elected president of Associated Students of the University of Washington (ASUW). Meñez has a multicultural family background. Her mother immigrated from the Philippines to Saipan, one of the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific Ocean. Meñez was born in Saipan and lived in the Philippines until she was 4 years old before her family decided to settle in Guam. When she came to Seattle for college, she was surprised to see how small the Pacific Islander community was on campus. As she joined student organizations like Filipino American Student Association (FASA sa UW) and studied Filipino American history, she discovered the need to uplift AAPI voices like her own and make their presence more visible on campus. The IE spoke with Meñez to learn about what led her to run for ASUW President and discuss her plans for the upcoming school year.

International Examiner: What was the most important reason you decided to run for ASUW President instead of a different position?

Daniele Meñez: Last year was my first year with ASUW because a lot of people have been involved since they were freshmen.

When I worked for them, I got paid to do

what I love, to serve students, especially in the Pacific Islander community where I come from. I don’t know if I have the mental capacity to undergo such a stressful time. The biggest thing was putting myself out there because I’m a really private person. I just said yes. I wanted to bring a new perspective I didn’t grow up in Washington, I’m a person of a color, so I looked at ASUW. No one else had that same perspective.

IE: On your ASUW profile, you highlight Daniele Meñez “intersectionality” as the overall goal of your term. Can you speak about the different components of your vision for UW’s community and the steps you plan to take toward those goals?

Meñez: The basis of understanding intersectionality is understanding that there’s no issue, there’s no identity of the University that can be singular in and of itself. Everyone is connected somehow. Every on-campus issue is also connected. For me, intersectionality is when I see a problem taking place that’s affecting the students, I think, “Okay, what kind of community is this issue affecting and what are the different layers to this issue?” So I think the fact that I came to ASUW as an outsider helped in that sense, because when I look at an issue I don’t look at it at a singular lens, I look at it at an intersectional way that

will allow me to bring together all of these different communities.

IE: On your ASUW profile, you also mentioned Panhellenic and Interfraternity Council in your effort to improve collaboration between student and nonstudent groups to fight against “powerbased violence.” Why do you think the United Greek Council (UGC), a group of fraternities and sororities formed for ethnic minorities, is excluded from largescale conversations despite them also being a Greek community?

Meñez: Last quarter, my ticket talked about that because half of us are students of color.

My vice-president, Michael Aldridge, is the president of the Interfraternity Council. When we were crafting our platform and sat down to talk about which communities’ needs weren’t being met, UGC definitely came up. Personally, I always knew about UGC because I had all of these different connections but what we’re trying to do this year as ASUW is try to bring them into the conversation because when people think “Greeks” they don’t think the multi-ethnic sororities. They don’t think about the Asian sororities or fraternities, so they get left out of the conversation which doesn’t help.

In the Greek community, a lot of the issues they’re talking about are about race and equity. How are you going to solve that problem if you’re not already including Greeks who are super diverse, who are already knowledgeable about the issue?

IE: In the last ASUW election for the 2015-2016 school year, only 2,643 out of about 40,000 students voted. What do you think about the low civic engagement of AAPI voters during elections, whether it’s the General Election, the Presidential Election, or ASUW elections?

Meñez: I would say in terms of the General Election, it’s always been an issue in the API community. Low civic engagement, low voter turnout. I know there are amazing organizations like APACE (Asian Pacific Islander Americans for Civic Empowerment) that fill that gap, and I think the reason why it even existed in the first place was when our ancestors first moved here, their first instinct wasn’t “Oh, I want to get involved politically.”

They’re worried about how to survive, how to find a job, how to send their kids to school.

So extracurriculars like getting involved in the government ... it’s not an extracurricular but sometimes it could feel like it is when you’re worried about surviving. That, and also many of them don’t speak fluent English.

IE: What are you most excited for for the new school year?

Meñez: Just getting to meet students and getting to connect and hear their stories on such a broad level, to hear from thousands of students what issues they’re facing and just knowing the fact that I can make the tiniest impact on a student’s life.

8 — October 19, 2016 – November 1, 2016

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

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October 19, 2016 – November 1, 2016 — 9

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Awkwafina rising to new heights

By Candace Kwan IE Contributor

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Chinese Korean multi-talented rapper Awkwafina (née Nora Lum) recently made her Seattle debut at the 2016 Chinatown-International District Block Party on August 28. Awkwafina went viral on YouTube for her quirky music video My Vag, but make no mistake, she is no one-hit wonder.

It’s only been three years since its release, and Awkwafina has already made her big screen debut in Neighbors 2, filmed multiple web series (including her own talk show, Tawk), and been added to the cast for the third season of MTV’s Girl Code. She was just added to the all-female cast of Ocean’s Eight, a spin off of the Ocean’s Trilogy, and will be starring alongside Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Mindy Kaling and Rihanna. She’s also written a book, titled Awkwafina’s NYC. The International Examiner caught up with Awkwafina to talk about comedy, Chinatowns, and why she does not identify as an Asian American activist.

International Examiner: We’ve read that you prefer not to be labeled.

Given the many roles you play in the entertainment industry, how would you prefer to identify, career-wise?

Awkwafina: Well, I think that there are certain labels you cannot escape. If I’m going to be in a movie, I’m going to be an actress, and if I put out an album, I’m a rapper. At this point, comedy is a very heavy element in everything that I do, so it’s the tie between whether I’m hosting, whether I’m acting, and whether I’m rapping. Comedy is what breathes in all three.

The labels I don’t really like are Asian American activist, Chinese activist, Korean feminist, like I don’t think that. I think if I build myself as an Asian American activist, people would then get on me more like, “Where were you, were you at this rally?” [or] “Where were you when this happened?” I like to be outspoken on our issues, but also I don’t like to pretend that I’m some kind of person that’s been a pioneer. I know people who have been doing that, and I’m not one of them.

IE: Being so well known in hip hop, and probably one of, if not the most, recognizable Asian female in hip-hop, does this identity ever feel like a burden to you?

Awkwafina: No, I mean, I think that when I went into this I wanted to be recognized more than I ever wanted money, because it’s important for everyone. Once it becomes a recognizable thing, beyond Asian people, beyond white people, with all American people, then it becomes an American thing. It’s no longer like a niche thing, I think the more people that recognize me, the better. It’s a dream, you know.

IE: What’s your preference between performing, rapping, acting, and writing?

