International Examiner May 20, 2015

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FREE EST. 1974 —SEATTLE VOLUME 42, NUMBER 10 — MAY 20, 2015 – JUNE 2, 2015

MAY DAY MARCHERS RALLYFOR IMMIGRANTS, WOMEN, FAMILIES OF COLOR

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER23rd annualcommunity voice awards41st AnniversaryBenefit Gala

2 — May 20, 2015 – June 2, 2015 INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

IESTAFF

Established in 1974, the International Examiner is the only non-profit pan-Asian 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. [email protected].

IE BOARD OF DIRECTORSRon Chew, President

Steve Kipp, Vice President Gary Iwamoto, Secretary Maria Batayola, Treasurer

Arlene Oki, At-Large

ADVERTISING MANAGER Kathy Ho

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BUSINESS MANAGEREllen Suzuki

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CREATIVE DIRECTORRyan [email protected]

EVENT MANAGER Third Andresen

OPERATIONS MANAGERJacob Chin

EDITOR IN CHIEFTravis Quezon

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ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR Izumi Hansen

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ARTS EDITORAlan Chong Lau

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CALENDAR EDITOR Nina Huang

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HERITAGE EDITORJacqueline Wu

VIDEOGRAPHERTuyen Kim Than

PROOFREADERAnna Carriveau

LEAD PHOTOGRAPHER Keoke Silvano

DIGITAL MEDIA SPECIALIST Bianca Sewake

[email protected]

CONTRIBUTORS Dean Wong

Sharon H. Chang Chetanya Robinson James Tabafunda

Nick Wong Roxanne Ray Shin Yu Pai

Susan Kunimatsu

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By Dean WongSpecial Guest Columnist

It’s 7:00 a.m. in the Chinatown Interna-tional District and Asian seniors are lining up on King Street to be first in line at the ACRS Food Bank. They come bundled in warm clothes with shopping carts drag-ging behind them. When the food bank staff and volunteers arrive for work, clients watch as they move 50 pound bags of rice up the ramp and inside the tiny construc-tion trailer that is home to the second busi-est food bank in Seattle. On a typical dis-tribution day, the counter inside the food bank is covered with packages of dried noodles, vegetables, canned goods, and bags filled with rice. Paper grocery bags line the floor in rows along the wall, ready to hand out.

The mission of the ACRS Food Bank is simple and basic to the core. Provide food to those in need. Fight hunger in the Asian Pacific Islander community. ACRS dis-tributed 969,801 pounds of food in 2014. 5,665 clients visit the food bank 120,526 times over the course of the year. On each visit, clients eagerly accept what they can get. Seventy-five percent of the ACRS Food Bank and Emergency Feeding pro-gram clients are children under the age of 18 or seniors over the age of 65.

In recent years, more homeless people have signed up for services. Sometimes they walk in off the street to ask for some-thing to eat. Homeless women, living under the I-5 freeway are now adding to the mix. Food bank staff tries to accom-modate everyone who asks for help. Pro-viding vital services to the Asian Pacific American community is part of ACRS’s core mission. Mental health, employment, citizenship, youth program, counseling for aging adults and families are just a part of what ACRS has been doing since 1973.

The work ACRS does caught Herb Tsuchiya’s eye 25 years ago. Tsuchiya con-sidered ACRS an “undiscovered jewel.” As impressed as he was, Tsuchiya wanted more people know that ACRS was a valu-

able resource they could turn to for help. Seeing the lines of people outside the ACRS Food Bank concerned Tsuchiya, who joined forces with his wife Bertha and friend Sam Mitsui to raise money to feed the hungry.

“I saw so many elderly, women, and chil-dren who lacked adequate food,” he said. Tsuchiya also noticed some of the food provided was not typical of the Asian diet. “No one donated rice,” said Tsuchiya, a re-tired pharmacist known for his volunteer work. His easy going manner is in balance with his roles in Asian American theatre, community activism and dedication to so-cial issues.

For Herb and Bertha Tsuchiya and Sam Mitsui, rice became their main cause. “In 1990, Herb and I, along with Asian church members gathered at the ACRS office on Jackson Street to determine how we could help raise funds for the ACRS Food Bank. Herb came up with the idea to sponsor a walk to raise the funds, hence, our title “Walk for Rice,” was born,” said Mitsui.

Blaine Methodist Church, along with the Chinese and Japanese Baptist Churches, of-fered to sponsor Walk for Rice that year. “Our first Walk for Rice started at the Chinese Baptist Church and our 2.5 mile walk was on the pedestrian path on Bea-con Avenue,” recalled Mitsui, a member of

the highly decorated 442nd Regimental Combat Team during World War II and an accomplished local runner.

As a brand new event, Walk for Rice raised $1,800. Forty-five people signed up for the fundraiser. In 2013, Walk for Rice exceeded $200,000 in donations for the first time. The 2014 campaign broke that record. “Due to the generosity of sponsors, organizations, walkers and runners, we raised a record $274,538,” said Mitsui. “I’m surprised how much it has grown. It started with three people with one idea and over the years has grown tremendously,” said Karen Jackel, director of the ACRS Food Bank the last 23 years.

Walk for Rice has become an annual mission as ACRS staff, Board of Direc-tors, corporations, and community sup-porters create fundraising teams with names like “Miso Hungry” and “Food Bank Friends.” Tsuchiya credits Walk for Rice for their compassion. “It’s a community effort to help those in need to put food on the table,” Tsuchiya said. His regular fundraising team is CBC Hot Rice.

Tsuchiya has every Walk for Rice T-shirt from over the years. Before they provided T-shirts, ACRS gave people buttons with the event name printed on

them. One of Tsuchiya’s favorite memories was a Walk for Rice held one the Fourth of July weekend when the CEO of a refresh-ment drink company finished first in the run around the Seward Park loop. “The man ran around and won the race. He was so happy,” Tsuchiya said. The CEO donated refresh-ments to the event in following years.

Tsuchiya also has fond memories of the year people wore costumes to Walk for Rice. They brought their dogs all dressed up too. Each Walk for Rice event is like a celebra-tion to help the ACRS Food Bank. Even during the years when it rained, crowds still gathered for the taiko drummers, Chinese Community Girls Drill Team and the walk or run around Seward Park.

The success of Walk for Rice is matched by the need for it. Throughout the years, 21 community organizations and churches around Seattle distribute meals and food through ACRS sponsored nutrition pro-grams. In honor of its 25th Walk for Rice year, ACRS is recognizing the generosity of Uwajimaya. “People like Sam, Herb, and the late Bertha with many others, selflessly sup-port many important projects and programs such as ACRS’s Walk for Rice, that makes us all proud to be part of our community,” said Tomio Moriguchi, Chairman of the Board of Uwajimaya. “ACRS is pleased and humbled by the opportunity to honor Uwajimaya for years of generous contributions to our food bank. The ACRS Food Bank is known for being a special place because of the cultural-ly appropriate, familiar, and nutritious foods we are able to provide to the most vulnerable in our community,” said Candace Inagi, de-velopment director at ACRS.

“Walk for Rice grew into a successful event. I’m sure (Sam and Herb) are proud,” said Jackel. From its humble beginnings to what it is now, Walk for Rice is now a ma-jor fundraiser. “It’s a great cause, fighting hunger. See you at Walk for Rice,” Tsuchiya said.

Walk for Rice is on June 27, 2015 at Seward Park. Visit www.walkforrice.org for details.

Success of Walk for Rice is matched by continued need

The ACRS Food Bank is the only food bank in Washington that regularly distributes foods for Asian and Pacific Islander diets. • Courtesy Photo

IE OPINION

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER May 20, 2015 – June 2, 2015 — 3

IE OPINION

By Sharon H. ChangIE Contributor

This International Workers Day 2015, GABRIELA Seattle members decided to do something they had long deliberated but never actually done before—represent a women and families of color contingent at the Seattle May Day March.

“In the past we’ve always joined the API contingent or the youth contingent,” said GABRIELA Seattle Chair, Precious Butiu. “But [this year] we wanted to focus on women.” Butiu said as the women’s movement builds and GABRIELA Seattle’s membership grows, international solidarity with women of color and their families is essential.

“It was time,” said GABRIELA Seattle founding member Donna Denina. “Women are often responsible for taking care of their families and their children and we wanted to make sure there was a space for them to participate.”

“Having children there is important,” added member Jill Mangaliman. “Even for people who don’t have children, it’s important to be around children. It takes a village.”

The significance of choosing to make visible a women and families of color contingent was many fold. For one, it represented GABRIELA, which is a collective of Pin@ys that works to educate, defend, and advocate for the human rights of Filipinas globally. Pin@y is a term coined by Filipinos in the United States during the 1920s to refer to women of Philippine descent. Additionally it made space to honor the participation of women and families of color here in the United States, while also marching with this contingent to bring visibility to the Filipina migrant workers and their families overseas. Creating this type of international solidarity is precisely what GABRIELA has been working to do, said Mangaliman. “Broadening systemic problems [and] connecting global to local issues.”

On a day for honoring workers and demanding equal rights, the plight of Filipina migrant workers is vastly significant all across the globe. Cheap human labor is the Philippines’ largest export. Six thousand people leave the Philippines every day to work in many different countries, said Denina, and 70 percent of them are estimated to be women including seasonal workers, migration with illegal documentation, human trafficking and smuggling. The outflow of women workers from the Philippines represents one of the widest flows of contemporary female migration. As Rhacel Salazar-Parreñas, Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies at USC has written: “Filipina women are the quintessential service workers of globalization.”

