January 17, 2018

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

Seattleʼs Nonprofit Asian Pacific Islander News Source Since 1974

January 17 – February 6, 2018 — 1

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2 — January 17 – February 6, 2018

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

OPINION

Have you heard about the movement to clean up the broken tax system in Washington state?

By Velma Veloria IE Contributor In Washington, the wealthiest households pay less than 3% of their income in state and local taxes. Meanwhile, middle-income families pay around 10% and those with the least pay up to 17%. This structure is shocking.

In our state, low income families pay the greatest share of state and local taxes thanks to Washington’s uneven tax system. Communities of color are more likely to be in the lowest income group than other Washingtonians.

Southeast Asian families in particular face high levels of poverty in our communities, with over 80% of Cambodian students, 70% of Vietnamese students and 50% of other Southeast Asian students receiving free and reduced lunch at school.

That means Southeast Asian communities and other communities of color are likely to be among the highest taxed in our state.

Have you heard of the Soda Tax? You might only be paying 10 cents more for every soda you buy, but this new sales tax burdens low-income communities and communities of color the most. In fact, all sales taxes hit us the hardest. If Bill Gates and I both bought a soda, that sugary drink (plus the extra 10 cents) would cost a larger portion of my salary than his. The soda tax, and all sales taxes, unevenly impact lower-income families.

They are regressive taxes.

We know we can’t get something for nothing, and that investing in our communities is

important. To do so, we all need to pay our share, including the rich and powerful. In Washington, communities of color pay a disproportionate share, while wealthier families get a special deal. By January 9, the wealthiest households in our state have earned enough money to pay their share of state taxes for the entire year, while working people need more than two months to do the same.

This a broken system and it’s jeopardizing our future. If everyone, including the wealthiest residents, invested together in the foundations of a strong community, we could achieve great things, like excellent public schools, high quality healthcare, affordable housing and well maintained infrastructure.

But because the wealthy and powerful get a special deal, we aren’t able to invest in the foundations our communities need to thrive.

We all want great public schools in our state, but thanks to our unfair tax system, we’re unable to give all students the resources they need, and we’re seeing their academic performance suffer. Some kids continue to perform at lower than proficient standards, a sign that our education system is underserving certain groups of students, often low income children and children of color.

Southeast Asian children specifically face steep barriers to opportunity that keep them from reaching their full potential in school.

Our kids come up against extreme language barriers that prevent them from achieving.

But it doesn’t have to be like this. We can provide the support our children need, like Eng-

lish Language Learner and bilingual teaching programs if we all pay our share.

The first step to a thriving Washington is cleaning up our tax system. We lose billions of dollars every year through wasteful tax breaks and loopholes for big corporations and the wealthy, resources that should be invested in our public schools. If we end those special

deals, we’ll be able to provide more kids with a world class education.

For Southeast Asian families to succeed, we need to ensure that corporations and the wealthiest residents in our state pay their share. It’s time for us to work together to clean up the tax system so our community, and all communities in Washington, can thrive.

Our democracy needs automatic voter registration

By Derek Lum, APACE IE Contributor We’ve all been there before. You forgot to update your voting address, you just recently became a citizen, or maybe you forgot to turn in your voter registration form. For some reason, your voter registration is either wrong or out of date and you need to register to vote again.

If you want to participate in our democracy, you first need to register to vote. But among the daily time constraints we all experience – whether it’s looking after your loved ones, work or having fun, it’s easy to forget.

Our democracy is at its best when every voice is heard and every vote is counted.

In 2016, only 49% of API voters mailed in

IE

their ballots. And that doesn’t even count the people in our community who are eligible to vote, but have yet to register. You become another person that our outdated system has prevented from being able to vote.

you say otherwise. We are also advocating for the legislation to include strong protections that will protect undocumented people from being accidentally registered. This is particularly meaningful to our community People all over Washington face these because in Washington state, 14% of issues every day. Here at Asian Pacific undocumented people are API. Islander Americans for Civic Empowerment Registering to vote should be automatic. If (APACE) we are trying to change that. We you visit the Medicaid office, the Department are working with the Washington Voting of Licensing or update your information Justice Coalition to pass Automatic Voter with any government program, your voting Registration (AVR) in the state legislature. information should also get updated.

With this new legislation, registering to Every eligible voter should be able to fully vote is no longer needed, and one million participate in our democracy. unregistered voters would be able to do Automatic voter registration will be their duty to our democracy and vote! If you extremely helpful to many Washingtonians. interact with certain government programs, But it will be especially helpful to people in then you would be registered to vote unless

IE BOARD OF DIRECTORS Ron Chew, President Gary Iwamoto, Secretary Peggy Lynch, Treasurer Arlene Oki, At-Large Jordan Wong, At-Large Nam Le, At-Large

STAFF

COMMUNITY RELATIONS MANAGER Lexi Potter lexi@iexaminer.org

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.

BUSINESS MANAGER Ellen Suzuki finance@iexaminer.org FELLOWSHIP STAFF Bif Brigman Mitsue Cook EDITOR IN CHIEF Jill Wasberg editor@iexaminer.org

MANAGING EDITOR Chetanya Robinson chetanya@iexaminer.org ARTS EDITOR Alan Chong Lau arts@iexaminer.org CONTRIBUTORS Velma Veloria Derek Lum Leilani Leach Tim Gruver Eva Cohen Tracy Lai Chris Jeurgens Robert Hirschfield Roxanne Ray Wayne Muromoto Lyra Fontaine Clarissa Gines

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

our community. As a POC community, there are many reasons our voter registration might become inactive. Maybe we moved recently, or we simply did not see any candidates on the ballot that we want to vote for and haven’t voted in years. Whatever the reason, it is unfair that our community is punished because of this. We all deserve equal access to the ballot, and this legislation will bring us one step closer to true equity in voting. Please join APACE, APIC, One America and many other immigrant and refugee organizations in supporting the strongest version of this legislation possible. Please call 1-800-5626000 to voice your support for a strong AVR bill that includes multiple state agencies and protects undocumented people. Or go to leg. wa.gov to email your legislator.

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INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

NEWS

January 17 – February 6, 2018 — 3

The International Examiner hires Jill Wasberg as editor in chief The International Examiner The International Examiner recently hired Jill Hyesun Wasberg as the editor in chief. Her fi rst day was December 18, 2017.

Wasberg was most recently the director of development for public service journalism for the Seattle Times where she secured philanthropic funds for specific journalism initiatives. Prior to this, she was the resource development and marketing manager for InterIm Community Development Association where she led fundraising and communications strategies.

“It’s my goal to carry on that DIY spirit. And as Seattle’s API immigrant and refugee populations and communities of color expand beyond the borders of Seattle due to rising rents and displacement, we hope to expand our coverage, readership and distribution as well, as we continue to tell the stories of these communities.”

She has over 15 years of experience working for nonprofits in a number of roles including organizing, communications, media relations and fundraising.

She replaces Travis Quezon as editor in chief.

Wasberg brings with her a strong knowledge of the region’s philanthropic portfolio as well as a dedication to elevating the voice and impact of community-based journalism in the region.

Wasberg has a BA in English from the University of Washington and Masters in Environmental Studies from the Evergreen State College.

“The activists and community leaders who started the International Examiner Photo courtesy of Jill Wasberg As editor in chief, she can be reached over 40 years ago created this paper becommunities weren’t represented in at editor@iexaminer.org. cause their voices and their stories and mainstream media and newspapers so the things that were happening in their they created their own,” Wasberg said.

Activists launch campaign to change Washington state’s “xenophobic” wrongful death law

By Leilani Leach IE Contributor Nearly 60 activists and community members crowded into the 21 Progress office on Jan. 5 to launch a campaign to amend the state’s wrongful death laws. The laws have prevented the families of international students killed in a 2015 accident with Ride the Ducks vehicles from recovering damages from the company.

In September, 2015, a Ride the Ducks vehicle collided with a charter bus on the Aurora Bridge, killing five international students from North Seattle College and injuring dozens more. The families of the victims were prevented from suing for wrongful death under Washington state law, which requires parents to be U.S. residents and to have lost financial support from the child, if he or she was over the age of 18.

Haram Kim, from Korea, was 20 years old when she died of injuries sustained in the crash.

“We are embarrassed that we are treated differently than American citizens – and that Haram’s death means less because we do not live in the U.S.,” wrote Haram’s father, Kim Soon Won, in a statement read at the event.

In addition to the residency requirement, Washington is one of just three states to require parents to prove financial dependence on their adult child in order to sue for wrongful death. Bills introduced in both houses of the legislature would change these requirements.

In a statement read at the event, Sen. Bob Hasegawa (D-11) called the current law “an example of the harmful xenophobia and racism that has been allowed to stay in our state’s laws for far too long.” He has sponsored the senate bill to amend the law, SB 6015. Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos (D-37) sponsored the House version, HB 2262.

“It is my hope that with this bill, we can finally bring justice for the families, ensure that we do not perpetrate this wrong again, and make Washington a more welcoming state to all,” Hasegawa wrote.

The current version of the law was created in 1909. Ming-Ming Tung Edelman of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance said it was initially targeted at Chinese laborers.

Photo courtesy of the Seattle National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF)

“This is not right, it’s not what we should do in 2018,” she said.

Edelman pointed out the current law could impact anyone from tourists from Canada to international employees of companies like Amazon.

In his statement, Kim called the law discriminatory.

“It is not understandable that the United States, which is proud to be a world police officer, still has such unjust and unfair laws in its own country,” he wrote.

This is not the first attempt to amend the law. Previous bills have faced opposition from insurance companies, and concerns about potential liabilities and costs to the state, said Joseph Lachman of the Japanese American Citizens League.