Awkwafina: I’ll perform for the rest of my life whether people pay for it or not, I’ll also rap for the rest of my life whether

Awkwafina. • Photo by Shirley Yu

people want to listen to it or not. In terms of performing, I feel there’s always a window where it is natural and it becomes forced. I don’t want to be a 57-year-old performing on the 7th train, you know, like I kind of want to let it die out on its own. But if I’m still limber when I’m 57, I’ll still perform.

IE: What does being Asian American mean to you?

Awkwafina: What being Asian American means to me is being a minority, but having it be more complex.

I don’t think we can speak for the same struggles as Black people in this country as we just came here under a completely different context. A lot of us came here in the last 50 years, with our families. We are not American enough to speak on those issues, and yet we do bear the brunt of some things. We’re seen as very quiet, very submissive and docile, which allows people to make fun of us in the media and attack us physically, more than any other race. In a way, we’re the punching bag. At the same time, while we are not as prevalent when it comes to music, we’re very prevalent in the medical, science, and engineering fields.

There are a lot of us in Ivy League schools, but when it comes to music, we don’t have the same privileges or the same numbers, so it gets a little difficult.

Being Asian American for me means figuring out still what it means to be

American, and also understanding how different the levels it is, I mean I’m in Seattle, in Chinatown, and yet there are some things that are similar, yet so different to being in New York Chinatown.

So as an entertainer, I’m lucky enough to penetrate these different environments and really understand what the youth is like and how we’re all different.

IE: What is your best advice for young artists and creators?

Awkwafina: I think the best advice is to be original. You have to stand out, right now, we can say that there aren’t a lot of Asian American artists, but we can also say that the passages are very oversaturated—so if you are an Asian American act who knows the guitar because you have a musical background, don’t put out covers of pop songs. Put out covers of weird songs, put out covers of classical songs, don’t do what all the other Asian American YouTubers are doing right now. Stick out, and if you’re going to rap, don’t appropriate. Be respectful.

Be authentic, don’t copy people. If you’re going to do a genre that we’re not in a lot, for instance like jazz or rap, do it authentically, don’t do it just because.

Awkwafina is currently working on her new EP. To keep up with Awkwafina, follow her on Twitter @awkwafina and Instagram @awkwafina.

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

October 19, 2016 – November 1, 2016 — 11

IE ARTS

Jazz drummer Christopher Icasiano strives for excellence

By Roxanne Ray IE Contributor “Jazz is young.”

So says jazz drummer Christopher Icasiano, member of the jazz duo Bad Luck and founder of Table & Chairs, a record label that also serves as a local arts organization.

Icasiano’s passion for music also began young. “I grew up in a house that regularly had bands like Earth, Wind, and Fire; The Beatles’ Crosby, Stills, and Nash; and Chicago playing on the stereo,” he said. “As a child of the ’90s, my first musical interests were deeply rooted in R&B, hip-hop, and grunge—my favorite groups being Boyz II Men, Lauryn Hill, TLC, Jodeci, Stone Temple Pilots, and many more.”

Despite these broad influences, Icasiano’s interests drifted toward jazz. “I had also started taking drum lessons around that time and was learning how to play jazz,” he said.

“I remember a moment when I first heard a piano trio, and without really knowing what was happening in the music, I fell in love with the sound.”

The sound of jazz was ephemeral but also provided concrete associations. “To me, it conjured up romantic ideas about living in a big city, being up late at clubs, working as a musician,” Icasiano said. “While those ideas were all still very abstract, part of me knew that it was ultimately what I wanted to do in my life.”

Icasiano’s teenage years at school were formative. “Around the age of 10, I began the long journey of discovering all the jazz musicians that I still love today,” he said.

“First, Miles Davis’ ‘Kind of Blue’ and John Coltrane’s ‘Blue Train.’ Then Keith Jarrett’s ‘Standards’ in Norway and Tokyo ’96 and Brad Mehldau’s ‘Art of the Trio’ records.”

While some budding musicians found school a distraction, Icasiano found his first musical home there. “As a high school student, my band director would regularly give me tons of records to listen to,” he said.

“Sometimes I’d go over to his house and he’d send me home with huge boxes full of

CDs. From those I discovered my favorite drummers: Jack DeJohnette, Brian Blade, Tony Williams, Max Roach.”

After high school, Icasiano continued his training at the University of Washington.

“Luckily for me, the musicians at the UW were really stellar and I was often put into positions where I had to do a lot of fast learning, sometimes while in the middle of playing a Icasiano song!”

Icasiano quicky became aware of his deficits as a drummer. “The biggest challenge I faced in my training was learning technique,” he said. “Up until that point, I had never really worked on proper percussion technique. I played a lot, I had a sound that I liked, and I didn’t really take the time to learn technique and how it could ultimately improve my playing.”

But he rose to the challenge with the help of his instructors. “John Bishop, my teacher at the time, recognized this and basically had me working with a practice pad for long periods of time.”

It was also at UW where Icasiano met saxophonist Neil Welch, with whom he formed the duo Bad Luck in 2007. “I really looked up to him as a musician and was ecstatic when he asked me to play in his band for a gig at Tula’s in Belltown,” Icasiano said.

“I practiced my ass off and even saved up to buy a new drum set so that I’d be sufficiently prepared for that show.”

The partnership worked. “After that, we played together in a number of different settings—in school ensembles, at gigs, in friends’ bands, etc.,” Icasiano said. “By now, we’ve literally played thousands of gigs together.”

Icasiano and Welch’s development as musicians progressed together. “We would arrange jazz standards in really complicated ways,” Icasiano said. “Around the same time, we started getting into more experimental jazz and free-improvisation.”

The pair continued to challenge themselves. “As a band we started incorporating an electronic element into our compositions in order to give us another sonic palette to work with,” Icasiano said. “We would write specifically for each other and with the electronics in mind, which is partly why the music is so uniquely our own and has developed a sound like nothing I had yet heard.”

To further explore improvisation, Icasiano and Welch launched the Racer Sessions, a performance series and free-improvisational jam session on Sundays at Café Racer in the University District. “We have a close relationship with the folks at Café Racer, and our friend Drew Keriakedes, who was booking at the time, gave us Sunday nights to do whatever we wanted,” Icasiano said.

Out of these sessions, Icasiano’s record label Table & Chairs was formed. “There was a really amazing community that was growing around the Racer Sessions,” he explained. “New bands were being formed.

