VOL 39 NO 27 | JULY 4 – JULY 10, 2020

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PRSRT STD U.S. Postage Paid Permit No. 746 Seattle, WA

VOL 39 NO 27 JULY 4 – JULY 10, 2020 FREE 38 YEARS YOUR VOICE

Fire destroys Eng Suey Sun Plaza, $2.5M in loss Family: ‘We will rebuild’

Trans rights org founder Alex Lee on activism and importance of Black women leaders

By Ruth Bayang NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY

Photo by John Odegard of the Seattle Fire Buff Society

SEATTLE — The Eng Suey Sun Plaza on 815 South Weller Street is no more. Fire ravaged through it on June 25, and on June 29, a demolition crew began to tear down what remained. Seattle fire investigators do not believe that fire was intentionally set. The estimated loss is $2.5 million. Several people called 911 early on the morning of June 25 to report seeing flames and black smoke billowing from the second floor of the three-story building. When firefighters got inside, they reported the ceiling and floor were becoming unstable and had to evacuate. Seattle City Light turned off electricity to the building, Seattle Streetcar operators shut down the electrical grid that flows through 8th Avenue South, and Puget Sound Energy turned off natural gas to the building. Despite firefighters’ efforts, the fire spread through the whole Flames shoot from the Eng Suey Sun Plaza on June 25

FIRE from 1

see FIRE on 10

Photo from Change.org petition for Kodama

KBCS’s director Kodama out, supporters dismayed

Alexander Lee (left) with Janetta Johnson (right), current executive director of the TGI Justice Project, as co-presenters on a panel at the Women's Funding Network conference in San Francisco, 2019

By Stacy Nguyen NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY “In my mind as a child, I knew that I was not like the other kids,” said Alexander Lee, 42. “I always had a sense of feeling out of place. There were a number of reasons for that. I grew up in a really white place. The first school I went to was a Lutheran school [in the 1980s], and my brothers and I were the only Asians in the whole school.” The part of Orange County, California where Lee grew up wasn’t yet developed—though later it would become home to a robust, though mostly Christian, Asian community. Growing up in a Taiwanese and Chinese family among lots of white people, he and his brothers were constantly racially teased. “And usually, white kids didn’t even know they were doing it,” he said. “It was so pernicious, woven in the fabric of everything.” Lee, who is trans, is the founder of the TGI Justice Project (TGIJP), a San Francisco Bay Area-based nonprofit that is currently Black trans women-led, fighting against human rights abuses, imprisonment, police violence, racism, poverty, and societal pressures. While its focus is on human rights abuses committed against transgender, gender variant, and intersex people (TGI) in California prisons, jails, and detention centers, its reach is becoming increasingly national, with it also doing some partnership work in Seattle.

Finding a place

which expired on June 30—was not renewed, citing budgetary constraints. A petition on Change.org for Kodama to keep her job fell short of its goal of 2,500 signatures

Lee finished his undergrad at University of California, Berkeley in the late 1990s, at the same time he was coming out as trans. After years of being gender non-conforming, wearing male clothes, presenting masculine and identifying as lesbian, things still didn’t feel settled or at peace. “I was still really unhappy, and there was something going on,” he said. Lee hated when his appearance got pointed out by others—it made him really angry, so much so that he was getting into fights. He lost a lot of friends in the process. “After graduating from college, I decided I needed to do something about this. So I started going to trans youth support groups. And that’s when things really started to crack open for me.” Lee met new people. His world, which had broadened immensely in college, became even more expansive. He started

see KODAMA on 4

see LEE on 12

Yuko Kodama (left) doing an interview

Supporters of Yuko Kodama are dismayed that the News and Public Affairs Director at 91.3 KBCS-FM is no longer on the job. KBCS is affiliated with Bellevue College, and the college’s Board of Trustees holds the broadcast license for the radio station. Kodama’s contract—

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