Lachman said previous bills’ fiscal impacts were overestimated. There is not yet a fiscal note available for the current version of the bills, which were prefiled before the legislature convened on January 8. But the Washington State Association for Justice, one of the coalition groups campaigning for the amendment, estimated the cost to local governments would be less than a third of what was projected under earlier bills.

“In our view this shouldn’t be a fiscal issue, it’s a moral one,” Lachman said.

Emily Tasaka of the Associated Students of the University of Washington spoke about the importance of rallying other students to support the amendment, and how they can do so by sharing on social media, contacting their legislators, and showing up in Olympia for events like Huskies on the Hill.

“We need all the student voices possible,” Tasaka said.

She said even resident students whose parents are out of the country temporarily at the time of death could be impacted.

The coalition to amend the wrongful death law includes the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum Seattle, the Washington State Association for Justice, OCA Asian Pacific American AdvocatesGreater Seattle, Chinese American Citizens Alliance, Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, and the Japanese American Citizens League. Every speaker at the event urged people to contact their representatives, comment in support of the amendment, and endorse the measure online at: https:// actionnetwork.org/forms/wrongful-deathamendment-endorsement/ “They will make it a priority, they will listen to their constituents’ voices,” Lachman said.

Ride the Ducks International, the manufacturer of the Seattle duck boats, agreed in 2016 to pay up to $1 million in fines for violating federal safety laws. The company had found that some of the 2.5-ton amphibious vehicles could have defective front axles. But they did not notify regulators of the defect or issue a full recall, instead sending notices to buyers and relying on them to make the needed repairs, which Ride the Ducks of Seattle failed to do. Two years after the manufacturer’s warning, the duck vehicle’s axle broke off and the driver lost control, crossing the center line and plowing into the North Seattle College charter bus.

The Seattle tour company temporarily suspended operations after the accident, then added a second employee to narrate tours instead of asking drivers to drive and narrate simultaneously. The duck boats also no longer cross the Aurora Bridge.

Several suits were brought against Ride the Ducks Seattle and the vehicle’s manufacturer. A judge dismissed the Kim family’s case in 2016, citing the residency requirement and the requirement of financial dependency.

But for Kim’s family, no amount of compensation will replace what they lost. “(Haram) talked to us every day for at least an hour even when she was in America,” Kim wrote.

“There is not a single day that goes by without us thinking about her, struggling with our loss and missing her.”

The Senate version of the bill will be heard before the Committee on Law & Justice at 10 a.m. on Jan. 18. The public can also comment on the bill via the Legislature’s website: https://app.leg.wa.gov/pbc/ bill//6015

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4 — January 17 – February 6, 2018

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

NEWS

Activists discuss healthcare, environmental, criminal justice legislation affecting APIs

By Tim Gruver IE Contributor Around fifty people gathered at the Asian Counseling Referral Center (ACRS) on January 10 to discuss bills in the Legislature that could affect the state’s Asian-American and Pacific Islander community.

The meeting was led by Diane Narasaki, executive director of ACRS, who outlined the organization’s 2018 legislative agenda, which includes such issues as climate change, civil rights, healthcare and immigration.

Narasaki opened the meeting with an overview of how welfare cuts have affected minorities, particularly with the passage of President Bill Clinton’s Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. Turning the country’s welfare system into a federal entitlement, the measure lent states more flexibility in how they spent their welfare funds and establishing tougher work requirements on poor single mothers and increasing discrimination against minorities.

Environment During the meeting, Narasaki discussed how climate change disproportionately impacts marginalized communities in low-income neighborhoods which are exposed to excess carbon emissions from nearby freeways.

Places like Seattle’s Beacon Hill neighborhood, she said, are inundated wih air and noise pollution from the planes flying overhead from the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

While Washington has yet to pass a carbon tax, Narasaki proposed that carbon fees should be placed on the largest polluters. The revenue generated from such fees should be committed to renewable energy projects.

Healthcare Other topics included creating a premium assistance program providing healthcare for Pacific Islanders under House Bill 1291 and Senate Bill 5683, which failed to pass the state senate last year.

The measure would apply to low-income immigrants from the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Palau who live in Washington.

Narasaki also called for the Legislature to allocate an additional $250,000 for Washington’s Aged Blind and Disabled Program to provide dental coverage for vulnerable immi-

grants.

Poor oral health has been linked to increased risk for heart disease according to the Mayo Clinic.

As a preventative medicine, Narasaki said, dental care should be a moral and fiscal consideration for the Legislature to reduce the state’s overall healthcare costs.

“If you look at it from an economic perspective, it’s a good investment,” Narasaki said. “But we care about human beings and we know that this is the right thing to do.”

ACRS Civic Engagement Program Manager Joseph Lachman talked about the role America’s Cold War-era nuclear weapons testing in the South Pacific played in increasing risks of cancer for its residents. Providing healthcare for vulnerable Pacific Islander immigrants, he said, is long overdue.

Criminal justice Lachman advocated for the passage of Senate Bill 5073, which would lower the bar for prosecuting police who use deadly force.

Sponsored by state Sen. David Frockt (D46), the bill would change the existing statute that makes it almost impossible for prosecutors to criminally charge law-enforcement officers who wrongfully use deadly force. The bill received no legislative action last year.

Current law states that an officer cannot be charged if he or she acted in good faith and without malice when using deadly force.

The measure would remove the word “malice” and establish a clearer definition of “good faith” as it relates to police conduct. The bill would also include a dedicated state account to fund officer training, community outreach and a system to collect data on deadly use-offorce incidents.

Lachman related the bill to the fatal shooting of Tommy Le by a King County Sheriff’s deputy in Burien on June 14 as just one case that the bill would help.

Le, who was shot twice in the back and a third time in the back of his hand, allegedly approached deputies with an ink pen in his hand, refusing to stop and drop it, according to the King County Sheriff’s Office.

The initial press release sent out by the Sheriff’s Office did not specify what Le was holding when he was shot, leading to media reports that Le was approaching deputies with a knife.

By law, Lachman said, it is always difficult

Diane Narasaki, Executive Director of Asian Counseling and Referral Service, speaks at the Asian Counseling Referral Center on January 10. • Photo by Tim Gruver

to prove malice because, “You have to prove what an officer was thinking.” The bill, however, would be a step in the right direction, Lachman said.

The 2020 census The meeting also discussed issues at the federal level such as the 2020 census’s impact on undocumented immigrants.

Late last year, Census Bureau reportedly received a letter from a Justice Department official, who made the case for asking about citizenship.

The Census Bureau will collect responses in a routine field test of its 2020 questions starting in March – the final draft of those questions is due to Congress by the end of that month.

The data collected by the next headcount is used to determine how legislative districts are drawn, how many seats in the U.S. House of Representatives each state gets, and the distribution of more than $600 billion in federal funds a year.

Lachman said that the question is not only unnecessary, but could discourage turnout for fear of deportation. “People who are most marginalized could be pushed further to the margins.”

Community projects

Diane Narasaki and Joseph Lachman outline legislation affecting Washington’s Asian-American and Pacific Islander residents at the Asian Counseling Referral Center • Photo by Tim Gruver

The meeting also outlined several community projects, including the creation of a $600,000 Innovation Learning Center and Community Gathering Space Capital Project requested by the Filipino Community of Seattle.

The 4,800-square foot project center would be located in Filipino Community Village and include 70 new housing units for low-income seniors, and space for a computer lab, cultural classes, and a robotics training center.

Former Washington state Rep. Velma Veloria also discussed the 107-year-old Tacoma Community House’s plan to raise $11 million to replace the existing building with a new two-story, 27,000 square foot facility on the same block.

Lachman also outlined the Friends of Mukai group’s request to the Legislature to allocate $250,000 for the restoration of the Mukai Farmstead and Garden. The property was

built and owned by the Mukai family, who were incarcerated in internment camps during World War II under President Franklin Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, which interred all Japanese-Americans under suspicion of espionage. “[We are] in a time when it’s more important than ever that we preserve stories of immigrants and help people understand why their stories matter,” Lachman said.

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

NEWS

January 17 – February 6, 2018 — 5

Chinaʼs maturing film industry influences international Asian representation

By Eva Cohen IE Contributor The first Chinese-Italian co-production film recently premiered in Beijing to a venue full of film industry veterans and critics.

The movie, entitled Coffee, tells three stories from very different parts of the world: China, Italy and Belgium. Although the characters in each storyline face crises unique to their location, they are all tied together by the global themes of their struggles. It is a notable contribution to China’s growing and maturing film market, which has seen a steady increase over the past five years in genre and content diversity.

“It has a special meaning for all of us, because it is the first time there is a film representing [China] and Italy that has the Dragon Seal [the official seal from the government that shows up on the screen at the beginning of a film signifying that it has passed the censors and can be distributed],“ said the film’s director, Cristiano Bortone. “It’s interesting [to create content] for the Chinese audience and to watch that cross bridges between our two cultures and markets. I sense a lot of curiosity and also, I have to say, appreciation.”

At the same time as when work began on Coffee three years ago, Bortone founded the organization Bridging the Dragon, which has the express purpose of working toward cultural cooperation in telling stories through film. Bortone has been back and forth to China for quite some time; he teaches courses at the Beijing Film Academy, has learned some Chinese language, and directed the Chinese locally released film Red Like the Sky, and this has helped him to become acquainted with Chinese arts and culture.

This year, Bridging the Dragon has a lab with twelve projects, all of which focus on telling stories that can be consumed by a Chinese audience, but that have international aspects.