Everyone was recording their music. There was an electricity during that time period which, I think inspired a lot of creativity.

So, we decided to organize a bit further and build a platform for releasing our music and for the community.”

Since its inception, Table & Chairs has morphed into a broader service organization for musicians. “Table & Chairs functions mostly as an arts organization that focuses on musical performance and education,” Icasiano said. “We curate the weekly Racer Sessions. We curate the Second Wednesday series at Vermillion Gallery. We put on many other events throughout the year, including a big showcase at The Ballard Jazz Festival each year.”

Since October 2015, Table & Chairs has also acted as an educational organization.

Improvisation is for Everyone! is a free workshop held on the third Sunday of each month where musicians can learn the fundamental skills of instrumental improvisation.

And beginning in September, Table & Chairs will revamp its Masterclass Series

at Cornish College of the Arts as part of the “Cornish Presents” events. “This will be an open forum for performance and conversation,” Icasiano said. “We will be having local groups talk about their musical process and trajectory as a band, and they can talk firsthand about the challenges of starting and maintaining a band.”

This is all part of Icasiano’s mission to help aspiring young musicians, for whom he has some basic advice: “Be empathetic.

Listen. Don’t be an asshole. Give more than you take. Commit to your craft. Find your community. Challenge yourself, whether it’s in your music or in your career,” he said. But most of all, he emphasized, “Be patient.”

He continues practicing his own advice as he looks toward the future for his jazz duo.

“My upcoming plans are to push Bad Luck as far as it can possibly go,” he said. “We have a new record that we recorded with producer Randall Dunn and will hopefully be releasing it in early 2017.”

But his goals are larger than just one record.

“I look forward to putting together really diverse shows and challenge audiences,” he said. “I want to continue fighting against the systemic racism and sexism that exists in the music industry.”

Icasiano has already taken steps toward that goal. “We have adjusted our process for curating the Racer Sessions in order to combat the inequity,” he said. “Part of the function of the educational programs is also to provide an opportunity to actively reach a more diverse audience.”

At heart, each of Icasiano’s goals is centered on striving for excellence. “I look forward to being a better musician, and partner, and friend, and activist.”

Chris Icasiano plays as a duo in his group with sax player Neil Welch called Bad Luck.

They open for the group Conference Call as part of the Earshot Jazz Festival on Sunday, October 23 at 8:00 p.m. at Seattle Art Museum downtown in the Plestcheeff Auditorium. For tickets call 206-547-6763 or go to www.earshot.org

Arahmaiani: ‘To change, we must work together’

By Roxanne Ray IE Contributor Climate change is a global issue that particularly affects island nations, and Indonesia is no exception. Raising concern about this global and local issue is Indonesian performance and graphic artist Arahmaiani, who will come to the Pacific Northwest region for the first time as a keynote speaker at the upcoming 2016 Southeast Asia Symposium, hosted by University of Puget Sound in Tacoma.

Arahmaiani is a multi-media specialist whose performances address a wide variety of social topics ranging from militarization, political corruption, the role of women in Islamic societies, and the effects of each of these on our global environment.

Her practice stems from experiments that began in the 1980s: “I developed a kind of trans-disciplinary approach,” Arahmaiani said, including, “dance, music, and writing essays, besides making art and performance,

but also with social, political, and environmental activities.”

Arahmaiani first began these street performances three decades ago after feeling disappointed with her formal education, but these politically-oriented performances were not always popular with the Indonesian government.

Arahmaiani “Reaction can be hard,” Arahmaiani said. “In 1983, I was arrested by the military, during the military regime time, and in 1993, I was getting a kind of death threat from hard-liner Islamists. They said that they would drink my blood, as I was considered to be doing blasphemous work.”

While these incidents were frightening, Arahmaiani now feels a sense of pride. “I'm the first Indonesian to receive this kind of threat!” she said.

The political and governmental pressure later eased but didn’t cease altogether. “In

2006, I was searched by the so-called religious police in Malaysia,” she said, “and I had to escape to Singapore.”

Regardless of these threats, Arahmaiani continued her work and spread it internationally. “So far the response from the international art scene I’ve gotten has been mostly positive,” she said. Although positive response was slow to build, she reports, “today, surprisingly I get a lot of positive comments and reviews!”

In addition to performing, Arahmaiani has tried to change the educational system that she found so disappointing decades ago.

“But I work on the street,” she said, “a kind of open alternative art school. And it is for free!”

She has engaged in this teaching work both in her home country and around the world. “In the last five years, I've also been teaching in the Department of South East Asia in Passau University in Germany, teaching the students the trans-disciplinary

approach and its implementation on reality through creativity.” And now she comes to the United States to share her work.

Arahmaiani’s upcoming keynote presentation will include video and images of her performance work, and her topical focus remains the global environment and climate change. “We need to seriously deal with environmental problems locally and globally, because they are connected,” she said. “So we need to work together, no matter what you believe in or your cultural background.”

Arahmaiani insists that collaboration is key: “It is time for us to try to understand each other and work together to save the planet and the future generation!”

Arahmaiani gives her keynote presentation, “Between the Mountain & the Sea,” at the 2016 Southeast Asia Symposium, October 28 to 29 at University of Puget Sound, 1500 North Warner Street, Tacoma. For more information, visit www.pugetsound. edu/liase/2016-symposium.

12 — October 19, 2016 – November 1, 2016

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

IE ARTS

Dipika Guha’s Mechanics of Love explains the unexplainable

By Roxanne Ray IE Contributor Early autumn is a time of transition, and local theatre company SIS Productions is featuring that most transitional—and transformational—feeling in its next production: love.

SIS will present Dipika Guha’s play Mechanics of Love, as a continuation of the theme of love highlighted in its long-running series Sex in Seattle. “We love scripts about ideas, especially ones that explore relationships with a sense of humor,” said Kathy Hsieh, a founder and co-executive producer of SIS Productions, and an actor playing the role of Faizi in this production. “Our regular fans are excited because we haven't done a real romantic comedy in four years, and that's where we began.”

The enthusiasm of SIS audiences appears to be well-justified. “Love is one of the most Googled words,” Hsieh added. “It's one of the concepts that scientists are still trying to figure out, comprehend, dissect, and make sense of.

Yet it's probably the most intangible real thing that everyone in the world feels but can't quite explain.”