Women migrant workers play an incredibly import role in the Philippines’

GABRIELA Seattle represents women and families of color contingent on Worker’s Day 2015

nation-building and development policy. The government sanctions and encourages migration of its people because the money these workers send back home is a key source of external revenue flow for developing countries like the Philippines. Remittances currently make up almost 10 percent of the nation’s GDP, a figure that has consistently increased over the years and recently reached a record-high of 26.9 billion dollars in 2014. To give an idea how significant this is, by contrast, zero percent of the U.S. GDP is attributed to remittances.

Given that women constitute the majority of the Filipino migrant population, the state effectively relies upon female migration for its economic development. At the receiving end, a multitude of other countries also benefit from and rely extensively on the cheap labor these women provide. Remittances come mainly from the United States, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, and Canada. The United States is one of the largest overseas recipients of Filipino migrant workers. Close to 4 million currently reside here where they are employed typically in the service or health and caregiving industries.

But despite how valuable their labor is to others, for the women themselves the situation is not good. Women typically migrate alone. A lot of them are mothers traveling to provide for families they must leave behind. When mothers are forced to work abroad it can have a detrimental impact on the wellbeing of their children. A major concern here has been the potential destabilizing effect of transnationally splitting families. Though exact numbers are hard to come by, recent estimates by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) suggest around 27 percent of Filipino children under the age of 18 are left behind by one or both parents to work tentatively

or permanently abroad. “Transnational family,” states the UNICEF report, “has become a norm in the Philippines.”

On top of having to leave their families, so many of these women then end up exploited by recruiters, traffickers, and employers. They are often lured into migrant employment under false pretenses with false promises, endure poor to horrid work and living conditions, as well as labor too many hard hours while being paid unlivable wages. It is not uncommon for Filipina migrant workers to be diminished, verbally and physically abused, and even sexually assaulted by their overseas employers. They are a vulnerable population at undeniable risk.

Take Mary Jane Veloso, a 30-year-old Filipina migrant worker who was sentenced to execution in Indonesia for unknowingly muling drugs that had been planted on her. She was reprieved last month thanks to dedicated lobbying and activism around the globe including by GABRIELA USA and its regional chapters. Mary Jane is a single mother of two. GABRIELA has also

been campaigning to seek justice for 300 Filipino teachers trafficked to the United States by Isidro Rodriguez. The teachers were assured teaching jobs but upon arriving found themselves instead manipulated, threatened, lied to, and imprisoned by false debt and fees to Rodriguez himself. About 90 percent of these teachers are women as well, said Denina. Many are mothers, some even grandmothers.

What the Seattle women and families contingent at the May Day March this year stood for was women and families of color everywhere. And it also stood for one of many powerful solidarity-building and awareness efforts by GABRIELA.

“On Workers Day,” asked Denina, “how can we raise the voices of women in particular? Because so many are forced to migrate and are the center of their families.” She answered, we “honor the contributions of women to the labor movement but also highlight the plight and exploitation of workers and working women.”

GABRIELA Seattle represented a women and families of color contingent at the Seattle May Day March in 2015. • Photo by Sharon H. Chang


IE NEWS

By Chetanya RobinsonIE Contributor

Though events of the day took a violent turn after sunset, Seattle’s annual May Day March for Workers and Immigrant Rights drew hundreds of protesters to peacefully demonstrate on May 1. Marchers carried signs and banners representing a wide array of issues, concerns and causes, including several from the Asian Pacific Islander community.

Labor and immigration issues were at the forefront of the midday march, which was preceded by a Black Lives Matter protest in the early morning, and followed by an anti-capitalist demonstration on Capitol Hill with violent clashes that would seize the attention of the media.

Starting at 2:00 p.m. in Judkins Park in the Central District, hundreds of people began the march through the empty streets toward downtown Seattle, where they eventually gathered outside the U.S. District Courthouse. There, they stood in the street and sat on the steps of the Courthouse and listened as labor leaders and Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant spoke on a stage.

Marchers carried signs and banners to raise awareness of a plethora of issues: police brutality, racism, poverty, the 43

May Day marchers rally around immigration, labor, police brutality

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missing students in Mexico (considered by activists to be partly the responsibility of the U.S. government), immigration and deportation, queer issues, farmworker rights, the minimum wage, and expressions of solidarity with these and other causes.

A Seattle environmental justice organization called Got Green? marches

every year in the May Day Rally, according to executive director Jill Mangaliman.

“International workers and immigrants day is a big deal around the world, and I think in the U.S. as well we could celebrate it more strongly,” Mangaliman said. “It is about a legacy of fighting for our rights, fighting for justice, and standing together in solidarity with other communities.”

Human trafficking, immigration, and detention are among the issues highlighted by the march that are especially relevant to the Asian Pacific Islander community, according to Mangaliman.

Of the foreign-born population of Washington state, the majority came from Asia, according to 2011 U.S. Census numbers. The same unjust conditions that cause people to migrate to the United States from Mexico and Central America also affect Asian Pacific Islanders, Mangaliman said.

Thousands of Filipinos have left their country because of poverty and lack of opportunity, Mangaliman said.

Asian Pacific Islanders are often saddled with the model minority stereotype—the idea that because some members of the group have achieved

educational and economic success, they face fewer obstacles in society. The stereotype obscures the realities of what it’s like to be an Asian Pacific Islander immigrant in Seattle, Mangaliman said, and is used to divide this group from other people of color.

Solidarity is important for this reason, and such solidarity between Asian Pacific Islanders and other minorities has a long history.

As the crowd—estimated by media outlets, including KOMO News to be in the hundreds—made its way along Boren Avenue toward the Federal Courthouse, Sylvia Sabon walked in front of six people carrying a wide banner protesting police brutality, pushing a stroller as she walked. Sabon is the aunt of Oscar Perez, a 23-year-old man fatally shot by a King County sheriff’s deputy in June 2014 at the SoDo light rail station, during an armed struggle.

“We’re fighting for justice and we want something to be done about this,” Sabon said, speaking of her nephew’s death. “It was not right. We’re all human beings, and they could have handled the situation a little bit better and we want to hold all police nationwide accountable.”

Flanked by Seattle Police on bicycles, the marchers broke into chants. “Who stands with Baltimore? Seattle stands with Baltimore!” came the refrain as they passed the Paramount Theater on Pine Street.

Next to the chant leaders, demonstrators carried banners that said “Model Minority Mutiny,” referring to Asian American rejection of the model minority stereotype.

Anthony Gavino carried a sign reading “Filipinos por Campesinos,” intended to show support from Filipinos for farm workers, he said. Gavino held his sign high as the marchers gathered outside the U.S. District Courthouse downtown, within view of the Space Needle.

“Historically Filipino Americans have always been part of labor rights movements and due to a lot of reasons, a lot of Filipino Americans no longer know about that history,” Gavino said. “I just thought I would keep up the work of the Filipino community on behalf of them for everyone else.”

On the stage, El Comite Pro-Reforma Migratoria Y Justicia Social, a Seattle labor and social justice organization, presented musicians, who sang labor anthems, rapped and danced, calling on the crowd to join in. Labor leaders spoke, concluding with Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant, who spoke about racial and economic justice and the need for a socialist society.

Later in the day, national and international media picked up on the violence of the Capitol Hill protests, where 16 people were arrested and three police officers were injured in what police called a riot. But the crowd gathered outside the U.S. District Courthouse left peacefully after the program ended, with the hundreds of demonstrators splitting off to disperse into the city.

Keep up with the latest news, announcements, and info by following the International Examiner on Twitter @iexaminer. Also catch editor Travis Quezon on Twitter @TravisQuezon. And be sure to stop by our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/internationalexaminer. We are also on Instagram as @internationalexaminer and Google+ as International Examiner.

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The May Day March for Workers and Immigrant Rights concluded with a speech by Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant. • Photo by Chetanya Robinson


IE NEWS

2015 Community Voice Awards

We, at the International Examiner, invite you to our exciting 2015 Community Voice Awards celebrating the exceptional achievements of our Asian Pacific Ameri-can leaders. The annual benefit dinner and fundraiser will be held on Thursday, May 21, 2015 from 5:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at the New Hong Kong Restaurant in the Seattle Chinatown International District. We are proud to present our 2015 Community Voice Awardees for:

• Arts: Kathy Hsieh. As the City of Seattle Office of Arts & Culture Community Partners Manager, she continues to increase access to City funding for under-represented communities. In particular, her leadership in convening the dialogue on the Mikado production enlightened mainstream theatre communities and our broader community to be an active partner in creating solutions.

• Community Service: Connie So. As faculty at the University of Washington American Ethnic Studies, Dr. So touched a multitude of lives, helping shape young people in learning and understanding themselves, their Asian Pacific American history, and their role and responsibility in undoing the racism, sexism, and other injustices in our society.

• Entrepreneur of the Year: Debadutta Dash. He is a shining example of a successful businessman who con-tinuously leads and serves in APIA community as former President of the India Association of Western Washing-ton, President of Asian and Counseling Referral Services, founder of South Asian Music and Performing Art Cen-ter and member of the Washington State Commission on Asian and Pacific American Affairs.

• Posthumous Lifetime Achievement: Ticiang Diangson. For 31 years with the City, she focused on addressing environmental and racial and social justice issues. In her early years with City Light, she served as a home energy auditor and took notice of service disparities in different parts of the city. She became the first outreach staff member and a major force behind the City’s recycling program with Seattle Public Utilities. Ms. Diangson served as editor of the Utilities’ award-winning newsletter and a leader of the City’s Race and Social Justice Initiative. She served as the inaugural director of the Utilities Environmental Justice and Service Equity Division. She was the first person in the nation to hold such a position.

• Organization: Vulcan Inc. Vulcan Inc. consistently demonstrated leadership as a corporate citizen. Their strong and consistent track record of supporting the non-profit, community-based organizations and small businesses in the ID has positive lasting impacts. Vulcan Inc. has been a caring and thoughtful partner in the In-ternational District/ Chinatown neighborhood.