It is the global commonality expressed in Coffee, a film about the environment, that attracted the film’s Chinese partner, Cai Gongming, founder of Road Pictures, to the project.

“This film won’t get large distribution but was personally interesting to me, with its having a large focus on the environment,” says Cai. “We are living in one world, and the world is fragile, and we need to protect it, and I think this message is exactly what we want to send.”

After beginning work on Coffee, Cai’s company has become more involved with several co-productions, including two with Hollywood. Creating original crosscultural work was also a natural step for Cai, whose company also imports foreign films and buys three to four Intellectual Properties per year.

Cai says his team has seen firsthand how co-productions can be challenging, and that the industry as a whole has cooled on them, after recent larger-budget projects didn’t see the success producers had hoped for.

Still from the shooting of Coffee, a film that takes place in China, Italy and Belgium • Photo courtesy of Orisa Productions

motions of censorship which is always a big issue for all of us with fears of ‘oh my god, they’re going to rip my script apart,’” to finding a solution, he learned a lot. And while all of these aspects were challenging, he says it “felt like breaking the ice, like pioneering and doing something that But for Cai’s company, lack of suc- very little has been done of before, which cess for the large-budget U.S.-China co- will lead inevitably to more projects.”

“On a general level, I’m very optimisproductions is just a setback in a learning tic,” says Bortone “What’s happening process.

“The reason why we continue to be- here. . . it’s like Europe in the 60’s, there lieve in co-productions, even knowing all was a lot of enthusiasm about financing, of these challenges, knowing the cultural and naivety too, but we are learning by difference, the market difference and so making mistakes. Chinese people as they on, is because we want to make good travel, they go and then they come home movies with international content,” Cai and they want to drink the same French says. “Let’s say Coffee, the story is about wine, Italian pasta, maple syrup from a global world, and that is naturally a co- Canada, our cultures are merging, and there is curiosity between the cultures.” production.”

“In the beginning, co-production attracted a lot of attention, and a lot of money,” says Cai, “but then people would see that it is very challenging and the success is not there, and now they’re not going away, but they have a questionable attitude toward it.”

As an example, Cai points to one of the movies on their slate, The Diamond Age, which is an adaptation of Neal Stephenson’s 1995 best-selling science fiction novel about how technology affects the world in the future.

“This is more authentic to make, rather than wanting to ‘cook’ a co-production, and that’s the reason why we believe in these kind of projects,” says Cai, referring to when producers try to plan a movie with the goal of it being a co-production, because they want to make a project that can sell and make money in more than one market, rather than a project becoming an international production in an organic way because it needs international crew to meet what the story needs to come to life.

Bortone said that throughout the process of producing Coffee, whether working with Chinese partners, casting and directing actors in Chinese, assembling a Chinese crew, or “from going through the

who are not Han Chinese is scarce in the Chinese domestic market, so for Chinese financiers to attract an internationally renowned talent such as Damon to come and be in a film in China was viewed as a “win” in the potential for international growth and reach of Chinese films.

Whether the film was good or worth the level of investment put into it is a different matter.

“At least they tried,” says Cai of Great Wall.

Now, with Coffee under his belt, Cai says he sees room for more European cooperations, and that at the same time, Hollywood hasn’t diminished; there is just more room in general for diverse content.

Additionally, the presence of more Asian faces in international film will inevitably be reflected with an increased Many people in the U.S. probably heard presence of Asian faces across the globe about the controversy around the film at a domestic level, says Bortone.

Great Wall. Asian American talents such “Italy is a very provincial country, as as Constance Wu were vocal in saying that projects like these are a part of the are many in Europe, but I think many “white-washing” problem in the Ameri- people will be in for a rude awakening,” he says. “There are now also several Chican film and TV industry. nese people born in Europe making proWhile there are several aspects within duction companies, and we see more and the TV and film industry that could see more involvement by Chinese people in vast improvement in terms of representa- our economies.” tion, Great Wall perhaps was misunder“I would say right now there is more of stood on a domestic level. Would the same people saying Matt Damon being in a film a curiosity by the Chinese about Europe surrounded by a Chinese cast is inappro- than Europe about China, so far, but it priate have otherwise known about any will get there. So we will get used to their Chinese films that came out that year? stars, and their filmmakers – the world is Do they know who the famous director getting smaller. With this context, there Zhang Yimou is? Are they familiar with will be more and more space for movies any of the other very talented Chinese ac- like Coffee. There’s a shift and a whole generation of young Chinese who require tors who were cast in the film? more special content. If I can be a little In the past couple of years there have drop of this process, I’m very happy.” been some glaring examples of Asian characters being replaced by actors of other ethnicities, but inclusion of actors

6 — January 17 – February 6, 2018

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

ARTS

Start the year of the dog off with young adult social justice books A note from arts editor Alan Chong Lau: Welcome to Part 1 of our 2017 look back at books for kids and young adults.

Handling issues of social justice, community and history can be tricky in books for kids but not impossible. Our reviewers look at books that attempt this and note how well or not so well the authors do.

Thanks for reading and happy new year of the dog!

By Tracy Lai IE Contributor 101 Changemakers – Rebels and Radicals Who Changed US History by editors Michele Bollinger and Dao X. Tran. For ages 12 and above.

I love making lists and yet, there are only so many slots. In this case, a list of 101 social justice activists is more difficult than you might think! Kudos to editors Michele Bollinger and Dao X. Tran for recruiting more than 50contributors, including three in the Seattle area: Jesse Hagopian, Dan Troccoli (both members of the Seattle Education Association) and Leela Yellesetty, a contributor to SocialistWorker.org and International Socialist Review. Many of the contributors are secondary school teachers and no doubt thought of their own students when preparing this peoples’ history reference book.

The entries include an image of the individual, accessibly written biographies focusing on their activism, a timeline, a “more you can do” section and my personal favorite, “what do you think?” A colleague of mine would routinely pose the question, “So what?” to push student consideration of the significance of their research. The framing epigraph for this volume is from Howard Zinn, best known as author of A People’s History of the United States: “What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places – and there are so many – where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.”

This collection brings together activists of intersectional movements. It’s rare to see Queen Liliuokalani, the last sovereign queen of the Republic of Hawai’i in the company of James Baldwin, a brilliant gay African American writer. Or, Bhairavi Desai, founding member of the National Taxi Workers Alliance, and in 2013, elected to the American Federation of Labor – Congress of Industrial Organizations’ Executive Council, alongside Wilma Pearl Mankiller, fi rst woman to be elected chief of the Cherokee Nation (1985-1995).

I note that of the 101 Changemakers, there are only six who are Asian or Pacific Islander Americans, including (besides the two above) Grace Lee Boggs, Carlos Bulosan, Fred Korematsu and Lam Duong. The collection does include young activists, not just historical ones, and even less represented communities such as the differently abled and transgender communities. There are familiar names such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and less so: Judy Bonds, an activist in West Virginia who organized against “mountaintop removal” because of the damages to the environment.

curs on the Panama trek. Fan ponders the constraints of her life, fully aware that Wing, as a male, has more freedom to work outside the home and to intermingle with society. Fan recalls her mother’s last word to her, “fight, but did you mean that I should battle sadness, or struggle—like Wing – against rage?”

complex. Nagara illustrates this part with a picture of toothbrush poking out of a back pocket. The actors said, “If you’re going to go to jail for a long time, you may as well have your toothbrush with you so you can keep your teeth clean (true story).”

However, at the end of the performance, the actors melted away with the audience and Nagara was left behind with his mom. They believed soldiers would be waiting at their home, too, so they stayed in the planetarium. Nagara As a reader, this collection was a won- says they watched the planetarium show derful re-introduction to social justice over and over again, and he fi nally fell leaders whose personal stories may be asleep on his mother’s lap. lesser known. These days, the temptaHis father evaded the arrests and contion to just Google whatever you’re look- tinued his artistic work, even becoming ing for won’t bring you to a curated col- a movie star. The General was fi nally lection like this. Bollinger and Tran as forced out of office by massive student editors share a labor of love, a love for demonstrations in 1998. Meanwhile, humanity’s magnificent capacity to fol- Nagara continued to occasionally act in low the arc of justice. Hoping to see even his father’s plays. Nagara affi rms that more Asian and Pacific Islander names in you can want to be many things and that the mix, I began to think of others whose “now I’m an activist and a graphic artist. accomplishments and vision fit as rebels It’s okay to change your mind about what and radicals who have changed U.S. his- you want to be when you grow up.” tory. There’s a next book to be had that Nagara’s story shows how the politics includes Philip Vera Cruz, Helen Zia, Yuri Kochiyama, Kent Wong, and local of resistance can be interwoven with family survival and love. While a milileaders such as Cindy Domingo! tary dictatorship sounds and is scary My Night in the Planetarium by Inno- and oppressive, from a seven-year-old’s santo Nagara. For elementary school viewpoint, life still happens. ages.

Lion Island by Margarita Engle. For ages 10 and up.

Innosanto Nagara’s most recent book, My Night in the Planetarium, is based Margarita Engle, an award-winning on his own family and their experiences under a repressive regime in Indonesia. Cuban American poet and novelist, deTold by his seven-year-old self, he begins scribes her book, Lion Island, as the last by saying, “This is a true story. Do you in “a group of historical verse novels want to hear it?” He shares some basic about the struggle against forced labor information about Indonesia, including in 19th century Cuba.” Through a series how the Dutch came and stayed for 350 of poems, Engle tells the story of Antoyears until Indonesians had a revolution nio Chuffat, an Afro-Cuban whose youth was shaped by the struggle for indepento take back their country. dence and freedom of expression, and Nagara’s father is a poet and play- specifically against forced labor. wright and became targeted because his Antonio is 12 years old in part 1, “Runplays implied too much criticism of the military dictatorship. His plays were ning with Words,” and he delivers mesquite popular and politicized audiences. sages for a business man to leaders of Since Nagara watched the rehearsals ev- the Chinese and Spanish empires. He ery day, he learned all the lines and even- becomes friends with twins who, along tually his father created a part for him as with their father, fled to Cuba to escape the anti-Chinese violence in California. a spy.