Playwright Dipika Guha says that the specifics of this play developed out of larger societal trends that she witnessed. “We lived in Russia in the late ’90s, so I had a sense of what the air feels like in a country in transition,” Guha said.

“There was a sense of great risk and adventure as the old rules come apart and before new rules are articulated and codified.”

Guha believes that these kinds of times foster experimentation. “I’m interested in this ‘soft space’ or space in transition,” she said.

“It seems to me that this is where the greatest creative leaps are made; a space where no possibilities are ruled out.”

Next, she began to develop the plot outline.

“The container of this historical time seemed a useful way to think about some of the questions in the play about the nature of love and our desire to hold on to our ideas about it despite the flux of life,” she said. “The narrative arcs for the characters came very organically as the story began to take shape.”

Guha has come a long way since her early childhood to become a writer. “When we first

moved to England, I was two years old and didn’t speak any English. For a multiplicity of reasons, uppermost of which was likely a mixture of fear and shame about making a mistake with the language, I felt afraid to speak,” she said. “But when I was six, someone put me on stage and all my fear evaporated: I was someone else. That connection between theatre and a sense of liberty has stayed with me my whole life.”

After age 20, Guha struggled with determining her future, and began to write a little bit each day. Eventually, she applied for the Frank Knox Memorial Fellowship at Harvard University, and received the opportunity to attend Harvard for nine months, during which time she wrote her first play. “That process of being entrusted with time to develop helped me figure out how to turn my longtime devotion into language and it changed my life,” she said.

Now Guha is immersed in the challenges of a career in theatre. “A lot of the ways in which plays get out in the world and produced can feel opaque, illogical and entirely out of the writer’s control,” she said. “But I started writing because I wanted to have the liberty to speak in my own voice in a form I understood and loved. This work asks that I am courageous and inventive and generous and gives me continuous opportunity to grow as a person.”

Guha also strives to share what she’s learned with others, primarily through teaching playwriting. “People who have not experimented with their creativity are sometimes astonished to learn that it’s still there,” she said. “My job is to invite people to fall in love with their own voices.”

If so, then the job of a theatre company is to invite its audiences to fall in love with the voices of all of the artists involved in the collaborative process of creating theatre. “I first met Dipika via Hedgebrook's Women's Playwrights Festival. I fell in love with her writing then,” said Kathy Hsieh. “She writes these magical pieces that are incredibly quirky on the surface but rich with thought-provoking layers.”

Hsieh highlights the atypical focus on Guha’s script on lesser-considered practices

Luisa Frasconi and Damien Seperi in Mechanics of Love. • Photo by Cheshire Isaacs

of love. “What's intriguing about the script is that it explores the concept of love at its most worthy,” she said. “Not by comparing it to its darker consequences like jealousy, manipulation, revenge—but instead positing what the world might be like if love were more socialistic rather than capitalistic. If people shared love more generously. If it was free and for the benefit of all and not considered a commodity.”

Director David Hsieh (brother of Kathy) echoes her point about the play’s intrigue.

“Mechanics of Love is an unusual play that seems very different from anything I've ever directed before,” he said. “It has been interesting working with the cast and crew my sister assembled and exploring and creating this unique mythological world of the play.”

This opportunity for creativity extends to the entire artistic team. “Because this play lives in a world between fantasy and reality the props do not have to be literal,” said prop designer Celeste Mari Williams. “I have the opportunity to think outside the box and make creative and clever choices.”

The actors agree. “My character is Francesca,” said actor Mona Leach. “The most interesting thing about her is that she lives in the moment and is in a constant state of transformation to live life to the fullest.”

Likewise, Kathy Hsieh has been challenged by her unique character, Faizi. “I'm so not like the character I play, that it's been really hard

work exploring such a different type of person while trying to keep her honest at the same time,” Hsieh said. “A lot of the rehearsal process has been a two-step process: First thinking, what would I do in this situation and then doing the exact opposite!”

Actor Josh Kenji also emphasizes how different his character, George, is within Mechanics of Love. “While Glen is off forgetting, Francesca is off flying, and Faizi is running around, George is the one who sits down and thinks about how and why things work the way they do,” Kenji said. “While he's more an average Joe than a contemporary of Aristotle, it is his grounded logical approach that pulls George into the shifting relationships within the play.”

The SIS Production is strongly rooted in the Asian American community, drawing artistic contributions from theatre artists involved in a wide array of other projects and theatre companies, including assistant producer Roger Tang, who is involved in the National Asian American Theatre Conference and Festival.

Guha said that Mechanics of Love itself also has strong Pacific Northwest connections. “I began writing the play in Alaska when I was teaching at Perseverance Theatre and finished it in Seattle when I was in residence at One Coast Collaboration,” Guha said. “So I’m particularly excited to be able to share it with Seattle audiences.”

The SIS team is enthusiastic too. “I never thought about love as a commodity before, but the play really made me realize how much we Americans treat love that way—how possessive we are about the ones we love,” Kathy Hsieh said. “And I think it's great that the play helps us consider other possibilities that are far more healthy and positive.”

But Hsieh emphasizes that the play isn’t prescriptive. “In Mechanics of Love, Dipika isn't trying to explain how love works,” she said.

“Rather, she's trying to show that it can't ever be completely comprehensible.”

Mechanics of Love runs from October 21 to November 5 at Theatre Off Jackson, at 409 Seventh Avenue South, Seattle. For more information, visit www.theatreoffjackson.org/event/1359/mechanics-of-love.

Viet Dinh’s After Disasters is about human desire

By Vinh Do IE Contributor

Wildfire spreading across California.

Cholera breaking out in Haiti. Civil war ensnaring children in Syria. Flooding in Louisiana. All this from a major American newspaper reported in August alone. These are reported disasters. One wonders how many other calamities have not made it to the front page of the newspapers. If there was an age of disasters, our times would qualify as one. And so Viet Dinh’s After Disasters, comes out as a novel that speaks to our times.

The novel loops together four stories of those who responds to disasters: a British aid worker, two American officials from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and an Indian doctor. An earthquake in the Gujarat state of India in and around the town of Bhuj has brought them together under the guidance of their respective governments.

(The earthquake, a real event that occurred

in January 2001, measured a 6.9 on the Richter scale and killed more than 20,000.)