• Tatsuo Nakata Youth: Tony Vo. Tony Vo is an incred-ible emerging leader. He has given voice to Asian Pacific Islander students as Director of the UW Asian Student Commission. He helped unite students and the API com-munity to successfully reinstate the UW Southeast Asian Recruiter position and as a community builder, he started the White Center Super Hero 5K Walk and Run to engage the White Center residents and donate the proceeds to the White Center Food Bank, the White Center CDA and YES Foundation of White Center.

For questions or more information, contact event coordinator Third Andresen at [email protected] or visit iexaminer.org/cva2015.

23rd Annual Community Voice AwardsInternational Examiner 41st Anniversary Benefit Gala & Auction

Thursday, May 21, 2015 from 5:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Tickets: $100New Hong Kong Restaurant, 900 S Jackson St., Seattle, WA 98104

Sponsored by:

AnnouncementsNikkei newspapers

digital archive unveiling June 8

IE News Services

A public unveiling of a digital archive of Nikkei newspapers North American Times and North American Post happens

on June 8 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at Nagomi Tea House, 519 6th Avenue S.

The digital archive is the result of three and a half years of work. The issuese of these Japanese language newspapers are now accesible and available to the public through a new website hosted by University of Washington Libraries.

A speaker panel will discuss the rich history of the lcoal Japanese American community and digitizing process.

Family: An API LGBTQ Gathering

IE News Services

Seattle JACL invites the community to a free all-day event called, “Family: An Asian Pacific Islander LGBTQ Gathering.” The event happens on Saturday, June 13 from 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at North

Seattle College, 9600 College Way N. The event will provide resources and a community celebration for LGBTQ youth and their families in the API community.

Lunch is provided. Keynote speakers include educator and LGBTQ advocate Marsha Aizumi and transgender activist Aiden Takeo Aizumi.

For more information, visit www.APAFamily.Weebly.com.


IE COMMUNITY

By Ron ChewIE Contributor

The Cathay Post #186 of the American Legion, a Seattle-based veterans organization founded by Chinese American World War II veterans, will hold its annual Memorial Day commemoration in Hing Hay Park on Monday, May 25 at 4:00 p.m.

This year’s commemoration will be bittersweet. The Post is nearing its 70th anniversary, but the membership roster—once filled with hundreds of names—has dwindled to double-digits.

“We’re down to 60-something members,” said Post Commander Jack Pang, who turns 93 this August. “Many of them are home-bound and unable to get out. We’re all dying off. It’s gone down pretty fast. In a year or two, the thing that will be the most important is preserving our legacy.”

The Post was first established in 1945 by Seattle native David “Gobby” Woo, an aerial gunner pilot shot down over Germany during World War II. He survived 27 months of confinement in German prison camps, including Stalag 17B, the Austrian camp immortalized in a film starring William Holden. When Woo returned to Seattle after the War, he established the Post to honor Chinese Americans from Seattle who had died during the conflict and to help other returning Chinese American veterans with petitioning for wives to come over from China.

The contribution of Chinese American soldiers helped pave the way for repeal of the discriminatory 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act after the end of the War and for veterans to successful petition for entry of wives to this country for the first time.

Woo passed died in 1992. The last of the 14 original charter members, James Mar, long-time owner of the Yick Fung & Co., died in 2012 at the age of 98. The Yick Fung store has been preserved as a permanent historical exhibition at the Wing Luke Museum.

Every year, the Post holds a memorial service to honor the 10 Chinese Americans from Seattle who gave their lives during World War II. This year—as in years past—the program will include the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance, a tribute performance by the Seattle Chinese American Girls Drill Team, a 21-gun salute, prayers and the laying of wreaths at the base of the polished granite memorial stone in Hing Hay Park in the International District. Younger members of the Army ROTC at Seattle University will handle the firing squad. Said 88-year-old Cathay Post member Lip Mar: “We can’t handle the rifles anymore. They’re too heavy.”

Cathay Post hosts annual Memorial Day event in Hing Hay Park

In the past year, the Cathay Post has launched a partnership with the International Examiner and OCA-Greater Seattle (formerly Organization of Chinese Americans) to videotape interviews with surviving Chinese American veterans, especially those from World War II and the Korean War. Early photographs, letters and other documents will be digitized. A one-hour video documentary is being created under the leadership of Tuyen Kim Tuyen, a media producer and videographer at Highline College.

“We’re hoping this video project helps us preserve our legacy,” Pang said. It’s very sad. We haven’t really thought enough sharing our legacy until just recently. Most people aren’t even aware that Chinese in Seattle went to war and sacrificed their lives for this country. People don’t understand that we laid the groundwork for other people coming over here. I’m proud to be a veteran. I fought for this country. But compared to the Nisei vets, we’re practically unknown. People think we didn’t do a damn thing. They don’t even know about our annual scholarship program—the support we’ve been providing for high school students.”

At the monthly meeting of the Cathay Post this past weekend, Post member Tom Lehning, a Korean War veteran noted that there have been active discus-sions about disbanding the Post in the next five years. Pang added that if the organization dwindles to fewer than 15 members, the American Legion might automatically “deactivate” the Post.

Recently, Pang has attended community planning meetings, hosted by the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation, to discuss plans for expansion and renovation of Hing Hay Park. The building adjacent to the Park, formerly occupied by the International District branch of the U.S. Postal Service, will be torn down to make way for the upgrade, funded by a successful parks levy.

Pang suggested that Hing Hay Park be renamed the “Hing Hay Veterans Memorial Park” and that minor enhancements, including installation of railings near the steps to the memorial, be added to highlight the presence of the memorial. Eventually, he added, it would be nice to add a small pagoda-style room over the memorial.

“It shouldn’t really cost that much,” Pang said. “It’s a small gesture given what the veterans gave for this country. It’ll help draw tourists down to Chinatown, and with the names of the veterans on the memorial, people will begin to appreciate what this slab of granite actually means.”

Cathay Post members gather before a May 16 meeting at the New Hong Kong Restaurant. Post members are pictured in back row, from left: Tom Lehning, Dick Kay, Bill Chin, Lip Mar, Francis Gregory, Jackson Chan and Terry Nichols. Front row (from left): Seattle University Army ROTC members Casey Madayag and Jose Quintanilla. • Photo by Tuyen Kim Than


IE COMMUNITY

Project Management

CLASSIFIEDSEMPLOYMENTEMPLOYMENTRENT HELP WANTED

Sales CoordinatorThe Washington State Convention Center (WSCC) is accepting applications for the position of SALES COORDINATOR. Duties include maintenance of the facility’s master schedule of events and license agreements.

Requirements: Relevant BA or BS; 2 yrs exp in hotel or multi-use facility in a scheduling, event coordination or related position with direct exp maintaining a sales/scheduling filing and training system. 3 yrs exp in word processing and spreadsheets. Preference for 1yr exp with an automated event scheduling system.

Visit www.wscc.com for further info or to download an app. Apps are also available at the WSCC Service Entrance, 9th and Pike, Mon-Fri, 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. WSCC app must be completed for consideration. Position is open until filled. Jobline: (206) 694-5039. EOE.

Logo: $12.00Regular Lines: $6.00 X 19 = $114Bold Lines: 10.50 X 5 = $52.50

TOTAL = $178.50

Parking Washington State Convention Center (WSCC), located in downtown Seattle, is accepting applications for Parking Cashier Part-Time (20 - 35 hours per week).

Duties include monitoring incoming vehicles, collecting parking fees & providing customer service to WSCC guests. Requires HS diploma or GED and one year of cashier experience. Applicants must be available to work flexible hours including weekends, evenings and nights.

Visit www.wscc.com for further info or to download an application. Apps are also available at the WSCC Service Entrance, 9th and Pike, Mon-Fri, 8am – 5pm. WSCC application must be completed for consideration. Jobline: (206) 694-5039. EOE.

Logo: $12.00Regular Lines: $6.00 X 13 = $78 Bold Lines: 10.50 X 8 = $84.00

TOTAL = $174

PROJECT COORDINATOR

The WA State Convention Center, located in downtown Seattle, has an opening for the position of Project Coordinator.

The function of the Project Coordinator is to coordinate the actions and responsibilities of the WA State Convention Center (WSCC) in the execution of the WSCC Addition, under the Development Management Agreement between WSCC and Pine Street Group L.L.C.

Required qualifications: BA/BS degree and 5 years direct project/construction management experience.

Visit www.wscc.com for further info or to download an app. Apps are also available at the WSCC Service Entrance, 9th and Pike, Mon-Fri, 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Jobline: (206) 694-5039. EOE. Application Deadline: Tuesday, May 26, 2015 at 5:00 p.m.

By Bianca SewakeIE Staff Writer

It might be easy to miss a particular white concrete building along Elliot Avenue among the worn down buildings in this industrial part of Queen Anne. But look closely for the painted red sign that spells out “Fuji Bakery.”

“Fuji Bakery is a location where professionals get together to achieve the highest standard of pastries and desserts,” said owner Akihiro Nakamura.

Though it’s my first time at this location, I am no stranger to the smaller shop in Chinatown/International District. But this is Nakamura’s headquarters, where the kitchen is located, and where his chefs churn out the sweet and savory baked goods on a daily basis.

Nakamura told me that although he is not a baker, he hires passionate people. Next to him are two of his trusted—and passionate—chefs: Boulangerie, or head of breads, Takanobu Ogisu, and patisserie, or head of desserts, Yushi Osawa.