5,000 Chinese refugees – los Californios As the play toured, there were increas- – settled in Cuba, some directly traumaing numbers of protests by students and tized by the 1871 Los Angeles lynching other artists. The theater troupe learned of 18 Chinese people. througho word of mouth that they might The twins, Wing, a boy, and Fan, a girl get arrested after their performance at Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM), a large art still grieve their mother’s death that oc-

Fan’s “nightingale” voice earns her a place in El Teatro Chino where she sings Chinese opera or new styles that mix Taino Indian rhythms, “African fi nger pianos, and Spanish guitars.” Yet all around them is the arbitrary violence of soldiers and field overseers and the loss of hope as poverty and forced labor contracts grind away at one’s humanity. Inspired by knowledge of the underground railway in the U.S., Antonio, Fan and Wing, decide they will also help to hide runaways using Fan’s theater as cover.

Margarita’s verse novel elegantly sketches the young protagonists’ personalities, fears and dreams. Antonio is entrusted to carry dangerous messages; indeed, his father hides runaways among his cuadrillas (work gangs). Yet his friend, Wing, runs away to take up guns with the Resistance. Fan had to run away from home to take her singing role and her father takes a local woman as a wife. The young people ponder their cultural identities, especially when lacking opportunities to further their Chinese or other language studies.

The adventures at the heart of the story are life and death, and each young person searches deeply within to decide what choice she or he feels is best. The abuses of the laborers eventually come under investigation of a visiting delegation on behalf of the Emperor of China.

The chapter titled, “Listeners,” retells the testimonies of some of the Chinese workers: how they were repeatedly tricked into signing eight-year contracts, how the threat of violence was used to force submissions, how a worker could be presumed Chinese on the basis of Taino Indian traits, how they are baptized with new names against their will.

Margarita’s compelling story inspires further research, and she ends by including sources for young people and adults.

To place the experiences of nineteenth century Chinese diaspora in this broader context complicates yet also makes Asian American identity more whole.

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January 17 – February 6, 2018 — 7

The IE’s 2018 Northwest Guide to Lunar New Year AAJA Lunar New Year Banquet

Uwajimaya Lunar New Year sale

Saturday, February 10, 6:00 – 9:00 PM, House of Hong Restaurant (4098th Ave. S. Seattle, WA 98104)

Uwajimaya’s Lunar New Year sale is February 7th – 20th. They will give out a “red envelope” with special prizes inside to customers who spend $30 or more during the sale. The Seattle store will have Chinese calligraphy on February 10 and 11 from 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM. And there will be lion dance performances at all store locations: • Seattle Store: February 10th at 12pm • Renton Store: February 10th at 3pm • Bellevue Store: February 18th at 2pm • Beaverton OR Store: February 18th at 2pm

Mark your calendar for AAJA Seattle’s annual Lunar New Year banquet! It’s a time to eat together, watch performances, and kick off another year of programming. Tickets are $30.

OCA Golden Circle Award and Lunar New Year Celebration Tuesday, February 6, 5:30 – 7:30 PM, Joy Palace Restaurant, 6030 Martin Luther King Jr. Way S., Seattle, WA 98118

Keiro Northwest 2nd Annual Lunar New Year Celebration

From the OCA Greater Seattle Chapter, this year’s Golden Circle honorees include Diane Narasaki, Dean Wong, the Kurose Family (Ruthann, Paul, Marie) and the Filipino Veterans Recognition and Education Project. OCA members: $30. Students: $30. Non-members: $60. Table for 10: $260.

Contact Jenny Duong for more information: jaydee@hotmail.com.

Friday, February 9, doors open at 4:30 PM, The Westin Bellevue (600 Bellevue Way NE), Bellevue, WA 98004 Keiro Northwest hosts its Second Annual Lunar New Year Celebration to benefit residents of Keiro Northwest. This even includes a dinner, live and silent auction, Fund-A-Need, local, national and international celebrities! Show your team spirit and wear a jersey of your favorite sports team!

Tickets are available at http://www.keironorthwest.org/news-events/.

Seattleʼs Annual Lunar New Year Festival Sunday, February 11, 11:00 AM – 4:00 PM, various locations in Chinatown International District. Admission is free; $3 for the food walk.

Over the last few years, the Lunar New Year Celebration is one of the largest event of its kind in the region and showcases diversity, richness and culture of the Asian community. The collaboration with other neighborhood businesses/organizations has helped draw thousands of visitors from throughout the region for a day of festivities.

The celebration includes traditional dragon and lion dances, Japanese Taiko Drumming, martial arts and other cultural performances on the Main Stage. Combined with arts, crafts and a variety of family friendly

Since 1935

Tai Tung Restaurant

Banquet Facilities - Catering - Delivery

Art by Raychelle Duazo

activities there is something for everyone.

Don’t forget the return of the neighborhood’s Annual $3 Food Walk presented by Delta Air Lines. More information at: http:// cidbia.org/events/lunar-new-year/

$10 / Ages 60-69: $30 / Ages 70-100: $10

Each year, the International Community Health Services Foundation hosts this annual 5K to raise private dollars to help pay for the costs of uncompensated care at ICHS for the most needy members of our APCC 20th Annual New Year Celebra- community. In recent years, facing federal challenges, the ICHS 5K has taken on added tion: Featuring Korea importance. Register at: https://www.ichs.

Saturday, February 10, Tacoma Dome com/5k/ Exhibition Hall, 2727 East D. St., Tacoma, WA, 11:00 AM – 6:00 PM. Admission is Wing Luke Museum Lunar New Year free.

From the Asia Pacific Cultural Center, this year’s new year celebration features the beautiful country and culture of Korea.

There will be over 90 boots of cultural arts from many countries, drinks, retail booths, crafts, games. This is fun for the whole family!

2018 Celebration

Saturday, February 10, 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM, Wing Luke Museum (719 South King St., Seattle, WA 98104). Adult: $17 / Senior (63+): $15 / Student: $0 / Youth (5-12): $0

Your ticket includes viewing of the lion dance celebration, access to the Wing Luke’s 12 exhibits and access to art and passport Têt in Seattle – Vietnamese Lunar activities throughout the museum. Check in begins at 10 AM. The lion dance begins New Year at 11. From 11-5, explore the museum, creSaturday and Sunday, February 10-11, ate crafts with local artists, learn about the Amory Main Level, Fisher Pavilion. AdAsian Zodiac and more! mission is free.

Come Enjoy the Oldest Chinese Restaurant in Town!

655 S King St, Seattle, WA 98104 (206) 622-7372 Mon-Thurs 11am-10:30pm Fri-Sat 11am-12am Sun 11am-10pm

Seattle Center Festál presents Tết in Seat- SCIDpdaʼs Chinatown International tle - Vietnamese Lunar New Year, February 10-11. Explore and experience the cultural District 2018 Kick Off! Thursday, January 25, 4:30 – 6:30 PM, roots and contemporary influences of Vietnam through live performances, hands-on Hing Hay CoWorks (409B Maynard Ave. activities, foods, crafts, games, martial arts S., Seattle, WA 98104) and a lively marketplace.

Join in celebrating the CID neighborhood accomplishments, identifying needs and ICHS Lunar New Year 5k opportunities and kicking off 2018. This Sunday, February 25. Registration: 8:30 is an open house with complimentary bevAM; Run/Walk: 9:30 AM. Shoreline Inter- erages and snacks. For questions, contact urban Trail, 17500 Midvale Ave N Shore- MaryKate Ryan at marykater@scidpda.org. line. Ages 15-59: $35 / Ages 14 and younger:

8 — January 17 – February 6, 2018

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The unassuming mayor: How Ed Lee fought for San Franciscans, immigrants and the less fortunate

By Chris Jeurgens IE Contributor “The greatest way to honor Ed would be for his successors in the San Francisco government to continue his work on immigration, affordable housing, and homelessness,” stated Linna Kitamura in a recent interview with the Examiner regarding her older brother, Ed Lee. Lee, the two-term mayor of San Francisco who grew up in Seattle to Chinese immigrant parents, suddenly passed away last month while in office. “He really did not care about the pomp and circumstance of being mayor of a major world city. He wanted to improve the lives of San Franciscans whom he had served his whole life.”

The reluctant mayor When Lee’s predecessor, Gavin Newsom, left his post in 2011 as mayor to become California’s Lieutenant Governor, Lee firmly said that he was not interested in becoming mayor.

Having served as a civil rights and an affordable housing advocate, and then a civil servant in various departments in San Francisco’s city government, Lee never fashioned himself a politician. He preferred to work behind the scenes to get things done and had already been appointed and confirmed by the Board of Supervisors for a second five-year term as city administrator.

Lee left San Francisco for a vacation to Hong Kong and, while away, the city’s power brokers lined-up near unanimous support for Lee to be appointed interim mayor. Upon his return from Hong Kong, Lee was greeted with overwhelming pressure to take the offer.

“Ed took the offer to be mayor in large part because there was tremendous pressure not only from the power brokers but also from the Asian community in San Francisco,” Kitamura stated. Lee ultimately could not turn down the chance to be the first Asian-American mayor of San Francisco, a city with one of the country’s largest and oldest Asian communities.