This is about responders to disasters. It turns out that they carry within themselves personal narratives of disasters and survival and a marked kind of fragility—a fragility born of holding together a life while mediating between forces of disaster and survival.

The Indian doctor, Dev, manages to hold together a marriage all the while nurturing a secret other life.

The British aid worker, Andy, is tormented by his family’s past and harbors an identity that his male colleagues in the fire and rescue unit are at odds with. And among the two Americans, Ted is an escapee of failed relationships hoping to find meaning through his humanitarian work while Piotr, perhaps the most rationale of the four, is haunted by nightmares of disasters yet to come.

Disasters have a certain appeal for us who read them from the safety of a newspaper.

We like to hear of the impact in body counts and in damages collateral or otherwise. Yet we know little of the lives of responders. Dinh reports on these lives and writes in a spare way that renders them as neither heroes or burnt out cases. The pace is fast and measured sometimes in earthquake response time: 12 hours after the earthquake, 48 hours, 72 hours, etc. Dev, Ted, Andy and Piotr are human beings doing a professional job of answering the needs of other distressed human beings. They become interesting when details of who they are before and after the earthquake are revealed and they become human when we witness that the after-effects of the earthquake on their psyche and comportment.

Dinh breaks the quick pace of his novel in two places. In one part, he zeroes in

on a surgery of an injured aid worker and spends two pages describing in a second by second play a clinician’s attempts to reverse the dying process. This comes to naught.

Because this book is not about heroes, even aid workers are spared disasters.

In another part, he gives readers a break (the section is called “Relief”) by delving into Ted’s romantic involvements. This is perhaps the most touching part of the book and it made me recall Gabriel García Márquez’s Love in the Cholera where Márquez also describes the appearance of love in inopportune times.

Where García Márquez injects wry humor, Dinh attempts here to draw out the human desire that propels his characters. Even when times are fraught—or because of it—humans form relationships. The humans in this novel find that in “periods after disasters, they catch up and catch their breath.”

Disasters may sever limbs and but it can also connect.

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

October 19, 2016 – November 1, 2016 — 13

IE ARTS

Koon Woon’s Paper-son Poet explores shadows, realities of the past

By Russell Leong IE Contributor

Koon Woon’s Paper-son Poet: When Rails were Young, A Memoir, a poetic, multi-genre memoir of his growing up both in China and America has finally reached the shores of all who read English in the Pacific Rim. He continues in this newest book to “tell the truths” of life as it is lived—but if you are a new reader do not mistake his writing for a raw, unfiltered immigrant biography.

In prologue to this book that consists of prose stories, poems, and an extensive transcribed interview by Frank Chin that comprises the second section, Koon Woon characterizes himself thusly: “You are the dragon on the wall / You are the railroad when America was young.” Koon contextualizes his own coming of age as a boy in Southern Guangdong Province with his coming of age later in America, working, studying, and struggling with poverty, mental illness, and loneliness in America, with early Chinese railroad workers who had arrived a hundred years prior.

Koon Woon’s great-grandfather, Lock Lick, in fact had gone to Hoquiam, Washington to run a laundry and restaurant. Later, Lock Lick’s son, however, was an alleged wastrel and died somewhere in Canada without reporting the existence of his Chinaborn son, (Koon Woon’s father). Thus, when Koon Woon’s father needed to immigrate to the United States he had to buy a “paperson” immigration paper from the Woon family. Like other Chinese, Koon Woon’s father then was detained at Angel Island in San Francisco, the Ellis Island of the West.

Koon Woon writes with the wisdom of a 66-year old man who retains in his bones and blood a much younger mastery of form: what I call “word gungfu”–muscular, dynamic, and versatile, springing with alacrity

or moving trance-like in meditation. His poetry and prose in the first half of the memoir draws from the wellspring of childhood in the village under Communism: helping his father plant and harvest rice, as well as attending Party meetings as a young child, amidst playing cards and poker games, fishing, eating, washing, and, of course, fighting, only to have “to try to wash the blood in the lotus pond.” Then, on October 31, 1960 his plane lands at Sea-Tac airport in Washington State after a journey from Hong Kong, Taipei, and Tokyo.

That flight marks the beginning of his journey both away from Asia, and his later return, through poetry and memory, to rediscover the meaning of his life and consciousness of being a man treading water that overlaps upon dual shores.

Koon Woon was born “Locke Kau Koon” in Nan On Village in Guangdong Province and was part of the 19th and 20th century migration of Toishan peoples from the Pearl River Delta to America. His actual surname is Locke, and his family in fact is related to Washington’s most well-known politician, Gary Locke. Koon Woon himself immigrated to the United States in 1960 to Aberdeen Washington, worked in the family restaurant, and studied mathematics and philosophy at the University of Washington.

Later, he completed degrees in creative writing and began to publish books of poetry, which were well-received by literary critics and readers alike.

While some of the concerns of his work (migration, displaced family, and harsh journeys) recall earlier poems from “Songs of Gold Mountain” (1911-1915), or poems

written by sojourners on Angel Island before World War II, Koon Woon work differs in that it is written entirely in the English-language. More important, his writing is also tempered by the irony, humor, and brashness of the West Coast beat generation poets—including Kerouac and Ginsberg together with ancient Tang poets and classic Chinese novels such as the Three Kingdoms and Journey to the West. This all makes for an intoxicating, caffeine-rich East-West brew not unlike the Hong Kong drink “yin-yang” which combines the bittersweet taste of both tea and coffee in one satisfying cup.

Koon Woon’s lyric artistry surprises and delights, here is one example in his long poem, “Song of the Village (In Water Buffalo Time),” an ode to his growing-up in Nan-On village: She gives me crackers and tea, and draws the mosquito net.

I hear a faint moan from the water buffalo.

He too will be librated…

Dragonflies hover over chrysanthemums Like helicopters over a burning forest.

Bananas and grapes bunch together like families.

Women splash buckets into the well.

I look for the faint prints of water buffalo …

Extending the range of his previous two books of poetry, Paper-son Poet provides us with a contemporary, allegorical Asian version of Plato’s “cave,” whereby people chained and facing the wall of a cave begin to interpret and give names to the shadows they see, mistakenly taking shadows for re-

ality rather than ascertaining the philosophical truth behind. In Koon Woon’s book, the “shadows” include both the fractured memories of his Asian past, as well as the realities of the American present that include daily encounters with good or bad feng shui at work or in love, coupled with bouts of mental illness, and observations on the highly stratified class structures of traditional Chinatowns in Seattle and San Francisco, whereby the merchants count their profits, and male and female workers are systematically exploited both by their own kin and by the society-at-large.