The three conversed a bit in Japanese when I asked how they all met, and Nakamura helped translate. Osawa met Nakamura through one of his friends who was working at the bakery. Ogisu was doing pastry work in France when he applied for the job. It was his first time coming to the United States and he said Nakamura gave him a chance to work at the bakery.

Holding themselves to the high standard Nakamura mentioned, everything is made daily. That means Fuji Bakery never sells second day goods. This also means that because of that, both Ogisu and Osawa start work early every morning.

“For bread, [Ogisu] starts 3:00 in the morning,” Nakamura said. “His typical day is mixing the flours and start making the breads until 10:00. Then he prepares for the next day until probably 1:00 to 3:00 in the afternoon.”

Osawa told me that he starts work at around 6:00 a.m., and that it isn’t the same every day. However, it still involves preparations, baking, assortments of pastries, and creating decorations.

The bakery sells a wide variety of baked goods and desserts. There are more familiar items like baguettes, quiches, and tarts, among many others. But there are also more unique items that are worth trying.

Ogisu likes the Crunchy Cream. It’s a light and fluffy deep fried donut filled with a custard cream. The outside is coated with granulated sugar and corn flakes.

For Osawa, he enjoys the macaroons, especially the matcha green tea flavored one.

The Milk Stick is another one worth trying. It’s a small, soft baguette filled with a milk cream filling.

One of my own favorites is the Fraise. It’s light and flaky puff pastry topped

with a vanilla custard and fresh sliced strawberries. It’s all dusted off with powdered sugar.

For something more savory, there’s the Curry Bread, which is a deep fried bun filled with in-house curry and the outside is coated with bread crumbs. These are just a small sample of what Fuji Bakery offers.

“The inspiration for baking comes from everywhere—Portuguese, Spanish,” Nakamura said. “Of course there’s a lot of French, but we have German influence. We take everything that tastes good.”

There’s also a number of different—but yummy—goods that the chefs get to experiment with.

In fact, I met Nakamura’s other trusted and passionate chef, Amanda Burchett, as

she brought out a peanut butter ganache for them to sample. It’s a new recipe she experimented with to improve one of their existing pastries.

Burchett, who manages the bakery, en-joys what she called an unlimited opportu-nity of creative freedom they have at Fuji Bakery. Ogisu also noted he likes creating the menus. And because they pull flavor in-spiration from all over the world, they are able to appeal to a wide range of customers.

“I’ve seen every culture come through here,” Burchett said.

She enjoys the moments when “people who bite into [a pastry] and say, ‘It’s like I’m back in France.’” Burchett continued, saying, “Another great moment that I’ve had is when the 80 and 90-year-old Japanese women come in and take a bite out of the

Akihiro Nakamura: Fuji Bakery has a passion for pastriesmilk stick and say, ‘Just like mom’s’ or ‘Just like grandma’s.’”

Burchett, who is a culinary school drop-out, also enjoys working with Ogisu and Osawa.

“[Ogisu] is very creative. He is a bread magician,” Burchett said. “Yushi is extremely talented. Dropping out of school, I did leave behind just a few classes like an advanced patisserie class. Now Yushi is my advanced patisserie instructor … I learn something new from both of them everyday.”

Though both Ogisu and Osawa are modest in their work, they both have won awards for their culinary skills. Ogisu won Fuji Bakery second place at the Darigold Best Baguette Contest in March, and Osawa won first place in the Washington State Cake Show and Competition for a cake he made out of chocolate.

Nakamura is pleased with his staff.“I feel really confident with my chefs,”

Nakamura said. “I think that these young and talented people are doing the best they can, which is far superior than anyone else.”

For Nakamura, he enjoys bringing Seattle quality baked goods and pastries, supporting the talent of young chefs, and will leave the future of the bakery to be created how they see it.

In the meantime, Nakamura said it best when he suggested, “Try everything. I’m pretty sure there’s something that you will taste and say, ‘Wow.’”

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Left to right: Amanda Burchett (head chef and bakery manager), Takanobu Ogisu (head of breads), Akihiro Nakamura (owner), Koji Masuda (sales and helped translate for Ogisu), Yushi Osawa (head of pastries). • Courtesy Photo


IE COMMUNITY

By Bianca SewakeIE Staff Writer

More than 500 people in matching green shirts showed up at Hing Hay Park on Saturday, April 25 ready to take part in the annual C/ID Spring Clean Day in conjunction with Comcast Cares Day.

“It’s a day that gathers people from all across the city, from all walks of life, to give some serious TLC to a historic and culturally-significant neighborhood in a hands-on way,” said Diem Ly, external affairs manager and community relations lead for Comcast’s Washington region. “This neighborhood is not just a place to eat dim sum or park to attend sports events. In a way, it’s the heartbeat of Seattle and it matters to treat it with respect and care.”

There were around 3.000 volunteers across the state of Washington as part of Comcast Cares Day. In Seattle, Comcast hosted the cleanup with InterIm Community Development Association, Seattle Chinatown International District Preservation and Development Authority (SCIDPDA), and Chinatown-International District Business Improvement Area (CIDBIA).

#IHeartCID and #CCDay were the running hash tags for the day to promote the event and raise awareness of the day’s activities.

C/ID Spring Clean Day: Hundreds turn up to refresh neighborhood

Various groups within the community such as ACRS, Tet in Seattle, UrbanArtworks, and others participated in the clean up, arriving before 8:00 a.m. to sign up for different projects. This was followed by short encouraging speeches from the hosts, stretching exercises, and energetic exercises before everyone dispersed around different parts of the International District to carry out their tasks.

There are many projects that are done year after year, such as painting over graffiti, litter pick-up, re-painting the I-5 columns, among many others, Ly said.

OCA—Greater Seattle’s Jael Yamamoto was responsible for rounding up six of her organization’s members that participated this year.

“We have been doing the same project for a couple of years, which is tending to

the Danny Woo Garden,” Yamamoto said. “Our tasks involved weeding and mulching.”

Ly also mentioned that along with their usual projects, there was a little more creativity involved in developing new projects as well.

According to Ly, these projects included “painting an 80-foot long community mural designed by a local artist and making sure we included the area of Little Saigon. Comcast also purchased $10,000-worth of furniture for SCIDPDA’s co-works space called Hing Hay Co-Works—meant to serve as a springboard for budding new businesses.”

“This event is important for the community because it refreshes Chinatown and should promote business within the area,” Yamamoto said. “My hopes for the future of this event are that more community-based organizations get involved.”

Comcast Cares Day has grown over the past 14 years to include more than 100,000 volunteers across the country.

“How often can you get over 500 people on a Saturday morning to clean up a neighborhood?” Ly said. “It’s an inspiring day and I expect the Spring Clean will continue on for years to come.”

Each year, volunteers repaint the I-5 columns as part of Comcast Cares Day. • Photo by C.B. Bell

Photo by Isaac LiuPhoto by Isaac Liu

Photo by Isaac LiuPhoto by Isaac Liu


IE COMMUNITY

By Nick WongIE Contributor

A night dubbed “Legacy of Leadership” honored Sharon Maeda’s 47 years of social justice advocacy and leadership on May 13 at the Wing Luke Museum. The proceeds from the event helped to benefit office renovations and the mission of 21 Progress, a Seattle nonprofit with the mission to develop leaders and build a 21st century movement for equity and justice.

Maeda’s work has taken her across the country as Deputy Assistant Secretary to Henry Cisneros at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), executive director of Pacifica Radio, Deputy General Secretary of the global mission board of the United Methodist Church, and an activist in Washington state. She’s been involved in everything from assisting the White House liaison to the Asian-American community to taking part in the controversial Elian Gonzalez custody case back in 2000. At one point, she was even a writer for this newspaper. Maeda had also been a finalist in the appointment of a new Seattle City councilmember in April, a position that narrowly went to current Councilmember John Okamoto.

Maeda most recently stepped down as executive director of 21 Progress. While the organization as we know it today only began offering its programs in 2012, the history of the 21 Progress began in the late 1970s, when Retail Clerks Local 1001, now a part of UFCW 21, launched the nonprofit organization, Retail Clerks Local 1001 Housing Development Association, and constructed an 82-unit apartment building, named Sunset House, for their union retirees and other seniors. By 2008,

downtown Seattle was no longer a base for its membership.

After a number of deliberations, UFCW 21 sold Sunset House to Housing Resources Group (now known as Bellwether Housing) to continue the legacy of providing housing for Seattle’s most vulnerable citizens. Just as the vision for Sunset House served the union and the community well for over 30 years, proceeds from the building sale allowed for a dynamic new vision to develop. In 2011, the nonprofit changed its name to 21 Progress. Maeda was put in as executive director.

“I was very fortunate because I was the only person with a non-profit management background,” Maeda said. “What we decided to do was to set aside part of the money and use the rest of it to get started to build the program. It helped 250 undocumented people to get their status and interest-free loans and leadership training.”

One of the services provided by 21 Progress is a free multi-language tax preparation workshop that provides services to community members with limited access to those resources.

“To see immigrant tax payers get major refunds, thousands of dollars back coming back to them, was unbelievable,” Maeda said. “There was one Somali janitor who was going to get $9,700 back. That’s life changing. He absolutely did not believe that it was true at first. But when the check came, he was totally blown away. Previous years he would pay. Things like that were very rewarding to see, and they become leaders in their own lives, because once something like that happens to someone, they tell other people about it.”

Making her 70th trip around the sun this last February, Maeda made the decision to put a close to her involvement in 21 Progress. Taking her place as executive director is Mozart Guerrier, a Haitian-American transplant from Syracuse, NY, that brings with him a long history of working with social projects ranging anywhere from securing housing for homeless families to raising breast cancer awareness. Maeda says she’s confident in leaving the organization in Guerrier’s hands.