According to Kitamura, Lee was a natural choice given his familiarity and knowledge of the city and its various departments. While reluctant to accept, once he began his job as mayor, Lee saw what he could do to restore the economy, help immigrants and the homeless, improve access to affordable housing and make San Francisco a place that catered to all people. Given the opportunity to continue to work on these issues for which he had a passion, the once-reluctant mayor won full-terms in his own right in November 2011 and November 2015.

Lee’s passion for helping others Lee’s passion to help immigrants and those in affordable housing came from his family’s own humble immigrant experience. One of six children born to Cantonese-speaking immigrants, Lee’s father passed away when he was 15 which left his mother to raise six children.

Lee’s family lived the Yesler Terrace Projects before moving to Seattle’s Beacon Hill neighborhood and owned a small restaurant where Lee witnessed bigoted comments by customers. Kitamura noted that “Ed did not think people should have to accept that.”

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Ed Lee with his mother • Photo courtesy of the family of Ed Lee

Lee went to San Francisco for two reasons.

First, in San Francisco there was great opportunity to help a much larger immigrant community in need of affordable housing and other civil rights. Second, in San Francisco being Asian allowed one to be more accepted and to feel less like a minority. The sheer numbers of Asian immigrants in the city meant you did not stick out as distinctly different from the rest.”

While Lee worked on many civil rights cases during his law school days, his most notable self-sacrifice for immigrants was right after he graduated from UC Berkeley law school. He delayed taking the bar exam in order to organize a rent strike at the Ping Yuen apartments that sought to prompt improvements in living conditions there. As a civil rights advocate, many of the people Lee helped were lowerincome, Chinese immigrants. As mayor, Kitamura stated that Lee passed legislation authorizing the improvement and redevelopment of certain public housing sites and was successful in implementing a major expansion in affordable housing beyond what any of his predecessors had accomplished.

In addition, Lee sought to make San Francisco a welcoming place for all people from all over the world. Kitamura stated that her brother was in no way worried about losing federal money as a result of Trump administration policies against sanctuary cities.

She cited a legal fund Lee set-up to combat any possible Trump administration actions against sanctuary cities as evidence of Lee’s strong commitment to maintain San Francisco as an inclusive city for immigrants, whatever the costs. Lee stated that San Francisco was “a sanctuary city now, tomorrow, forever.”

Given Lee’s commitment to affordable housing, it was natural that he became a strong advocate for San Francisco’s homeless. Lee created a position within the city government specifically dedicated to working with homelessness issues. When Lee would see homeless people in San Francisco’s streets, Kitamura said he would often call his deputy in charge of homeless issues and say, “What are we doing about this? How are we fixing this problem?” Kitamura said that it broke Lee’s heart to see people without housing.

A humble family man Despite becoming mayor of a major international city, Lee never changed his down to earth approach. Kitamura said that Lee would always include his security detail at family events, treating them just like family. People would regularly offer him perks while traveling, and Lee would always turn them down.

When he would travel home to Seattle to visit family, he would leave his security detail in San Francisco. “He never wanted for there to be distance between him and average people,” stated Kitamura.

Despite the hectic schedule and stress of being mayor, Lee maintained strong ties to his family and regularly returned to Seattle, often multiple times annually. He always attended major family events like weddings and family milestone birthdays and regularly texted and spoke with family members. Kitamura proudly noted how close she is to all her siblings. Kitamura’s own two children are very close to their eleven cousins, two of which are Lee’s daughters. “Our family is very close.

Growing up with a large family and a widowed mother brought us all together. We have always looked out for each other.”

The Asian rockstar Lee grew up speaking some Cantonese at home but also learned Mandarin in college which made him uniquely capable of working with all people of Chinese backgrounds.

He also took a year off between college and law school to live in Hong Kong and further improve his language skills. It was at this time he met his wife, Anita Lee. As the first Asian-American mayor with language skills and strong roots in China, Lee was a “very big deal in China,” Kitamura stated. London Breed, Lee’s successor, described Lee as “Beyonce with a mustache” when discussing his popularity in China. Kitamura stated that the Chinese press avidly followed Lee’s moves while in office. Given that China is nearly a day ahead of the western United States, Kitamura and her family would often hear from relatives in China about what Lee had done before it was even available to read in the U.S. press.

Unfinished work An irony to Lee’s legacy is that San Francisco surpassed New York City as the city with the highest housing costs during his tenure as mayor. For an affordable housing advocate, this was clearly a difficult situation over which to preside. The flip side is that under Lee, the tech industry dramatically revitalized San Francisco’s economy after the 2008-09 recession. “He helped make the city’s economy strong which caused rents to rise. He did greatly expand affordable housing though.

People have said he sold out, but at the end of the day, what are you going to do? He fought until the end for affordable housing, the homeless and immigrants, and the economy greatly improved,” said Kitamura.

“Ed always worked hard to bring people together. People always walked away from a meeting with Ed thinking they had gained more than they lost. He built compromise and created an atmosphere of cooperation amongst different parties.” Kitamura hopes that Lee’s legacy of compromise and working hard for the less privileged are carried on by his successors. “That would be the greatest memorial to Ed -- a strong commitment to keep fighting for what he believed in.”

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NEWS

January 17 – February 6, 2018 — 9

Reverend Sam Awun Hwang preaches resistance and justice in Trump country

By Robert Hirschfield IE Contributor In front of the Federal Building in downtown Williamsport, not far from Little League Boulevard (Williamsport’s claim to fame is for hosting the Little League World Series.) a Korean-American pastor cuts an ancient figure of solitary witness that long predates the idea of baseball. Reverend Awun Sam Hwang, 46, who came to America at age 12, stands with his IMPEACH TRUMP sign in this Pennsylvania county that is rightly called Trump Country. Trump beat Clinton in Lycoming County by a whopping 70 oercent to 25 percent margin.

A man passing in his car tells Hwang, “Go back where you came from.”

Hwang answers, “I come from here.”

He wants to ask the man if he calls himself a Christian, but before he can the man speeds away.

Mainly, people sneer. Maybe they don’t know what to say because they are stunned by what they see, intimidated by this shattering of conformity.

The minister of Williamsport’s First Presbyterian Church is soft-spoken, reflective, by his own admission temperamentally unsuited for the role of political radical.

“What we have in America is not just a political but a spiritual crisis. When you build political legitimacy based on disparaging people who are not white, who are immigrants, and when you disparage countries based on the idea of America First, those are spiritual as well as political issues. It defies common sense. As a Christian, what I find just as disturbing as seeing a white supremacist coming out into the open and saying and doing the things we

Photo courtesy of Robert Hirschfield

see on TV, are people who call themselves followers of Christ and still manage to overlook the rhetoric and policies that are coming out of this administration.”

It is estimated that one half of one percent of Williamsport’s population of 30,000 is Asian. Three percent are Hispanic. There is also a very small Muslim population served by the Williamsport Islamic Centre.

“Williamsport is not a very diverse community.” Hwang smiles. “When my family and I moved here [in 2009], people would stop and look at us. They are not used to seeing Asians. There are maybe around fifty Korean families. The Williamsport Medical Center employs Indian and Iranian doctors, and my friend Dr. Rajhoub, a doctor from Syria, who works with Syrian refugees here and in the Middle East.”

When Trump announced his Muslim travel ban Hwang was so disturbed he immediately organized a protest rally to be held the next day at the Federal Building, 150 people showed up (a large number by Williamsport standards), but so did big trucks driven by Trump supporters. They revved up their engines so loud speakers were often drowned out. The police stood by and made no attempt to get the truckers to move on.

The pastor is inspired by the legacy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German Lutheran minister who called upon Christians to resist Nazism, and who was hanged at the Flossenberg Concentration Camp in 1945.

The birth of Hwang’s own activism was in 2006 with the outbreak of the second Israel-Lebanon war. He was serving as the Associate Pastor of a Korean-American church in Buffalo. (Until coming to Williamsport, he had served only in Korean-American churches.) His dismay at the double silence of the media and his own church over the human suffering caused by the war made the Sunday liturgy seem empty.

“There would be all of this emphasis on the love of God, and not a single mention of what was taking place hundreds of miles away where people were being killed.”

Though not a firebrand like the Berrigans, Hwang, undeterred by the conservative politics of Christians in his area (few in his own congregation actively support him), ceaselessly tries to move them in a progressive direction. His difficulties extend to the United Churches of Lycoming

Photo courtesy of Robert Hirschfield

County, an ecumenical body that advocates for social justice, of which he is vicepresident.

“They have been somewhat vocal with regards to DACA and the Muslim travel ban, but it frustrates me that they are not vocal enough. I respect their concerns about maintaining unity among Christians, but for me personally when you are that concerned about unity you cannot be as vocal as you must be in a time of crisis.”

An a non-white American as well as a Christian, Hwang was shocked into convening an intercommunal dialogue at

his church when white supremacist Dylan Roof shot and killed nine black churchgoers one night in Charleston.

He heard voices rise in frustration over the lack of racial progress in America. He heard voices rise in condemnation over the neglect of white working-class individuals in America.

“It’s a legitimate point,” the pastor concedes. “The white working-class has been neglected. It hasn’t been heard. But it is unfair of them to have disparaging attitudes towards minorities, towards immigrants.

It is wrong of them to use these groups as scapegoats.”

10 — January 17 – February 6, 2018

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January 17 – February 6, 2018 — 11

A young girl’s search for peace in A Thousand Cranes

By Roxanne Ray IE Contributor Since its inception 19 years ago, SecondStory Repertory (SSR) has offered both a mainstage season and a season of Theater for Young Audiences every year. This season, Kathryn Schultz Miller’s play, A Thousand Cranes, which tells the story of young Hiroshima resident Sadako Sasaki’s pursuit of peace following the dropping of the atomic bomb, will be featured during weekend matinees for children for four weeks.