In essence, then, Koon Woon in his daring first memoir unveils the cave’s shadows to reveal spiritual and psychological truths of being a man, a poet, and a modern Asian American dancing on the tightrope of consciousness. In so doing, he must call out the shadows of race, class, and politics for what they are—illusion—and replace them with his own names, his own words, his own sentences, his own being.

Each reader, through perusing KoonWoon’s Paper-son Poet can step out of the cave of festering, hackneyed old stories, thus freer of the illusions that have bound him or her. To borrow from the author, “The rails are still young,” and it’s time to board the train—to Asia, to the Americas—seeing them in a new light.

Koon Woon will give two readings from his new memoir ‘Paper Son Poet’ (Goldfish Press). On Thursday, November 3, he will read with Dan Raphael and Willie Smith and an open mic preceding the reading at Couth Buzzard Books (8310 Greenwood Ave. N) at 7:00 p.m. On Thursday, November 10, he will read with Katie Tynan and Roselle Kovitz and an open mic at an “It’s About Time Writers’ Reading Series” event at Ballard Branch Public Library (5614 22nd Ave. N.W.) at 6:00 p.m. Free.

Ken Matsudaira exhibit demonstrates ganbare spirit

By Rumi Tsuchihashi IE Contributor

Because of construction to the White River Valley Museum’s main entry, all visitors are ushered into the museum through a side door.

Open another door, and one is suddenly at the mid-point of the Handmade in Camp—What We Couldn’t Carry special exhibit in the Key Bank Gallery.

This slightly jarring welcome into a space filled with over 60 personal artifacts—painstakingly strung shell necklaces; a well-worn embossed leather wallet; and a Butsudan, a Buddhist altar often found in Japanese homes, all line that first hall—makes one feel for a brief moment as if they’ve trespassed into someone’s personal space. This brush with personal violation may not have been a curated experience, yet it is remarkably appropriate. It puts into acute context Executive Order 9066, which mandated the incarceration of West Coast Japanese Americans to Concentration Camps, and robbed these White Valley residents—whose creations grace this exhibit—of their personal liberty.

The curatorial theme centers around the single suitcase each family was allowed to bring upon forced removal from their homes.

“Allowed to bring only what they could carry in a suitcase,” says guest curator Ken Matsudaira, “Japanese Americans had to make do with very few possessions. Consequently, they

made furniture, clothing, tools and many other items with materials found in camp.” There are paintings, needlework, a scrapbook, dolls, games, toys, and quilts on display, all borrowed from local residents, all made out of prisonscavenged materials, and most never before shown publicly.

Some of the interpretive signage (a copy of the Executive Order 9066, and a statement about it being an incarceration order as opposed to a more benevolent sounding but inaccurate evacuation or even internment) give grim reminders of the hardship Japanese Americans were unjustly placed into. These anchors will be necessary as one travels through the exhibit, as the intricacy and humble beauty of the craft on display, and the matter-of-factness of the personal quotes that accompany the items, almost threaten to make visitors forget what kind of harsh conditions these ordinary citizens were placed into when they made these items, and why they made them at all.

The exhibit follows six story themes. The first, “Leaving Home,” prominently features a display of two stacked wooden suitcases presumably used in May 1942. Neither measures much more than 2’ x 3’, poignantly underscoring the “What We Couldn’t Carry” subtitle of the show. Still, the cabinet upon which the suitcases are placed makes a far greater impression. Created out of scraps by Kiyoshi Takamoto at Tule Lake concentration camp, the cabinet is striking in its precise carpentry; its

Bird Pin, by relative of Greg Kono

asymmetrical, tansu-inspired design; the patina on the small metal knobs; and its overall regal presence.

In the “Passing the Time” section, there’s a glass case featuring a photograph of women preparing shells for jewelry making. Each of these shells were dug up from desert sand, sifted through, cleaned, and sorted. Some of these shells were then painted bright marigold and pearlescent ivory with unknown material Mrs. Sugahara (first name unknown) managed to source at Tule Lake, and transformed into impressive corsages resembling camellia blossoms and flowering cherry branches.

Understatement is common in the quotes featured alongside the artifacts. “Since this is my day off, I made a chair ...” writes Kashiro Mizuno, who was incarcerated at three different camps along with his wife Shizue and their

four children, and kept a daily diary through his imprisonment. Arriving in the United States in 1914, Mizuno was part of the Issei generation, and settled in Christopher nearly three decades before World War II. The chair he refers to is both sturdy and elegant, suggesting no trace of his troubles.

There are photographic displays along with related artifacts for each of the six story themes, which also include “Food in Camp,” “School at Camp,” “Work in Camp,” and “The Barracks.”

(Smartphone users are encouraged to download the Stqry app, where the museum has posted video interviews related to each theme).

Throughout the exhibit, the spirit of a common Japanese saying rings through: ganbare.

Roughly translating to “hang in there” or “you can do it,” ganbare has an emphasis on the collective, a sense of being in a common predicament that together as a group, individuals will transcend. Matsudaira succeeds in demonstrating the ganbare spirit that permeated Japanese American community through the atrocity that was Executive Order 9066, and in this exhibit, each individual story told and each item made are indeed “a testament to human ingenuity, craft and courage.”

‘Handmade in Camp—What We Couldn’t Carry’ is open Wednesday through Sunday through November 6 at White River Valley Museum (918 H St. SE, Auburn, WA 98002.

For more information, visit www.wrvmuseum. org.

14 — October 19, 2016 – November 1, 2016

Arts & Culture

Professional & Leadership Development

Asia Pacific Cultural Center 4851 So. Tacoma Way Tacoma, WA 98409 Ph: 253-383-3900 Fx: 253-292-1551 faalua@comcast.net www.asiapacificculturalcenter.org Bridging communities and generations through arts, culture, education and business.

Education For more information: Ph: 206-767-8223 Email: info@deniselouie.org Website: www.deniselouie.org Offering home visiting services for children birth to 3 and full & part-day multicultural preschool education for ages 3 to 5 in the International District, Beacon Hill and Rainier Beach.