“I’m certainly not losing any sleep at night about what’s happening at 21 Progress,” Maeda said. “Leadership development for me has always been something where I wanted to mentor younger folk coming up. I’m almost old enough to be his grandmother,” Maeda laughs when speaking about Guerrier. “He’s very competent and can do more

‘Legacy of Leadership’: Catching up with Sharon Maedasocial media stuff than I can do. It’s really important to have that younger generation of leadership. At some point, it’s important to have fresh eyes on the organization.”

“Sharon is a leader who consistently does creative and courageous work with integrity, while at the same time working persistently to uplift, grow, and develops diverse leaders as she moves through the world,” Guerrier said.

These days, Maeda is spending her time going over an archive of interviews and footage to put together a documentary about Silme Domingo and Gene Viernes, two Filipino American labor activists who were murdered in Seattle’s Pioneer Square in the 1980s. Their murders were found to be connected to the Marcos regime, an incident that Maeda believes does not get enough coverage.

“Although the case is old, it is still the first case and only where a foreign head of state has been held liable for the death of American citizens on U.S. soil,” Maeda said. “There have been dictators around the world that have killed 100,000 people, on their own land, but this was in the United States.”

Maeda believes there are still plenty of issues facing the APIA community of today. She lists a number of things, from the ongoing “model minority” stereotype holding back communities to a growing APIA homeless population on the street. Voting rights are another issue that Maeda sees as an obstacle for the future of the APIA community. Her words of advice for the next generation, however, are short and sweet:

“Empower yourself and find ways to stand with others.”

Sharon Maeda speaks at “Legacy of Leadership” on May 13. • Photo by Lexi Potter

King County Assessor Lloyd Hara and Seattle Deputy Mayor Hyeok Kim greet volunteers at C/ID Spring Clean Day. • Photo by Isaac Liu

C/ID Spring Clean Day volunteers stretch in Hing Hay Park. • Photo by Isaac Liu


In a world where nature and technology are fused—where skyscrapers feel, and mountains stand up and walk—

In a world where creatures are one with the landscape, their giant sweet eyes watching from the hills—where fairies are part rooster or lizard or bird—

One Japanese artist will single-handedly create a vision of the future filled with whimsy and hope.

MAY 2–OCT 4 ASIAN ART MUSEUM, VOLUNTEER PARK

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The exhibition is organized by the Seattle Art Museum.

Additional SupportContributors to the SAM Fund

Media SponsorThe Stranger

Image: City Glow (detail), 2005, Chiho Aoshima, Japanese, b. 1974, chromogenic print, 66 15/16 x 66 15/1 6 in., Courtesy Blum & Poe, Los Angeles/Galerie Perrotin, © 2005 Chiho Aoshima/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

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By Roxanne RayIE Contributor

It’s baseball season, and the 5th Avenue Theatre is joining in on the act. The 5th Avenue’s Adventure Musical Theatre department has teamed up with Ken Mochizuki to adapt his children’s book, Baseball Saved Us, into a stage musical for school-age audiences.

According to Mochizuki, this project began 15 years ago. “During late 2001, I was contacted by Bill Berry, then director of 5th Avenue’s Adventure Musical Theatre,” he said, and was excited by the prospect of turning his story, about a boy who turns his anger about his family’s oppression toward better performance on the baseball field, into a live show.

Anya Rudnick, Director of Education and Outreach for the 5th Avenue, reports that the theatre was equally enthused. “We were originally interested in Baseball Saved Us because it tells a story of an important period of history—the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II—that has significance for the Northwest and Seattle in particular,” Rudnick said.

Beyond the story’s educational elements, the 5th Avenue was also compelled by its possibility for inspiration. “We were also drawn to the story because it is ultimately one of hope and the will to survive in the face of horrible oppression,” Rudnick said. The project commenced shortly afterward.

“I met with him and musical director Sterling Tinsley, who inquired if I’d be interested in writing the ‘Book,’ everything in the play that wasn’t music and lyrics,” Mochizuki said. “They

Mochizuki has big dreams for ‘Baseball Saved Us’also said they had a composer lined up, Bruce Monroe, who had written previous compositions for AMT.”

The team met on a monthly basis throughout 2002, and Mochizuki says he was impressed when he heard the final version of the music. “I got blown away!” he said. “The songs—and the entire show—could have easily morphed into a corny flag-waver, but, via the lyrics, Bruce maintained the edge and integrity of those who underwent the American forced confinement experience.”

Then rehearsals began in earnest in 2003. “Rehearsals lasted for about a month, and I attended most of them—writing more of the play and lots of rewriting while rehearsals continued, Mochizuki said. “Bruce had to do the same thing with the music.”

The 5th Avenue was pleased with Mochizuki’s continued participation in the project. “We had a wonderful collaboration with Ken,” Rudnick said. “In the first year, Ken was very involved in the creative process—even participated in casting the first production.”

Mochizuki remained engaged during the early performances of the show. “I attended early performances in which we tested out the show at elementary schools,” he said. “The production team noted what worked and what didn’t, then we went back to revising. I then attended a number of performances during the production’s initial 2003 run and witnessed overwhelmingly positive and enthusiastic responses every time.”

The initial school tour was so successful that 5th Avenue AMT has produced two additional tours of the show, and

has expanded performances to include community centers and libraries. Mochizuki continued to remain involved, attending the first non-school performance at the Seattle Public Library in 2005: “I never forget the conclusion of that performance, when the last piano chord was struck, the cast lined up for its curtain call, and the audience applauded for a long time!”

During the third and current tour of the show this year, AMT’s outreach has further broadened. “This year we did a performance at Nikkei Manor, an assisted living facility in Seattle’s International District,” Rudnick said.

Also, on May 9, a performance of Baseball Saved Us was included in the Wing Luke Museum’s Family Fun Saturday Series. According to Rudnick, this performance was accompanied by a reading by Mochizuki, art activities, and museum tours. School performances continue until May 22.

Mochizuki still remains inspired by this project. “Most rewarding is being witness to how a collaborative effort converted a vision into reality, from words on paper to spoken and sung onstage,” he said. “The show’s costume and set designers used color schemes similar to the original book’s illustrations, with the intent of those illustrations leaping off the page!”

AMT rotates its shows each year in order to provide fresh material to its young audiences, but there is always the possibility that Baseball Saved Us may return to the stage in five to eight years.

Mochizuki has no specific plans on the horizon, but he continues to imagine opportunities. “I entertain fantasies of it becoming a full-length, mainstage production,” he said. “Imagine that musical score being performed by a full orchestra!”


IE COMMENTARY

By Shin Yu PaiIE Contributor

At his home studio, metalsmith artist Tomas Wittelsbach handcrafts ornately detailed jewelry inspired by masks and figures drawn from Japanese folklore. Elevated into sculptural gems, Wittelsbach’s collection of Noh-influenced designs reach back into the artist’s earliest memories of traveling through Japan with his family.

As a child, Wittelsbach toured throughout Asia with his great grandfather, a Bavarian aristocrat. “He traveled to Japan fairly early after it was opened up,” says Wittelsbach. “He fell in love with it and felt that it was important to expose me to different cultures when I was young.” The family spent anywhere between two weeks to two months out of each year in Japan. As an adult, Wittelsbach, returned to Japan regularly, while working on web development for Sony and interactive games for Sega theme-park development for Sanrio Puroland

Known primarily for House of Wittelsbach, the line of jewelry that the artist launched in 2005, Wittelsbach’s early work featured highly stylized skeletons and skulls exploring traditional and contemporary representations of death. When the artist wanted to explore creating more character-driven pieces, he turned to his memories of attending performances of Noh, bunraku and kabuki. “It was very other worldly and so different from anything I’d ever seen. It really stuck with me.”

Drawn to the expressive character of Japanese masks, Wittelsbach prototyped three beads inspired by several masks: Hannya (the spurned woman), and Raidin and Raijin, the gods of thunder and lightning who frequently appear in classical Japanese musical dramas. “They are very common tattoo images,” says Wittelsbach. “Recognition of them is culturally saturated.”

Japanese-inspired jewelry line features iconic folkloric characters

After receiving a positive response, the artist transitioned the objects from beads into rings and dived more deeply into researching other folkloric characters for his series. The design for Ko-omote portrays a traditional female character that represents feminine purity through her snow-white face and even gaze. The wild-eyed clown-like character of Hyottoko is frozen in the gesture of blowing fire (through a bamboo tube). Engraved inside each ring is the character’s name and kanji.

A number of characters from outside the Noh repertoire are also included in the series. “Tengu is much more of a fairy tale, or a ghost story. Same as the Monkey King,” says Wittelsbach. “They are just such expressive characters. Tengu has a bowl of water on his head. He has to keep the bowl of water on his head as he accosts children.”

Wittelsbach took nearly two years to design and create his Noh Mask series. Working out of his garage, the artist used software used for sculpting in the film industry to create his designs. Regarded as a pioneer in applying technologies used in film to object-making, Wittelsbach uses Zbrush and 3D printing in the production of his designs. He uses 3D printed waxes and traditional lost wax processes to create the molds from which he makes the metal castings. “The new printing machines are very detailed and clean,” says Wittelsbach. “The challenge is knowing what actually shows up in the prints – it depends on the printer you are using they all print differently. You have to design for the machine you are printing on.”

Trained as a sculptor at California Institute for the Arts, Wittelsbach spent several decades designing for Hollywood, before launching his distinctive line of jewelry which is featured locally at Greenlake Jewelry Works. Currently, Wittelsbach’s Noh series is only available online, though he aspires to have his work carried throughout Seattle, as well as internationally, in boutiques throughout Japan.