Mark Chenovick, executive director for SSR, feels that A Thousand Cranes is especially appropriate to the winter season. “I first became aware of A Thousand Cranes while working for the Nebraska Theatre Caravan,” he said. “They had mounted a production in their previous season and everyone who worked on the show was profoundly moved.”

The show’s director, David Hsieh, also finds the show’s timing notable. ”I’m certainly familiar with the story of Sadako, having read the children’s book, and having folded many, many cranes in my lifetime,” Hsieh said. “It’s funny because I recently performed in a new play that also had many paper cranes featured in the plot and referenced Sadako’s story, so it has been my winter of paper cranes in theatre.”

Current events also highlight the story’s importance. “With growing concerns over North Korea’s atomic bomb threat, it’s definitely an important story to tell,” Hsieh added, “and spreading and keeping Sadako’s wish alive is of utmost importance.”

The timing was also perfect for actor Tomoko Saito, who plays the roles of Grandmother Oba Chan and the Mother, and who felt compelled to audition. “This is a famous Japanese story, but I had no idea that it was

adapted to a stage play, so I was very curious about the script,” Saito said. “I heard so many good things about SecondStory Repertory, and I always wanted to work with David but never had a chance before, so this production had everything I wanted in one package.”

The artistic team is focusing on staging the play to maintain the interest of all grade school age children. “Being a children’s show, this adaptation as written is fairly short, almost too short,” director Hsieh said.

“One of our challenges has been finding interesting and culturally significant ways of expanding what the audiences will experience when they see this production.”

Actor Saito relates one instance of this process from rehearsal. “I thought it was funny that we all got notes from David to ‘use force’ – as in Star Wars – during the course of rehearsals,” Saito said. “I learned acting in the U.S. so my initial characterization for my roles were very modern U.S. I was having trouble shifting the gear to be a more traditional, restrained mother, and David advised to not physically show affection but ‘use the force to love.’ It was effective, too!”

Chenovick hopes that these choices will welcome a broader audience to SSR. “The original artistic director of SSR had written a number of plays and musicals based on well-known fairy tales aimed specifically at young children,” he said. “When Jen Klos and I began our tenure at SSR, we kept the program alive but shifted the focus to plays and musicals based on contemporary children’s literature. This allowed us to cultivate a larger age range in our audiences and appeal to an increasingly diverse patron base.”

He also strives to make SSR a place that kids want to return to. “SSR is a wonderful venue for children to experience theater for the first time,” he said. “We lay carpet down

A Thousand Cranes. • Photo by Michael Brunk/NW Lens

on the floor so the kids can be as close to the action as possible, and we maintain a relaxed and supportive atmosphere in which children can learn the basics of theater etiquette and parents can gauge their children’s attention spans for potential theatrical endeavors in their future.”

At its heart, this production of A Thousand Cranes is intended to present serious issues in a way that sparks compassion. “Although suffering is universal,” Chenovick said, “so is the hope for a better tomorrow.”

A Thousand Cranes runs from Jan.13 to Feb. 3 at SecondStory Repertory, 7325 166th Avenue NE, Suite F250, Redmond.

Jiehae Park’s peerless takes on Macbeth, Ivy League competitiveness and Asian American identity

By Roxanne Ray IE Contributor High school can be the stuff of nostalgia, but in the moment, it can also be a vicious environment. Jiehae Park’s play peerless explores this treacherous angle of the quintessential American experience of secondary education, adapting Shakespeare’s Macbeth to illustrate the dark side of the drive to succeed.

To write this play, Park combined her appreciation for Shakespeare with personal experience at a competitive high school. “I do remember absorbing through osmosis the fact that where I went to college was going to be hugely determining for my future, even though I was pretty clueless and haphazard in where I applied,” she said. “I witnessed some of my friends in high school devastated when they didn’t get into what they considered ‘the good Ivies,’ and seeing how personally they took it probably did inform the play.”

Then Park had the opportunity to witness this competition from the outside. “When I was in my early twenties, I did quite a bit of tutoring in New York as my day job, and that was incredibly eye-opening in terms of just how competitive and buttressed by armies of tutors/coaches/consultants, things were getting, at earlier and earlier ages,” she said.

The desperation of parents often led to a

blindness that Park finds disturbing. “There’s such a fear of scarcity that pervades these elite college admissions processes, and it can breed a dangerous feeling that there is only room for ‘one of category X,’ whatever that category may be,” Park said. “In survival mode, it becomes dangerously easy to deny the humanity of others.”

In peerless, Park adds the further complication that the play’s protagonists are a pair of Asian American twin sisters, known as M and L – also influenced by her own experience as an Asian American in a white-dominant society. “I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been mistaken for another Asian American woman, who to me looks completely different!” she said. “How much more complicated would those questions of race and identity be if there were an actual degree of physical similarity.”

But the concept of twins held even greater fascination for Park. “In the midpoint of my process on peerless, I did some research on these fascinating twins from Wales, June and Jennifer Gibbons, who were born in the early 1960s,” Park said. “June and Jennifer were born in Barbados, and then their family moved to Wales, where they were the only black family in their community.”

This led the Gibbons twins into insularity.

“They developed an intense bond, with a deep love, competition and need for each other,”

Park said. “When they were teenagers, they went on a wild crime spree and eventually, they were institutionalized.”

This research influenced Park’s adaptation of Macbeth greatly. “I thought a lot about the Gibbons sisters. They loved each other and hated each other with equal fierceness,” she said. “And because the Gibbons girls were the only family of their race and culture in a largely homogenous environment, because they were so outside their community and subjected to racism, they turned inward toward each other with such intensity and such resentment.

To the point where their own identities sometimes blurred, by force or by choice.”

This exploration led Park to the questions explored in peerless. “So much of identity is created by how we relate to others and how those others perceive us,” she said, “and if they relate to me and perceive me to be the same as another distinct human, what defines the borders of our individuality?”

Despite the serious questioning, Park has tried to balance her work with comedy and satire. “I’m interested in how laughter can potentially open us up to new things,” she said.

“I think it’s incredibly hard to see past our absorbed and often unconscious narratives and avoid a two-dimensional framing of those we encounter briefly. It certainly is for me. But it feels so important to try.”

These efforts make playwriting more than just a job for Park. “I feel very lucky to be making a living at this thing that I would gladly do for free,” she said. “And honestly, negotiating that shift from working for love and play, to suddenly having more practical concerns like finance and career, is probably the hardest part, psychologically, of the last few years, how to preserve a sense of play, so that the creative act doesn’t feel like a deadfish ‘product’ just because you’re now being paid for it.”

Instead, Park views peerless as a labor of love in multiple ways. “In the end, peerless is a love story,” she said. “A super fucked up love story, in which love of family is constantly being tested against love of, or the idea of, the individual, but a love story nevertheless.”

Park also hopes her audience will leave questioning the systems we’ve created for our children. “It can be easy to see the Other, any Other, as the competition, rather than zooming out and examining the structures that create this competitive scarcity dynamic,” she said. “And when we bake in these value systems from such a young age, without time and space for reflection about those values, what kind of world will result?” “peerless” runs from January 18 to February 11 at ArtsWest Playhouse and Gallery, 4711 California Avenue SW, Seattle.

12 — January 17 – February 6, 2018

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

ARTS

Honolulu Museum of Art Exhibit Looks East from the Far West Intro by Alan Chong Lau IE Arts Editor At the end of WWII, Europe was in ruins and the center of modern art shifted to New York. The Abstract Expressionist art movement took root here and its influence echoed around the world. Artists like Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Philip Guston, Willem de Kooning Robert Motherwell and many others came out of this movement and became if not household names, extremely well known figures in art history. What is less known is the fact that there were many Asian American artists in New York at the same time also doing good work, a significant number from Hawai’i.

Which brings us to this review of “Abstract Expressionism: Looking East from the Far West” (Seattle artist George Tsutakawa is included in this show) currently at the Honolulu Museum of Art curated by Theresa Papankolas through January 28, 2018. The museum press release stresses the point that “It is the first museum exhibition to bring artists of the New York School together with Asian American artists who studied and worked in New York in the 1940s and 1950s, examining the influence of Asian intellectual and artistic traditions on artists long revered as uniquely American.”

I wish to thank writer Wayne Muromoto and Hawaii Herald Editor Karleen Chinen for permission to reprint the following review which originally appeared in that publication (see www.thehawaiiherald.com). In addition, my thanks go out to Lesa Griffith of the Honolulu Museum of Art who gave us permission to reprint the photos and to poet Wing Tek Lum who helped us make the connection.

Review by Wayne Muromoto Special to The Hawai‘i Herald This article originially ran in the Dec. 15, 2017 issue of the Hawai‘i Herald and is reprinted with permission Many years and maybe at least 20 pounds lighter in girth ago, I had lunch with a prominent AJA businessman, now deceased.

During lunch, the subject of modern art came up. He was a 442nd Regimental Combat Team veteran and a behind-the-scenes Democratic Party mover and shaker who was deeply involved in giving monetary support to many fledgling art organizations.

He regaled me with a story about walking around the State Capitol building with the newly elected Gov. Ben Cayetano, America’s first Filipino American governor. He pointed to a sculpture by Bumpei Akaji and said, “Eh, Ben, what do you think about this?”

According to him, Gov. Cayetano replied, with some amount of working-class disdain for fine art, “I don’t know anything about art.”