Homeownership Services HomeSight 5117 Rainier Ave S, Seattle, WA 98118 ph: 206-723-4355 fx: 206-760-4210 www.homesightwa.org NMLS#49289 HomeSight creates homeownership opportunities through first mortgage lending, down payment assistance, real estate development, homebuyer education, and counseling.

Executive Development Institute 310 – 120th Ave NE. Suite A102 Bellevue, WA Ph. 425-467-9365 • Fax: 425-467-1244 Email: edi@ediorg.org • Website: www.ediorg.org EDI offers culturally relevant leadership development programs.

Senior Services

1601 E Yesler Way, Seattle, WA 98122 ph: 206-323-7100 www.keironorthwest.org rehabilitation care | skilled nursing | assisted living | home care | senior day care | meal delivery | transportation | continuing education | catering services

Queen Anne Station, P.O. Box 19888, Seattle, WA 98109 info@naaapseattle.org, www.naaapseattle.org Fostering future leaders through education, networking and community services for Asian American professionals and entrepreneurs.

Facebook: NAAAP-Seattle Twitter: twitter.com/naaapseattle

Senior Services Horizon House

900 University St Seattle, WA 98101 ph: 206-382-3100 fx: 206-382-3213 marketinginfo@horizonhouse.org www.horizonhouse.org A welcoming community in downtown Seattle, offering seniors vibrant activities, independent or assisted living, and memory care.

The Kin On Team is ready to serve YOU! www.kinon.org

Social & Health Services

Cathay Post #186 of The American Legion Supporting veterans for over 70 years Accepting new members - contact us today to learn more!

P.O. Box 3281 Seattle, WA 98144-3281 Email: cathaypost@hotmail.com Phone: (206) 762-4058

International District Medical & Dental Clinic 720 8th Avenue S, Seattle, WA 98114 ph: 206-788-3700 email: info@ichs.com website: www.ichs.com

We make leadeRS

Housing Services InterIm Community Development Association 310 Maynard Ave S, Seattle, WA 98104 Ph: 206-624-1802 Services: 601 S King St, Ph: 206-623-5132 Interimicda.org Multilingual community building: housing & parking, housing/ asset counseling, projects, teen leadership and gardening programs.

COMMUNITY RESOURCE DIRECTORY

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

Southeast Seattle Senior Center 4655 S. Holly St., Seattle, WA 98118 ph: 206-722-0317 fax: 206-722-2768 kateh@seniorservices.org www.sessc.org Daytime activities center providing activities social services, trips, and community for seniors and South Seattle neighbors. We have weaving, Tai Chi, indoor beach-ball, yoga, dance, seniororiented computer classes, trips to the casino, and serve scratch cooked lunch. Open Monday through Friday, 8:30-4. Our thrift store next door is open Mon-Fri 10-2, Sat 10-4. This sweet center has services and fun for the health and well-being of boomers and beyond. Check us out on Facebook or our website.

Social & Health Services Asian Counseling & Referral Service

3639 Martin Luther King Jr. Way S, Seattle, WA 98144 ph: 206-695-7600 fx: 206-695-7606 events@acrs.org www.acrs.org ACRS offers multilingual, behavioral health and social services to Asian Pacific Americans and other lowincome people in King County.

601 S King St. Seattle, WA 98104 ph: 206-682-1668 website www.apicat.org Address tobacco control and other health justice issues in the Asian American/Pacific Islander communities.

Bellevue Medical & Dental Clinic 1050 140th Avenue NE, Bellevue, WA 98005 ph: 425-373-3000 Shoreline Medical & Dental Clinic 16549 Aurora Avenue N, Shoreline, WA 98133 ph: 206-533-2600 Holly Park Medical & Dental Clinic 3815 S Othello St, Seattle, WA 98118 ph: 206-788-3500 ICHS is a non-profit medical and dental center that provides health care to low income Asian, Pacific Islanders, immigrants and refugees in Washington State.

Fearless Asians for Immigration Reforms (FAIR!) ph: 206-578-1255 Info@ItShouldBeFair.com www.ItShouldBeFair.com

Free and confidential support for undocumented Asians and Pacific Islanders. DACA screenings, financial assistance, legal help, scholarships, DACA renewals, and consultations for service providers. Benefits include: work permit, $$ for school, protection from deportation, driver’s license.

7301 Beacon Ave S Seattle, WA 98108 ph: 206-587-3735 fax: 206-748-0282 www.idicseniorcenter.org info@idicseniorcenter.org IDIC is a nonprofit human services organization that offers wellness and social service programs to Filipinos and API communities.

Kawabe Memorial House 221 18th Ave S, Seattle, WA 98144 ph: 206-322-4550 fx: 206-329-3330 connie.devaney@gmail.com We provide affordable, safe, culturally sensitive housing and support services to people aged 62 and older.

ph: 206-624-3426 transia@aol.com

Merchants Parking provides Chinese Information & Service Center 611 S Lane St, Seattle, WA 98104 ph: 206-624-5633 fax: 206-624-5634 info@cisc-seattle.org www.cisc-seattle.org Creating opportunities for Asian immigrants and their families to succeed by helping them make the transition to a new life while keeping later generations in touch with their rich heritage.

Seattle Chinatown/International District Preservation and Development Authority ph: 206-624-8929 fx: 206-467-6376 info@scidpda.org Housing, property management and community development.

convenient and affordable community parking. Transia provides community transportation: para-transit services, shuttle services, and field trips in and out of Chinatown/International District, and South King County.

Organization of Chinese Americans Asian Pacific American Advocates Greater Seattle Chapter P.O. Box 14141 Seattle, WA 98114 www.ocaseattle.org

Legal Services Public Interest Law Group, PLLC 705 Second Avenue, Suite 1000, Seattle WA 98104 Ph: 206-838-1800 Email: info@pilg.org www.pilg.org PILG attorneys Hank Balson, Wendy Chen, and Nancy Chupp provide information, advice, and representation in areas such as employment discrimination, unpaid wages, and other violations of workers’ rights.

Legacy House

803 South Lane Street Seattle, WA 98104 ph: 206-292-5184 fx: 206-838-3057 info@legacyhouse.org www.scidpda.org/programs/legacyhouse.aspx Description of organization/services offered: Assisted Living, Adult Day Services, meal programs for lowincome seniors.