By Susan KunimatsuIE Contributor

Akio Takamori finds beauty in the ordinary. For the past two decades, he has created large scale ceramic figures of people, some from history, many from his childhood in Japan. The simple stoneware shapes are decorated with transparent underglazes reminiscent of Asian brush and ink drawings or watercolors. He presents them in groups, thoughtfully staged to convey a mood and tell a story. In these bodies of work, he reflects on the passage of time in people’s lives, in world events, and in his own art. In his current show at James Harris Gallery, “The Beginning of Everything,” all of the figures are children.

“Lately more images of children are coming into my work,” Takamori said recently. In one room, figures of two young boys, slightly less than life-size, squat close to the ground, surveying a small mountain range. Each mountain references a historic genre or work of art, their painterly glazes imitating the styles of those works: El Greco’s “View of Toledo”; Albrecht Dürer’s etching of a European hill town; Sesshū Tōyō’s Japanese mountain landscape. Takamori extrapolates the painted images into three dimension; their miniature buildings and fluffy clouds seem more whimsical in clay. The two boys are colossi surveying the history of art.

Takamori envisions this first room as the past; the next is the future, full of images of infants. If the mountains and squatting boys are grounded, these babies are otherworldly. In past works, Takamori has referred to the Japanese belief in infancy as a sort of divine state, both innocent and wise. Two life-size stoneware infants, “Putti” and

Appreciating Innocence: The art of Akio Takamori

“Putti in Yellow Mitts” are mounted high on the walls, as if descending from heaven. Several etchings are of babies floating in sky or water. Two brush and ink drawings on antique ledger paper superimpose images of infants over decades-old handwriting, juxtaposing past and present, childhood and adulthood. The lines of writing echo the ripples of water in the etchings.

“It seems to me a horrible time for children,” Takamori says, citing child suicide bombers and refugees, innocents caught in the downward spiral of world events. Images of children played an important role in the Social Realist art of the 1950’s and 1960’s. Three pieces were inspired by photographs from this period, taken in post-war Japan and Korea, of older children carrying younger ones on their backs, in ruined cities and empty fields. But while these poignant images speak of a loss of innocence, they are not about loss of hope. Takamori recalls being carried in this manner as a child, as a gesture of comfort and caring.

“I was looking for some sense of care and love, not looking for a sense of tragedy,” he says of the children in this last group. Their clothes are brightly colored and patterned, conveying a sense of vibrancy and optimism in spite of their serious expressions. Adults commit atrocities; children begin the world anew. But this should not be taken as a simple triumph of youth. Takamori’s children are squatting or carrying others piggyback, postures he has consciously chosen because they are typically Asian. He uses them to illustrate the beauty and decency of the ordinary, the goodness in the everyday.

The Beginning of Everything at James Harris Gallery through June 27. Information at http://jamesharrisgallery.com/news or (206) 903-6220.

The University of Washington School of Drama and Seattle Office of Arts & Culture present an exploratory theater conference that traverses through the heart of Seattle’s Chinatown. History and memory come alive through site-specific theatrical performances, new works by local Asian American playwrights, and a discussion panel on Asian American Theater with top Seattle-based theater artists. There will also be a dim sum luncheon featuring keynote remarks by Philip Kan Gotanda, award winning playwright and seminal figure in the Asian American Theater movement.

Stories from Chinatown: A living theater project happens Saturday, May 30 from 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at various locations in Seattle’s Chinatown. Cost is $20-$42. To register, visit https://drama.washington.edu/events/2015-05-30/stories-chinatown-living-theater-project. This day long conference event runs from 11:30 am–4:30 pm. It involves a moderate level of walking and an ability to climb stairs.

AnnouncementsStories from Chinatown: A living theater project

Please share your concerns, your solutions, and your voices. Send a letter to the editor to [email protected] with the subject line “Letter to the Editor.”

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Pick up the next issue of the International Examiner to view the Asian American Struggle Photo Exhibit!


IE ARTS

By Bianca SewakeIE Contributor

Now in its 23rd year, the International Examiner continues to recognize the outstanding achievements of the Asian Pacific American leaders through the Community Voice Awards.

This year, Ticiang Diangson is being honored with the Posthumous Lifetime Achievement award for her work and leadership in empowering the community of color and raising awareness in environmental justice.

Diangson grew up half-Polish and half-Filipino in Chicago and learned about racism early in life.

Maria Batayola, longtime friend of almost 40 years, said, “I remember when she was talking about how when she was young, other kids would chase her home from school. I think that’s what got her to really push through to not only advocate for herself but others as well.”

Batayola would meet Diangson years after those incidents, a year after Batayola graduated from college. They met at Tacoma Community House where other community volunteers and activists could be found. Diangson was 13 years older than Batayola, but the two hit it off immediately, talking about everything ranging from what it means to be an American and what it means to be women of color. Diangson became Batayola’s confidante and empowering force.

The two were part of the Asian Pacific Womens Caucus group, which advocated for women’s rights and people of color.

Throughout their years of friendship, Diangson would always make an effort to factor in quality face time—not just phone calls or emails. Diangson had her own “special language” according to Batayola. Diangson would say “neener neener” whenever she spotted someone who was not on the ok list. “Applesauce” was used right away when the conversation needed to take a serious turn. And the “cone of silence,” borrowed from the T.V. show Get Smart, was used in instances where confidentiality was needed to protect the people and conversations that needed to happen.

Diangson cared deeply for people around her. Batayola, as a single mother, said Diangson helped her raise her boy.

“She’s a great aunty,” Batayola said. “Kids would come home always with something and I would say, ‘Ticiang, you’re bribing him. You’re spoiling him.’ And she has a lot of other nieces and nephews and godchildren … That was incredible because you have to have a lot of emotional bandwidth to do that.”

Through Diangson, Batayola learned that it’s OK to be friends and love your co-workers. Another person who can speak to this is Michael Davis, who Diangson took under

her wing while working for the city. The two first met in 1986.

“She was one of those people that really welcomed me,” Davis said. “That’s one of the things I love about Ticiang. She welcomed everyone into her circle regardless of skin color, which language they spoke, who they chose to love. It’s one of those people I immediately felt at home with her.

Diangson introduced Davis to many different circles for Davis to not only meet and know people, but share ideas in discussion. For Davis, who was a shy person and raised to not be aggressive in conversations and was more of a listener, this was important.

Davis said, “She would pause from time to time saying, ‘So Michael, what do you think about this?’ I found that to be really great. People weren’t taking the time to ask if I had any thoughts because things were happening so quickly that you either jumped in to say what you had to say which meant that the loudest and the most boisterous and person that was the most aggressive was the one who sort of held the floor. She was really good at breaking that up not just for me but other people. She did a really good job at making sure there wasn’t just one person talking and creating a sense of dialogue.”

Diangson was also passionate about environmental justice. She founded the Community Coalition for Environmental Justice to address environmental health issues. Through the city, she helped with the curbside recycling program when it first started, and worked on projects making sure the city’s poor, immigrants, and refugees, were served equally and had access to necessary information and services.

Her work led to the creation of the Environmental Justice & Service Equity Division of which she became the first director. Davis, now following in her footsteps is the current director, where he continues her vision for race and social justice in environmental concerns.

“She was such an incredible spirit not just in how she showed up at work and doing the work,” Davis said. “It was the way in which she treated people and the way in which she created her own family here. It wasn’t just about the work. It was about creating community.”

For Batayola, “The real legacy that comes through is the courage to call out what you see and the courage to do something about it.”

Diangson

Ticiang Diangson leaves lasting legacy in community

Connie So honored with Community Voice Award for

community serviceBy Bianca Sewake

IE Staff Writer

This year, Connie So is being honored with the Community Voice Award for Community Service for her work in raising awareness and pride of the Asian American community and educating young Asian Americans about their history.

Originally from Kowloon, Hong Kong, So rejoined her maternal grandparents in the United States when she was a child and grew up in Seattle’s Beacon Hill.

In high school, So witnessed Asian Americans and the larger community of color getting bullied—herself included. She became aware of the negative social implications and prejudice that was placed on people of color. While working at the University of Washington’s Odegaard Library shelving books one day, So was drawn to the Asian American Studies section and immediately felt a connection to her roots. This inspired her to start a diversity club at her school and she wrote letters to the administrators complaining about the lack of acceptance diversity.

So went on to study English and Communications at UW, where she was actively involved in various groups that lifted up the Asian community. Among her accomplishments there, So created the “Bite of Asia” event and was elected into the student’s government position of Vice President for Personnel, in which the diversity of student government employees diversified three-fold during her time. She wrote guest editorials for the Seattle Times on MTV’s depiction of Asian Americans, interned at a number of agencies that involved people of color and women, and was a founding member of the Northwest Asian Theater Company. She was also the representative for Asian American students when different ethnic programs were consolidating into the American Ethnic Studies department.

So got her Master’s in Public Administration at Princeton University. There, she was appointed the Minority Affairs Advisor to undergraduate students who also felt alienated on campus. She later pushed for a workshop series on the Asian American experience, where she had a film screening of “Who Killed Vincent Chin” and had a guest lecturer come in to talk. So said that her experience at Princeton is what led her to pursue a PhD in Ethnic Studies because she was tired of correcting all the incorrect fallacies.

At U.C. Berekely, So got her PhD in Ethnic Studies with an emphasis on political science. She was selected by

her peers as the Student Representative for the Graduate Union of Ethnic Studies Students and was dedicated to empowering the colored community through knowledge and

pride of their history. She taught courses at Berekely and U.C. Davis, and returned to the UW to teach.

Since returning to Seattle in 1992, So has continued working with people of color even outside of the classroom through different programs and organizations around the community, celebrating and educating the diverse ethnicities. She is currently the Vice President of OCA—Greater Seattle (formerly the Organization of Chinese Americans), where she supervises students’ work on different events and activities.