To which, the businessman replied, colorfully, “You (expletive) (expletive) (expletive)! You are the (expletive) governor of this state now. You BETTER know something about art!” And he gave the governor a brief and profanity-laced history of art in Hawai‘i and why it mattered that he knew something about it.

So dear reader, forgive me if I run about a bit in giving some background to this show.

I am channeling that businessman.

But I’ll cut to the chase first: “Abstract Expressionism: Looking East from the Far West” is a great show. See it. Yes, it costs

Isami Doi (American, 1903–1965). My Mystic Pilgrimage. Oil on canvas. Collection of Nancy and Herb Conley. © Estate of Isami Doi.

a bit. Even if you’re a Honolulu Museum of Art member, you’ll have to shell out 10 bucks more to see the show. But it’s worth it. Heck, a night out and dinner in Waikïkï costs more, and you won’t get as much visual fulfillment as an afternoon spent at the exhibition. You’ll get to see benchmark examples of famous modern artists that you’d rarely see outside of having to fly to New York City in order to go to the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim. You also get to see a treasure trove of local modern Abstract Expressionist artists whose works are set right next to the more famous luminaries of art history, and it all starts to make sense. Everything starts to make sense.

Abstract Expressionism was a movement that took the art world by storm right after World War II. Europe had been devastated by the war, so the center of international art moved to the East Coast, and to New York City, in particular. American artists were at the forefront of this style. As its name implies, it was largely abstract in that it doesn’t represent or refer directly to anything “realistic-looking.” And it was meant to express unconscious moods, emotions, thoughts that couldn’t be written down.

The paintings and sculptures were gestural, movements of line and splatters of color, bundles of wire twisted and spun, bronze carved into spikes and trident shapes, ceramic balls and cylinders that represented nothing else but their own “is-ness.” That’s not a painting of something so much as it’s a painting of paint. Look at the surface, the energy of the stroke, the dab, the color, the ferocity of the swish. The ceramic piece is not a mug to hold coffee, but rather a cylinder that is all about its own shape and glaze and color, apart from whatever utilitarian usefulness it may serve.

The style had become so popular by the 1960s that it ended up being parodied and reduced to corny imitations, all the way to the 1970s, during which a generation of art instructors taught several generations of college art students to forego technique and just “express yourself” without much thought to concepts or subtlety. Explosive originality eventually gave way to “me, too” sameness. As they say, even monkeys

could paint like that. Actually, at the end, monkeys could paint like the worst of the worst of abstract art. And they did. As did basketball players bouncing balls covered with paint on a canvas, trained elephants and other assorted kooky animals and gimmicks. The raw power of the original artists faded away into formulaic copies that said nothing, but would look nice in lobbies and corporate boardrooms.

With this exhibit, however, and the intervening decades, we as viewers have a refreshing look back at the powerful beginnings of Abstract Expressionism. There are works here that are by the most pivotal figures in the movement: Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning, Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and others.

Side-by-side with these luminaries are artists with Hawai‘i connections: Isamu Noguchi, Satoru Abe, Isami Doi, Tadashi Sato, Tetsuo Ochikubo, Harry Tsuchidana, Bumpei Akaji, Sueko Kimura, Ralph Iwamoto, George Miyasaki, Keiichi Kimura, Reuben Tam, Jerry Okimoto, Toshiko Takaezu and others.

Set side-by-side, they give us a greater context for how much artists with local connections were right up front in the vanguard of this movement, especially since many of them were working in New York after World War II and were in contact with their fellow Abstract Expressionists.

However, the exhibit is curated to show not only the influence the more famous artists had on our own artists, but also how Asian art and many of the local artists’ own cultural backgrounds contributed to influencing the Abstract Expressionist movement. The exchange of ideas was going two ways.

There is a piece by Robert Motherwell, for example, titled “Untitled,” (1963) which is a big splash of oil paint on canvas that most clearly looks like the vigorous action of East Asian kanji calligraphy. This amalgamation of Eastern and Western ideas is found, if you look for it, throughout the entire show, and is reflected in the printed histories of many of the artists. Isamu Noguchi, for example, studied under the great European sculptor Constantin Brancusi, but

he also traveled extensively throughout Japan and absorbed the essence of the craft and esthetics of that country. So if you look at many of the Abstract Expressionist pieces as you would a piece of strongly brushed calligraphy, taking in the brush stroke energy, direction, thickness, the play of positive and negative space, you have an insight into what could be the baffling world of Abstract Expressionism.

Personally, my favorite piece in the show — and for which I would gladly pay just to see it again — was the original artwork by Isami Doi titled “My Mystical Pilgrimage.”

A copy of this piece graced the cover of The Hawai‘i Herald’s 10th anniversary edition in 1990.

Doi was a mentor of sorts to a generation of local artists. He went to New York City to study art long before many of them and returned to Hawai‘i. He went through several personal and financial trials and hardships before painting this small, powerful piece of two abstract shapes set against a shimmering, glowing, multicolored background, as if they were two sitting Buddhas in meditation. It is, of course, an abstract piece.

One cannot clearly say what it represents, if anything, but the very obscureness allows us to feel its unearthly mystical nature from an artist about which prominent local sculptor Satoru Abe once said, “. . . I sort of went through all the masters, modern and what not, and finally came back to Hawai‘i and found for me a very true artist. For me, he’ll remain the greatest artist.”

Such recognition eluded Doi for most of his life, and when he returned to Hawai‘i he had to work at a variety of jobs to support his family and his art until he finally received accolades at the end of his life, when his health began to fail him.

But art is not just about personal drama.

It is set against social, economic and cultural history. The businessman who shook up a governor told me that the reason he supported artists in Hawai‘i was that the Nisei had achieved political and economic clout in his lifetime. But until a group, be it ethnic, racial or socio-economic, can also become not just lawyers, doctors and politicians, but artists, dancers, writers, poets and dreamers, as well, then they have no control over their own story and, eventually, over their own destinies and imagination. Other people then will control your dreams. Art, to him, was a powerful tool in the arsenal of a people, of a culture and of their future.

When you go to see the show, you will see how a generation of (mostly) Nisei and other ethnic local artists reacted to and contributed to one of the most influential art movements of the 20th century. They were in the thick of it even though they may have had humble beginnings in a prewar territory, an island “backwater.” They scaled the heights in art as others of their generation broke barriers in business, white-collar professions and politics. Their contributions, too, are a worthy legacy of their generation.

To the memory of Keiji Kawakami, who pointed me in the right direction.

Wayne Muromoto is a former Hawai‘i Herald staff writer. He also spent 10 years teaching art and digital art at a private high school. For the past 15 years, he has been teaching digital art and digital photography at Leeward Community College. Wayne also continues to pursue peace through a bowl of tea as a practitioner of Urasenke tea ceremony.

ARTS / NEWS

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January 17 – February 6, 2018 — 13

Carina del Rosarioʼs Passport Series re-frames five common questions for participants

By Clarissa Gines IE Contributor Have you ever wondered what it would be like to fill out an application where instead of checking a box for race or gender, you could fill in the blank with an answer that’s more representative of you? This is the approach that Seattle-based teaching artist and cultural worker Carina del Rosario took when developing her interactive project, Passport Series.

Currently on display at the M. Rosetta Hunter Art Gallery at Seattle Central College through February 1, the Passport Series explores the complexities and nuances that categorization presents for those who are disenfranchised. Del Rosario reframes five questions that are often found on identity applications (Name, Cultural Identity, Dates of Importance, Places of Importance and Gender Identity), and she invites participants to escape categorization by filling out a form with responses that more accurately reflect who they are and how they present themselves to the world.

Participants also get a headshot taken, and del Rosario puts everything together into something resembling a U.S. passport, which is then displayed for others to see. The project provides folks with a different experience in filling out identity applications and encourages viewers and participants to challenge and

question how categories regarding identity are used to segregate communities and restrict rights to certain groups, while granting privileges to others.

Del Rosario started the project in 2013 after doing documentary work with transgender people of color. Through the people she’s worked with, she has learned about the challenges they faced in having to deal with official documents. Presenting a form of identity meant using a former name or gender that was assigned to them at birth, thus outing them of their transgender identity and putting them at risk for discrimination or harassment.

One of the folks del Rosario worked with was an immigrant who was able to legally change her name in Washington state, but unfortunately was not able to have that name change be recognized in her home country despite living as a woman for many years.

This caused her to be in legal limbo, since her passport still listed her birth name and identified her gender as male. Coincidentally, at this time, there was a large push for Dreamers (undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as children) to obtain protection from deportation, and a path to citizenship.

Through this, del Rosario saw how crucial official identity documents are in our lives, and she became inspired to create the Passport Series as a way to express self-identity and the

most important parts of an individual, in ways that an official identity application could not.

Seeing the diversity represented through the passports forces the viewer to consider and question how one identifies outside of categories set in place by policies. It is obvious how ingrained in our society it is to categorize ourselves through applications, whether for a job or driver’s license – “the sum of whose parts never equal who we are,” Rosario states. The project provides an opportunity for us to think and reflect about identity in a broader context,

to think about how something as simple as filling out a form can be so difficult for those who are marginalized.

In addition to the participant passports on display, del Rosario also includes a legislation timeline which lists descriptions and targets groups of historical events that have categorized and marginalized groups of people. This came about after a number of viewers asked during various community events why such categories such as race and gender were being asked on identity applications. The timeline shows how the United States blatantly granted rights to some groups of people, but not others. The marginalization of groups by the government is perpetuated through policies set in place by legislature. By providing this timeline, it explicitly provides historical context for the passports.

The Passport Series provides a safe space for people to reflect on their own struggles with self-identity and allows others to see how we’re all connected outside of categories. As del Rosario says, “Together, we express our shared hope for the time when we are not limited and fragmented by categories, when can all be free to be our whole selves.”

