PRSRT STD U.S. Postage Paid Permit No. 746 Seattle, WA
VOL 34 NO 11
MARCH 7 – MARCH 13, 2015
FREE
33 YEARS YOUR VOICE
The Last Word
WORLD Prince William in Japan » P. 5
Mission to Mars
Vietnamese Refugees and Veterans Record Oral Histories with StoryCorps
Maggie Lieu wants to parent on Mars
By Laura Ohata Northwest Asian Weekly “We took off on a journey without planning, without preparation, and without destination” says Son Michael Pham. Pham was still a student when he had to evacuate his home and leave everything behind. “It was kind of chaos on that last day, on April 29th. We tried several failed attempts, as the day got later and later, in the late afternoon, we ended up on a container ship, the next to last container ship that left Saigon at the end of the war.” Pham is one of 200 Vietnamese Americans and Vietnam War Veterans interviewed for the First Days Story Project to record and preserve the oral histories of the evacuation of Saigon 40 years ago. Part of a six-city tour of the United States conducted by WGBH American Experience and StoryCorps, the Wing Luke Museum hosted the event in Seattle on February 26-28. These oral histories will follow the StoryCorps format, which {see PHAM cont’d on page 15}
Maggie Lieu
By Minal Singh Northwest Asian Weekly “To get from Earth to Mars takes approximately nine months, and I want to be a part of that journey,” says Maggie Lieu, who is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Astrophysics at the University of Birmingham,
Son Michael Pham
Petition for police officer Asian American community rallies for Officer Peter Liang
UK. She researches galaxy clusters and dark matter, which is on the leading edge of space science. “If I were given the opportunity to go to Mars, I would definitely make it a priority of mine to {see LIEU cont’d on page 15}
Nurse who survived Ebola sues Dallas hospital system
Photo by Reuters
By Jamie Stengle Associated Press
Peter Liang controversy
Peter Liang, a New York City police officer, was charged with manslaughter in the second degree and five other offenses last month for the fatal shooting of Akai Gurley, 28, in a Brooklyn housing project. The shooting occurred Nov. 20. Liang, on patrol with a partner, shot Akai Gurley, 28, who was in a stairwell about 11:15 p.m. A single
bullet was discharged, killing Gurley who was in the stairwell a flight below where his girlfriend resided. The controversy was whether Liang’s gun went off by mistake or was fired deliberately. Liang pleaded not guilty to all {see LIANG cont’d on page 15}
DALLAS (AP) — The Dallas hospital that treated the first patient to be diagnosed in the U.S. with Ebola lied to Congress when it said its staff was trained to handle the deadly virus, a nurse who contracted the disease contends in a lawsuit filed Monday. Nina Pham, who was an intensive care unit nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, says after being told last fall that she would be treating a patient suspected of having Ebola, “the sum total” of information she was given to protect herself was “what her manager `Googled’ and printed out from the Internet.” She says in her lawsuit that the day after getting that information, the patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, tested positive for the disease. Duncan, who contracted Ebola in his native Liberia but started
Nina Pham speaks
showing symptoms during a trip to the U.S., died at the hospital. Pham, 26, and another nurse who treated Duncan, Amber Vinson, contracted the disease but recovered. In a statement released through her lawyers, Pham said she felt she had no choice but to sue the hospital’s parent company, Texas Health Resources. “I was hoping
that THR would be more open and honest about everything that happened at the hospital, and the things they didn’t do that led to me getting infected with Ebola,” she said. Wendell Watson, a company {see PHAM cont’d on page 11}
The Inside Story NAMES People in the news » P. 2
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WORLD Panda population increases! » P. 5
A&E FASHION Urban Outfitting » P. 9
BLOG Harmony... (2 symphonies) » P. 10
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