The International Examiner briefly caught up with So to talk about her inspiration and what she hopes her students will carry on from her lessons.

International Examiner: Ever since you became aware of the racism and challenges Asian Americans faced, you began lifting up those voices. What were some challenges you faced while doing that, and how did you find the strength to persevere?

Connie So: Knowing the history of your ancestors is critical in learning how to persevere. Given how bad things were for many of them, whether in China or the U.S. or Hong Kong, somehow they had the fortitude to persevere, the will to endure, and the ability to know when to fight and resist.

IE: Why is it important for students of color to know and remember their history?

So: For the same reason that it is important for me—to persevere, to learn and to appreciate. I’m going to repeat what George Santyana once said: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” I learned this phrase in my high school history class and it is a phrase that has stayed with me.

IE: What effect do you hope your teaching has on your students?

So: I hope my students discover their own passion for a subject. When we are studying something we’re really interested in, then it’s not really work. I hope I teach them to appreciate the struggles and achievements of many people before them. I want them to appreciate the accomplishments of the “famous” folks and also the ones who are not so famous, but who persevered and made life better for others after them. And I want them to know that as much as I enjoy teaching American Ethnic Studies, I also enjoy learning from them as they share their stories, their histories.

So


IE ARTS

Kathy Hsieh honored with Community Voice Award for artsBy Bianca Sewake

IE Staff Writer

Kathy Hsieh is being honored with the Community Voice Award for arts for being a leader in increasing City funding for un-der-represented communities, creating visi-bility and opportunities for Asian American artists, as well as educating and empowering emerging artists. She also propelled the con-versation forward in the dialogue following the controversy of last summer’s Seattle pro-duction of The Mikado.

The International Examiner caught up with Hsieh to talk about how she got her start in the arts and what inspired her to use the arts as a way to put a spotlight on the social justice issues she advocates for.

International Examiner: Can you talk a little about yourself and what you’ve been up to?

Kathy Hsieh: Artistically, I work with a company called SIS Productions, which I helped found 15 years ago. We are a produc-tion company that is run by Asian American women to use theatre to highlight and create opportunities for Asian Pacific Islanders in general, and to give more opportunities to them, and it’s particularly through the lens of women.

My day job is working for the Seattle Of-fice of Arts and Culture. … A large part of the work I’m doing is really trying to help arts and cultural organizations really look at their own institutionalized racism and

how we can all work together as a com-munity to address racial inequity, using the arts as a way to create that visibility. Over the course of a number of years, it felt like it was slow moving sometimes and I had a plan to do more racial equity training for arts organizations and artists. … Social media has elevated all the different racial inequi-ties around the country from Eric Garner to Trayvon Martin, Black Lives Matter, to our own “Mikado” incident that happened here in Seattle. All of that social media visibility all of a sudden put a national spotlight on the reality that racial inequity and racism still exist. We are not a post-racial society. That actually help build the momentum that [we] have been trying to put into place.

The one other thing I do that I’m really, passionate about is that every few years at the University of Washington, I’m invited in as an adjunct professor to teach a class called Asian American Theatre. … A lot of the plays really reflect the reality of the Asian American experience in our country. And also, as Asian American artists, we want to be able to tell stories that don’t have anything to do with race. We want to be able to be artists and express ourselves and be able to write steam punk plays or murder mysteries or romantic comedies and so I also focus on a lot of new work. … They kind of give students a vibrant range of how diverse Asian Americans are and how there’s so many stories.

IE: What got you interested in the arts? Did you always start off in the arts with

the idea that you wanted to work with these issues that you are now talking about?

Hsieh: What really intro-duced me to theatre was my ninth grade honors language

arts teacher. He was also the drama teacher and he made everyone in the class audition for the school play. … What I love about theatre is that you work really hard with a team of people and then when you show it to people, the audience becomes part of the larger picture. … When I was about to grad-uate, I had a different drama teacher by then, and I told her I’m thinking about actually studying acting. She told me the reality is, as a woman of color, my chance of making it as an actor was probably going to be very, very hard. She recommended that if I loved theatre enough, I should just consider going into teaching and teach theatre instead. So I remember that I was kind of crushed by that.

I realized that what I’m more passion-ate about is, I wanted to create visibility for Asian Americans because we didn’t have visibility in film, television, anything. … I mean, 2015, we’re only now having a tele-vision show that has Asian Americans as the main characters and the producers are not white and the writers are not white. … I thought about if I really wanted to make a difference it would be better for me to stay in Seattle, work through this theatre commu-nity and try to build a community of other

people of color and Asian Americans to help me lift the visibility of Asian Americans at least here, locally.

I’ve heard so many horror stories of Asian American artists who would go down to Los Angeles and they would go into audi-tions. Usually, when there’s a film or televi-sion show, they’re only really looking for one Asian American for these very stereotypical roles and there’s only one. Whenever you go to an audition, there’s dozens and dozens of Asian Americans and they’re all compet-ing for that one role. So what happens—and this is how structural racism works—Asian American actors start looking at each other as competition. So there’s no solidarity.

What I decided to do was start an actors group through the Northwest Asian Ameri-can Theatre. My philosophy is that if we all help each other be the best actor we can, then Seattle theaters will see there is a strong Asian American acting community and think, “Maybe we should start doing more shows where we can actually use these great actors.” Whenever there was an audition in town, even if it was only one part in that play, we would all meet and rehearse our audi-tions together, help each other, and give each other feedback. … Whoever got the part, we would celebrate that they got the part. Then I would try to get everyone to see the show so that we could all show the theatre company that they made the right choice in casting an Asian American, and look, there’s all these Asian Americans who are going to see them in that show.

Hsieh

Debadutta Dash honored with CVA for Entrepreneur of the YearBy Bianca Sewake

IE Staff Writer

This year, Debadutta Dash will be honored with the Entrepreneur of the Year award for his leadership in promoting entrepreneur-ship within the API community, advocating for more trade and commerce between the state and India, and his continued service to the API community.

The International Examiner caught up with Dash to talk about the issues he advo-cates for and why he’s running for city coun-cil.

International Examiner: What are the issues you devote a lot of your time to and why are they important to you?

Debadutta Dash: Honestly speaking, there are so many long-standing issues rang-ing from human services to the economic development, which impact our life on a regular basis. Sometimes it is very over-whelming. But in a broader spectrum, I feel most concerned about the growing number of homeless and hungry people in our com-munity. On the other hand what concerns me the most is our city’s affordability get-ting out of reach for most of us. The lack of affordability in housing (to rent or own), the disparity in income, lack of access to capital for starting a business, and the uncertainty

of any permanent or long term solution to these problems are very uncomfortable to live with.

IE: What problems do you still see in the community that needs to be ad-dressed?

Dash: The representation of API commu-nity is still very low in the decision/policy making level in all spheres of life be it pub-lic, private, or non-profit. This makes it very difficult for the API community to bring its issues and concerns to the forefront at the decision making level for a fruitful discus-sion and finding a long-term solution to the problems. Part of this problem is due to the lack of civic engagement (not participating in a civic process) in the API community, which needs to be addressed right away. Without a strong voice in the corridors of power, we cannot address the existing leg-islative, policy and service gaps that stand in the way of addressing critical social needs.

IE: You will be awarded with the Entre-preneur of the Year award. Can you talk about the entrepreneur work you’ve done in Seattle and the effects of your work?

Dash: I didn’t own any business to make profit for myself. However for the last 10 years, I had two important roles to play: One, as an advocate for promoting entrepreneur-

ship among API and minor-ity communities. Second, to advocate for more trade and commerce between India and the Washington State. This is when I have been working full time with the

Starwood Hotels & Resorts (The Westin Bellevue). I worked closely with many Asian Pacific American communities throughout the state and stayed connected with the local chambers of commerce, federal, city, county, and University institutions. I continued to explore possible opportunities for small and medium business owners in the Asian Pa-cific American community to expand their presence in the global economy by coordi-nating with various state agencies, chambers of commerce, and international trade orga-nizations and CAPAA.

As a result of this advocacy effort, we got two MOUs for international collaboration signed between the North Seattle Communi-ty College and two colleges in India in 2010. We also got the first sister-port agreement between the Port of Seattle and the Dhamra port in India actualized in 2011. The first U.S.-India trade summit was organized dur-ing the 50th anniversary celebration of the Seattle Center in 2012. Since then many trade delegations from India have visited Seattle and many Indian companies have

opened their offices in the Greater Seattle region. Last year, a presentation was made to the City of Seattle for a proposed sister-city relationship between Seattle and Gurgaon. You will be glad to know that the City of Gurgaon in India (closer to the capital city of Delhi) has the presence of more than 350 of the Fortune 500 companies in the U.S.

IE: You’ll be running for city council. Why is this the right time for the next step in your career?

Dash: Thanks to a city charter amend-ment the Seattle voters approved in 2013, we now have a partially districted city coun-cil. This means that instead of all nine city council members being elected by people all over the city, just two of them will be elected this way. The other seven will be elected by voters in the area of town where they live. I am excited that every part of the city will have a tribute in city hall. I have been living in the Olympic Hills neighborhood for last 14 years. While working in many non-profit boards and organizations in Seattle I have also been building bridges across communi-ties to foster the greater good. This has given me a deep understanding of the concerns and needs of many people in our commu-nity. Therefore I have decided to run for Se-attle City Council representing my district 5 (North Seattle).