Carina Del Rosario’s Passport Series is currently on display at the M. Rosetta Hunter Art Gallery at Seattle Central College through February 1st.

Community advocate Dorothy Wong reflects on a distinguished career

By Lyra Fontaine IE Contributor Longtime community advocate Dorothy Wong has dedicated her career to leading organizations that provide much-needed services for the Asian Pacific Islander population, including health care, education and family support.

As the former executive director of International Community Health Services (CISC), Wong led the transformation of the formerly small storefront clinic to become in 2005 the largest Asian Pacific American service organization in the Pacific Northwest. In the past five years, Wong served on Seattle’s Asian Pacific Directors Coalition, the Alliance of Eastside Agencies and the King County Asian Pacific Islander Coalition.

Most recently, she was director of the Chinese Information and Service Center. “I would like to stay involved in the community,” she said.

Wong spoke with the International Examiner about being a student during the Civil Rights Movement, issues facing the local API community and how the current administration could impact funding for health care and nonprofits.

International Examiner: What led you to career advocating for public health in API communities?

Dorothy Wong: I grew up within the context of community involvement and people engaging in leadership positions. We grew up middle class but in rapid succession, my father and grandfather died. My mother suddenly found herself alone, not knowing the language and American culture and having to raise us while fulfilling her obligations as a daughter.

Those factors played into my being aware at a very young age about some of the struggle and circumstances that families can encounter, particularly immigrant families. We were fortunate in that our family had resources and didn’t suffer economically. I think the notion of both having advantages and also seeing hardship framed my mind and how I see the

world.

I grew up in a small Navy town not surrounded by a lot of Asians and did face discrimination, especially in adolescence. You can see how racism is learned. That element triggered my awareness of racial discrimination and inequality. Then the civil rights and free speech movement happened. Berkeley was ranked the number-one university in the country at the time and I got to go there.I think that was the most exciting time in the Bay Area because you watched the nation evolve.

After Berkeley, I ended up working in a predominately African-American community in San Francisco, working with mental health and substance abuse patients from lowincome families. Later, I worked at a community health center in San Francisco. I realized my best strength was administrative, operational experience.

My first job as a director was for the Asian AIDS Project. The epidemic was escalating at that time. When I took over the agency, the LGBTQ community did not support it. Two years later, we became the third-best AIDS and HIV program in San Francisco. I had to really turn around and prove to the community that I was serious about addressing the

need.

IE: As executive director of ICHS for 12 years, how did you help transform the organization?

DW: The ICHS was a struggling storefront clinic and was on the verge of being merged.

The fact that I came with a knowledge of managerial principles helped.

We partnered to work together with the PDA’s Village Square Project and got the opportunity to build our first clinic. Sometimes it’s knowing when to leverage opportunities that are before you. Choosing strategic partners at the right time was also critical.

I had to grow ICHS. Strategically, I needed to buy a clinic in Holly Park for medical and dental services. That created the Holly Park Clinic. Then, we were in the path of the light rail system. We took mitigation money from the light rail system and built an expanded medical and dental clinic.

I left for personal reasons and it was time to pass the baton. ICHS was fortunate to have Teresita, who took ICHS to the stratosphere, but I feel good about laying the foundation.

What I found about the API community here in Seattle was that they were politically savvy.

They put aside their ethnic differences and worked together politically as a force, epitomizing the API community.

IE: What are you most proud of accomplishing during your time as CISC executive director?

I helped CISC assess how to improve its service delivery model. Issues nonprofits face are not enough funding and how services are funded. Our early learning program only serves 20 children instead of hundreds of children, so it was difficult to get funding for infrastructure. I recognized that and got the agency to look at how it could build support with the resources it had and for staff to rethink how they structure programs. How do we evaluate what we’re doing and plan?

Bringing management practices, processes and theories is important for nonprofits.

I remember years ago an African-American

leader who ran a very effective nonprofit telling me, “We are in the business of taking care of people.” You’re in the people business, but you also must be careful to use appropriate outcome measures.

IE: What do you consider the most important issues affecting CID and API communities in Seattle?

The influx of people coming into Seattle is enormous and more diverse than we could have anticipated, including the API community. We are getting a lot of newcomers who are not the typical newcomers organizations are used to serving. They’re wealthy…their needs may be different. We are also getting a lot of Asian Americans working for corporations who don’t have a history of being in the ID or with the traditional Asian community here. How can you engage them?

Additionally, that huge number of API… creates a misleading impression that the API community is doing well. The people we are used to serving still face challenges. There is a lot of advocacy now about disaggregating the API umbrella, so we can more accurately identify the needs.

Read the full interview online at http:// www.iexaminer.org/

Employment Start A Career With A Purpose & Honor A unique opportunity for you to make a difference and serve your community.

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Arts & Culture 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.

Friends of Asian Art Association (FA3) P.O. Box 15404 Seattle, WA 98115 206-522-5438 friendsofasianart2@gmail.com www.friendsofasianart.org To advance understanding, appreciation and support for Asian arts and cultures, the Friends of Asian Art Association provides and supports programs, activities and materials that reflect the arts and cultures of countries that make up the broad and diverse spectrum of Asia.

Japanese Cultural & Community Center of Washington 1414 S Weller Street Seattle, WA 98144 Ph: 206-568-7114 admin@jcccw.org www.jcccw.org JCCCW is committed to preserving, promoting, and sharing Japanese and Japanese American culture and heritage.

Programs: Japanese Language School | Cultural Events | Library | Resale Store | Internship & Volunteer Opportunities | Historical Exhibitions | Rental Space

RAJANA Society Seattle, WA 206-979-3206 sameth@rajanasociety.org

RAJANA Society is an Arts & Civics project focusing on civic engagement and bridging cultural divides with the Cambodian Diaspora.

Civil Rights & Advocacy Organization of Chinese Americans Asian Pacific American Advocates Greater Seattle Chapter P.O. Box 14141 Seattle, WA 98114

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YouthCare 2500 NE 54th Street Seattle, WA 98105 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.

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.

Housing Services

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

WE MAKE LEADERS Fostering future leaders through education, networking and community NAAAP Seattle services for Asian American Queen Anne Station professionals and entreP.O. Box 19888 preneurs.

Seattle, WA 98109 Facebook: NAAAP-Seattle info@naaapseattle.org Twitter: twitter.com/naaapwww.naaapseattle.org seattle

Senior Services The Kin On Team is ready to serve YOU! www.KinOn.org 1.888.721.3634

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: affordable housing, housing counseling, homelessness prevention, advocacy, teen leadership, and the Danny Woo Community Garden.

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

Immigration Services

Denise Louie Education Center 206-767-8223 info@deniselouie.org 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.

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 low-income people in King County.

APICAT 601 S King St. Seattle, WA 98104 ph: 206-682-1668 www.apicat.org Addressing tobacco, marijuana prevention and control and other health disparities in a culturally and linguistically appropriate manner.

Cathay Post #186 of The American Legion Supporting veterans for over 70 years Accepting new members—contact us today to learn more! (206) 355-4422 P.O. Box 3281 Seattle, WA 98144-3281 cathaypost@hotmail.com

www.ocaseattle.org

Washington New Americans Program OneAmerica 1225 S. Weller St., Suite 430 Seattle, WA 98144 Are you a lawful permanent resident? The Washington New Americans program can help you complete your application for U.S. citizenship. Low-cost and free services available – please call our hotline or visit www.wanewamericans.org.

Text or call: 206-926-3924 Email: wna@weareoneamerica.org Website: www.wanewamericans.org

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, senior-oriented 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.

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.

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.

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.

Education

Senior Services

Keiro Northwest 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

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 Services offered: Assisted Living, Adult Day Services, meal programs for lowincome seniors.

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.

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January 17 – February 6, 2018 — 15

Faith Organizations

International District Medical & Dental Clinic 720 8th Avenue S, Seattle, WA 98104 ph: 206-788-3700 email: info@ichs.com website: www.ichs.com 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

Columbia City Church of Hope 3818 S Angeline St Seattle, WA 98118

Holly Park Medical & Dental Clinic 3815 S Othello St, Seattle, WA 98118 ph: 206-788-3500

(206) 722-5651

The largest Asian, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander community health center in Washington state, ICHS provides medical, dental, behavioral health and pharmacy care with multilingual doctors, nurses and staff experienced in meeting the needs of King County’s diverse and multicultural communities. All are welcome and sliding fee scales are available for uninsured patients.

www.columbiacityhope.org

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

columbiacityhope@gmail.com A progressive faith community rooted in God’s grace and acceptance where we work together toward justice, love, and wholeness. We are a church for the old, young, gay, straight, doubters, believers, fencesitters, activists, scientists, poets, and slackers. Join us for service on Sundays at 10:30 a.m.

Parking & Transportation Services

206-624-3426 transia@aol.com Merchants Parking provides convenient and affordable community parking. Transia provides community transportation: para-transportation services, shuttle services, and field trips in and out of Chinatown/International District, and King County.

API Chaya PO Box 14047 Seattle, WA 98114

Answers to this puzzle are on Wednesday, January .

info@apichaya.org www.apichaya.org API Chaya supports Asian, South Asian, and Pacific Islander survivors and families impacted by domestic violence and sexual assault, as well as human trafficking survivors from all communities.API Chaya engages communities to change societal conditions that enable domestic and sexual violence, human trafficking and all forms of oppression, especially violence against women and the most vulnerable in our society.

Helpline: 1-877-922-4292 / 206-325-0325 Helpline Hours: Monday-Friday 10am-4pm

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