Commission on Asian Pacific American Affairs GA Bldg., 210 11th Ave SW, Suite 301A Olympia, WA 98504 ph: (360) 725-5667 www.facebook.com/wacapaa capaa@capaa.wa.gov www.capaa.wa.gov Statewide liaison between government and APA communities.

Monitors and informs the public about legislative issues.

OCA—Greater Seattle Chapter was formed in 1995 and since that time it has been serving the Greater Seattle Chinese and Asian Pacific American community as well as other communities in the Pacific Northwest. It is recognized in the local community for its advocacy of civil and voting rights as well as its sponsorship of community activities and events.

2500 NE 54th Street Seattle, WA 98105 ph: 206-694-4500 info@youthcare.org www.youthcare.org

Working to prevent and end youth homelessness with services including meals, shelter, housing, job training, education, and more.

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

October 19, 2016 – November 1, 2016 — 15

IE ARTS

Films: SSAFF returns, Sky Ladder on Netflix is spectacular

By Yayoi L. Winfrey IE Contributor

Once again, it’s time for the Seattle South Asian Film Festival. This year’s selections, from Afghanistan, America, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Canada, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, include the following: Gardaab is the Urdu word for “whirlpool.”

It’s also an accurate description of a narrative film with the same title. As soon as the betrothed daughter of a Pakistani druglord shows interest in the protégé of her father’s enemy, it’s obvious things aren’t going to end well. Indeed, as events intensify near the film’s end, it’s advisable to watch through fanned fingers. One restless night, a gang of rebellious Karachi drug dealers crash a party hosted by their rivals—held at the aforementioned daughter’s family home. Dragging along their brooding friend, Shahbaz (Fawad Khan), the men sneak into the segregated male section of the house. Meanwhile, Shahbaz wanders away and discovers where the women are; drinking alcohol-spiked lassis. Upon meeting Parveen (Amna Ilyas), he’s instantly smitten and begins pursuing her not realizing that she’s his nemesis’ daughter. As they begin meeting covertly and falling deeply in love, Shabazz discovers Parveen’s family ties even while hiding his own terrible secret in fear of destroying their relationship. Complicating matters are Parveen’s chauvinist criminal father, her authoritarian brother who suggests an honor killing, and her bully of a fiancée. *** It takes a good 10 minutes of viewing Cities of Sleep, before the realization hits that

this documentary is not fiction. That’s how dramatic real-life characters appear in this hypnotic film about finding a place to sleep.

Imagine spending every night wandering around a boisterous city in search of a clean and safe space to rest. The body and mind requires it, yet urban homelessness dictates otherwise. Under the Loha Pul, a two-tiered iron bridge near the Yamuna River in Delhi, up to 150 people sleep in a cinema run by Ranjeet, who explains that movies facilitate sleeping.

Then, there’s Jamal Bhai who provides rental cots and blankets, and sells chai and snacks, in Old Delhi’s Meena Bazaar. Meanwhile, a beggar, Shakeel, is desperate to locate sleeping quarters before the onset of the cold and rainy winter. With incessant horn honking and the deafening roar of overhead vehicles traveling on Loha Pul, it’s a miracle anyone can sleep at all. *** At six years old, Dinesh Sabu became orphaned when his father died of cancer and, a month later, his mother succumbed. Raised by two older sisters, who also cared for his two brothers, Sabu had no memory of who his parents were. So, he set out to make the documentary Unbroken Glass. In the course of filming, what he learns is so traumatic that one of his brothers unequivocally refuses to speak on camera. With a father who earned a PhD and a mother who was accepted to medical school, Sabu is shocked at recalling being left at home alone as a toddler in front of the TV. Further, growing up in Albuquerque, he yearns to know his roots and travels to India because, among other reasons, he says, “I did not even know if I was pronouncing my name correctly.”

*** Tackling issues of sexism, several men read aloud the experiences of females in the documentary Recitations Not from Memory.

Surprisingly, their resounding male voices add an eerie tone to their complaints of being ogled, inappropriately touched, or deflecting unwanted sexual advances. In neutral settings like Bangalore office spaces, the men express their outrage at patriarchy, making a clear case for empowering women.

*** In the Bangladeshi narrative, The Cart, two impoverished brothers (although one looks healthily plump) resort to mischievous thievery so they can buy parts for a cart to win a race. Their put upon single mother struggles at keeping them home for the summer while she works—even beating them with switches for disobeying her. But boys will be boys, and the two are determined to win the cart race. Like a NatGeo series, gorgeous photography permeates this idyllic romp through rural life. As the brothers cavort in a field of golden sunflowers against emerald palm trees standing like windmills, they emanate visual poetry. *** Waiting is the story of Shiv (Naseeruddin Shah), a retired professor whose wife of 40 years slipped into a coma while he was at a soccer match. Tara (Kalki Koechlin, “Margarita with a Straw”) is a young newlywed whose husband is unconscious following a horrible car accident. The two meet at the hospital where a cold-hearted doctor dictates the fate of their spouses. In this narrative, two vulnerable friends find their power by becoming decisionmakers for their voiceless loved ones.

*** Mithu (Noor Imran Mithu) has nightmares of ants eating his face. The protagonist in the narrative Ant Story, he’s an anti-hero fumbling one situation after another. Living at home in the ’burbs, the college grad finally lands a job—in multi-level marketing. But when Mithu buys the stolen cell phone of a famous Bollywood actress (Sheena Chohan), he invites trouble by bribing her over the nude photos stored in her phone.

11th Seattle South Asian Film Festival happens October 14 to 23. Visit ssaff.tasveer. org/2016 for more information. *** A newly released documentary on Netflix, Sky Ladder: The Art Of Cai Guo-Qiang” is a fascinating portrayal of the man who creates art with explosions. That is, fireworks. This dazzling yet structurally sound film about a Chinese pyrotechnical artist provides the viewer with a visual feast while examining his political and personal motivations. A darling of the modern art world, Cai wears a perpetually sunny smile and cherishes his supporters, including his devoted wife, other family members, his Japanese business partner, and his all-female team of assistants.

After failing three times over 20 years at creating a 1650-foot ladder to the sky before his sick grandmother passes away, Cai enlists the help of the entire village of Quanzhou where he grew up. The result, a gorgeous and fiery ladder connecting earth to heaven, is so spectacular that it defies description.

‘Sky Ladder: The Art Of Cai Guo-Qiang’ is on Netflix beginning October 14.

16 — October 19, 2016 – November 1, 2016

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

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