PRSRT STD U.S. Postage Paid Permit No. 746 Seattle, WA
VOL 37 NO 14
MARCH 31 – APRIL 6, 2018
FREE
36 YEARS YOUR VOICE
Chinatown’s new beat cop
Federal Way’s first Vietnamese councilmember answers the call to serve
By Becky Chan NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
Councilmembers Jesse Johnson, Lydia Assefa-Dawson, Hoang Tran, Deputy Mayor Susan Honda, Councilmembers Dini Duclos, Martin Moore & Mark Koppang
By Joshua Holland NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY Photo by Becky Chan
see LIM on 13
Photo from City of Federal Way website
As promised, the Seattle Police Department (SPD) delivered, in Officer Young Jun Lim. Lim is one of three additional officers assigned to the redrawn boundaries of the West Precinct, which now includes Little Saigon. In her January announcement of the expanded precinct, Chief of Police Carmen Best indicated one of the new officers would be Asian American. Born in Portland, Ore., of immigrant parents from South Korea, Lim grew up in Vancouver, Wash. His parents emigrated from South Korea separately — his father at 16 and mother at 25 — and met as adults in Portland. Lim’s grandparents, originally from Busan, ran a mini-mart in downtown Portland, where his father helped out while a teenager. Officer Young Jun Lim
Often framed perfectly in history books, defining moments in action look unassuming as they unfold. This was the scene when Hoang V. Tran decided, after 27 years of
working at the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services helping people obtain basic food, medical, and childcare, he wanted to do a little more. Or in Tran’s case, a lot more. He decided see TRAN on 16
Man arrested in Prohibition-era murals found at former Seattle hotel suspicious packages sent to military sites By SADIE GURMAN ASSOCIATED PRESS
Photos provided by Tanya Woo
signed and contained black powder along with rambling, nonWASHINGTON (AP) — sensical notes similar Authorities near Seattle to those the man has have arrested a man susbeen known to send in pected of sending suspithe past, according to cious packages to multiple a U.S. official who was military installations in Thanh Cong Phan (Yolo not authorized to disthe Washington, D.C., re- County Sheriff’s Office) cuss an ongoing invesgion, the FBI said, warntigation and did so on ing that he may have mailed other condition of anonymity. “destructive devices’’ that have not The FBI identified the man as yet been found. The packages were similarly desee PHAN on 11 Tanya Woo on the Louisa Hotel staircase where old murals line the walls.
By NICOLE BRODEUR THE SEATTLE TIMES SEATTLE (AP) — Tanya Woo used to cry when she started down the basement stairs of the building on King Street, and when you look up, you see why: On a now-faded sign painted on the wall above is a wooden arm that looks to be hanging in midair. Years later, Woo is happy to linger on those stairs, working to preserve not only the old sign
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that reads “Club Royale,’’ but a series of Jazz Era murals that line the stairway and cover the walls of the room below. “We’re learning as we go,’’ Woo said the other morning as we stood on the basement stairway of the building. The building was once the Hudson Hotel and then the Louisa, where Chinese, Japanese and Filipino immigrants would stay before being shipped off to Alaska to work in fish canneries.
Now, the Woo family is turning the building into 84 new apartments for those making between $45,000 and $75,000 a year, and restoring 10 retail spaces on the street level. The family has owned the 1910 building since 1963, when Woo’s father, Paul, paid $160,000 for it. That hasn’t always been easy. In 1983, the building was the site of the Wah Mee Massacre,
◄ HING HAY PARK » see 7 PACIFIC RIM ► » see 8
◄ ON THE SHELF » see 9 BLOG ► » see 10
see MURALS on 16
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