Dash


IE ARTS

Tony Vo honored with the Tatsuo Nakata Youth awardBy Bianca Sewake

IE Staff Writer

This year, Tony Vo is being honored with the Community Voice Award’s Tatsuo Nakata Youth award. As a young emerging leader, Vo has given voice to Asian Pacific Islander students as Director of the UW Asian Student Commission. He helped unite students and the API community to successfully reinstate the UW Southeast Asian Recruiter position and as a community builder, he started the White Center Super Hero 5K Walk and Run to engage the White Center residents and donate the proceeds to the White Center Food Bank, the White Center CDA, and YES Foundation of White Center. He devotes his time to supporting and empowering the youth and communities he identifies with.

The International Examiner caught up with Vo to talk about his current projects and what inspired him to step up as a leader.

International Examiner: What have you been up to?

Tony Vo: I’m working at South Seattle College as a club center coordinator. I really enjoy working with students and helping them with leadership develop-ment. It’s close to home for me. These are the students who have grown up around me, who have similar backgrounds as me. I grew up in White Center. A lot of students live there and have similar situa-tions like me. They’re always really cool.

They’re like, ‘Oh, you were raised here! Wow.’ And I just love hearing their story, seeing them grow, helping them put on an event and watching them succeed at it.

We’ve just finished organizing the White Center 5K Run. I started that a few years ago and it’s growing ever since. I can’t believe that it’s just been so successful, that our community comes together for something healthy, something positive, and that just goes to show we need to have diversity in our community center and people living there.

I volunteer for the Southeast Asian Education Coalition ( SEAeD). I’m on their council and it’s my third year being part of them. Right now we’re organizing around House Bill 1541, which is closing the educational opportunity gap. One of the components we’re really advocating for is data aggregation. So I work about 10 hours per week on that project. I really consider it a community as well to me. I have my community at White Center where I grew up in and then there’s this great group of leaders that took me in the SEAED coalition and just gave me these opportunities to expand on my leadership and work on policy and local issues like the Southeast Asian recruiter. It really gave me that platform to begin with. SEAED has grown so much especially because we’re a grassroots group.

I also volunteer for API Chaya. It’s part of their queer network program because I identify as queer.

The things I involve myself, I relate to because I’m part of those communities. I really enjoy it and they’re very intentional things that I give my time to. I always

think it’s important for those people who have those communities, working and advocating for that respective community. There’s power in representation.

IE: Can you talk a little more about the issues that are important to you and what motivates you to take action?

Vo: Everything I involve myself in is something I have a story to, which is what I tell my students. Your stories are what drives these social change and movements. For me, being involved with SEA, aggregating for the recruiter, advocating for data aggregation, really has to do with my family background.

My parents are Vietnamese refugees. Growing up, we didn’t have the best financial life. We didn’t have a very stable family life. We were very low-income. It just was a lot that I really internalized. There was a moment where I rejected my Asian identity because there were so many bad things happening. Eventually in college, I started learning more about systemic racism and that I’m not alone in this issue, and that my parents show me love in different ways and not in this Western concept. They’re always providing me shelter even though I never

saw them. We just had a very different upbringing. I never saw them because they’re always working. My sister took care of me because I’m younger than her. It’s a very hard situation because we grew up in rough neighborhoods.

IE: You’re a young leader accepting this award. Is there any kind of message you want to give to other young people or what they can do?

Vo: People are always willing to help you. That’s what I would say. … That’s where I’ve gotten a lot of my successes. There are people out there who are willing to help you, who believe in your mission, your idea, and will go out of their way to support you.

IE: What would be some other advice you would give to young people?

Vo: Just think big. There’s always things that can be done. So think big. People will support you. Also, know yourself. Once you know and you’re able to articulate the story of why you’re doing it is when things start picking up. Coming to terms with my queer identity and coming to terms with my Asian identity was really because I started telling my story and understanding my own history and family background. Know your story, know your identity, and that’s the first way to start. … I would not be where I am right now if I never took an Asian American studies class to learn about my own history to see people that look like me in the history books.

Vo

Vulcan Inc. honored with Community Voice AwardBy Bianca Sewake

IE Staff Writer

This year, Vulcan Inc. is being honored with the Community Voice Award’s Organization award for demonstrating leadership as a corporate citizen while also supporting non-profit, community-based organizations and small businesses in the International District.

The International Examiner caught up with Pearl Leung, Senior Community Relations Manager at Vulcan Inc. to talk about the corporation’s involvement with the Chinatown neighborhood.

International Examiner: Can you talk a little about Vulcan Inc. and what Vulcan Inc. does?

Vulcan Inc.: Vulcan Inc. creates and advances a variety of world-class endeavors and high-impact initiatives that change and improve the way people live, learn, do business and experience the world. Founded in 1986 by investor and philanthropist Paul G. Allen, Vulcan oversees various business and charitable projects including real estate holdings, investments in dozens of companies, including the Seattle Seahawks, Portland

Trail Blazers, Cinerama, Experience Music Project, the Allen Institute for Brain Science, the Allen Institute for Cell Science and The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation.

IE: What makes Vulcan stand out?Vulcan Inc.: What sets us apart is

the nimbleness and breadth of projects we engage in. Our company’s projects and investments are as diverse as the challenges of the world and led by the ideas of our founder Paul Allen.

IE: Vulcan Inc. will be receiving the Organization award for supporting small, non-profit, and community-based businesses in the International District. Can you talk about the ways Vulcan has done this?

Vulcan Inc.: We are headquartered in Chinatown/ID and feel it’s important we are stewards of the neighborhood. Over the past 10 years, we have supported a number of organizations in the neighborhood including the International Examiner, SCIDPDA, InterIm, ICHS, CIDBIA, the Wing Luke Museum, Friends of Little Saigon, APIChaya, CISC, WAPI Community Services, Hokubei

Hochi Foundation and efforts such as the Seniors in Action Foundation’s procurement of security cameras for the neighborhood.

IE: What are some of the contributions to the community Vulcan is proud of?

Vulcan Inc.: All of the above organizations do such great work in their respective fields and we are proud to be able to support their efforts.

It’s been amazing to see events like Celebrate Little Saigon grow throughout the years, especially in cases where we were the only original corporate sponsor. It’s great to see other companies recognize the same value we saw. In addition to supporting neighborhood organizations through funding, Vulcan employees have also rolled up their sleeves to volunteer in the community. One such example, as part of our Vulcan Blue program, employees picked up thousands of cigarette butts throughout the neighborhood.

IE: What projects is Vulcan currently working on within the community?

Vulcan Inc.: Our support of the important community work done by organizations in the ID is ongoing. We will also continue to engage Vulcan employees on volunteer opportunities in the neighborhood.

IE: How does it feel to be recognized for this CVA award, and what does it mean for Vulcan Inc.?

We are truly grateful for the recognition and feel lucky to be in such a culturally rich neighborhood where there is a strong sense of community. We are thankful to the neighborhood for always being welcoming and open to collaboration. Vulcan is deeply rooted in Seattle, so giving back in our neighborhood means a lot to us.

IE: What can we expect from Vulcan in the future?

Vulcan Inc.: Lots of exciting things! We believe we can build a better community by working together. We’ll continue to collaborate with the community through our business endeavors, our support of local nonprofits and projects that enrich our city and empower underserved communities.


Congratulations to fellow honorees of the 2015 Community Voice Awards and thank you to the International Examiner for elevating the voices of Seattle’s diverse leadership andtheir positive impact on our communities.

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Check back for Sudoku in the IE every issue! Answers to this puzzle are in the next issue on Wednesday, June 3.

The future of the IE lies in remembering its rootsIn order to carve a path toward the future, the International Examiner made some key changes in the past year. These changes are rooted in

the idea that as a nonprofit community newspaper, we need more than ever to engage with and be a part of the community we serve. We moved down from the hill on S. Washington Street and into the Bush Hotel in the heart of the Chinatown/International District to be closer to the pulse of the neighborhood. In keeping with the IE’s golden age, when API activists poured their hearts and souls into all aspects of the newspaper operation, we’ve been able to incorporate the talents of a host of young API activists into our daily operations—most are unpaid volunteers, interns, and understudies who believe in what the IE stands for and are eager to learn. Our online presence through our website and social media has allowed us to be more in touch with our readers on a daily basis. We have refocused our coverage on local social justice and activism, in addition to our continued dedication to API arts, culture, news, and heritage. We are also taking a renewed look at all aspects of our newspaper operations, from the way we deliver our newspapers to our archiving system. We received grants to create an interactive, searchable digital

archive and to publish a “Best of the IE” book that showcases the most significant stories from the past 40 years. We’ve been able to do much more with a lot less by embracing the strengths and connections in our community, by welcoming the energy of the next generation of activists, and by taking the time to listen to and learn from the generations that laid the groundwork. The IE wouldn’t be where it is today without the help of our longstanding supporters, our dedicated readers, and a reinvigorated Board of Directors. And we are just getting started. We are currently exploring ways to become a regular producer of video content—imagine the IE as a print, online, and video/broadcast news outlet. We are looking to expand our archiving abilities, so that we are able to collect important artifacts and documents and effectively tell the stories that come with them. And the IE is also currently partnering with the he Cathay Post #186 of the American Legion to create a documentary film, which will document the untold stories of Chinese American WWII and Korean War veterans whose service helped lay the foundation for development of the local Chinese American community in the Greater Seattle area. With your support, the IE will continue to grow and engage.

Sincerely,Travis Quezon,

IE Editor in Chief

DID YOU KNOW ...• The IE website has been updated seven-

days-a-week since November 2013?

• The IE is on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Instagram?

• The IE website gets more traffic than it ever has?

• Students write a majority of our stories?

• The IE will be providing opportunities for eight interns in 2015?


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PROUDLY SUPPORTS INTERNATIONAL EXAMINERIN THEIR MISSION

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OUR COMMUNITY.

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work to inspire and connect our community.

Documents

International Examiner May 20, 2015