November 18, 2015 International Examiner

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER November 18, 2015 – December 1, 2015 — 1

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. . . WATERSHED: Continued on page 8

By Anna CarriveauIE Contributor

On October 24, Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) hosted a trip to the Cedar River Watershed for a group of 36 Bhutanese community members, comprised mainly of seniors, friends, and family from the Tukwila area, who have been living in Washington for no more than five years. The trip was the latest in an ongoing effort by SPU to teach the community about our water supply.

The Environmental Coalition of South Seattle (ECOSS), an organization involved in connecting newly arrived refugees to their local environment, facilitated the logistics of the trip with SPU, after Alan Kaf, an ECOSS employee, proposed the idea.

Kaf coordinated the event and interpreted throughout most of trip, with help from several Bhutanese community leaders, including Yug Dabadi, a volunteer reporter for Bhutan News Service and the former vice chair of the Bhutanese Community Resource Center, and Padam Pokhrel.

“So far, all the Bhutanese participants mentioned that the trip was exciting, informative, and nostalgic,” Kaf said. “Nostalgic in a sense that they used to drink water from springs, rivers, and lakes back in their home country Bhutan, and this trip connected them to their past.”

SPU provided transportation from Tukwila to the Cedar River Watershed in North Bend, WA, where the group participated in a guided bus and walking tour of the facility, which included stops at Masonry Dam, Masonry Lake, Chester Morse Lake, and the Cedar River Education Center. Park Ranger Julie Stonefelt lead the tour, while interpreters translated her presentation along with questions from guests.

One of only six protected watersheds in the country, the Cedar River Watershed spans 90,563 acres of Seattle-owned land and provides drinking water to about 1.3 million people in the greater Seattle area, flowing through public faucets in the International District, Tukwila, Mercer Island, and beyond.

Bhutanese community connects with environment on SPU-led watershed tour

Members of the Bhutanese community from Tukwila toured the Cedar River Watershed on October 24, 2015. • Photo by Travis Quezon

Morales concedes to Harrell in close District 2 race

By Lexi PotterIE Contributor

On the morning of Tuesday, November 17 at Hing Hay Coworks, Tammy Morales conceded the race for the District 2 City Council seat to Councilmember Bruce Harrell.

Morales said she was proud of her campaign. At the time of her concession speech, Harrell was ahead of Morales by only 354 votes. Morales’ grassroots campaign was initially discounted by media when early estimates placed her with only 25 percent of the vote, but ended with almost 50 percent of District 2 votes.

Morales’ campaign had said the District 2 was largely neglected by mainstream media until the end of the race. “The District has been somewhat neglected for years … and I’m very excited about what this campaign was able to do in terms of raising the profile of the different communities and of the issues that are so important here,” Morales said.

She also stressed the need for diverse communities to continue fighting for improvement on major challenges in District 2, highlighting police accountability, housing affordability, tenant protections, gentrification, internet accessibility, and support of small businesses. Speaking about these issues, Morales said: “Here in Seattle we have systems of oppression that push African American families and businesses out our neighborhoods, that keep immigrant families in poverty, that privilege those with economic power and give them undue political influence. I hope you’ll all join me in supporting Councilmember Harrell and other community leaders in the push to shift the balance of power back to working families.”

Morales said she is hopeful that Seattle’s citizens will continue to challenge leaders to be more accountable and responsive to their communities. She challenged Harrell to focus more on the income inequality and racial injustices occurring in District 2 over the course of his next term in office.

When asked whether she would run again, Morales laughed and said,

“Right now I’m looking forward to a long Thanksgiving weekend with my family, and I’m sure that I will continue to advocate on behalf of the people of District 2. I haven’t decided yet how that’s going to look and what my energy is going to go into, but you can be sure that I will be pushing for our community.”

Four of the nine council seats now have new members due to the new district voting that implemented for the first time in city elections. Voter turnout for District 2 councilmember voting was almost 40 percent of all registered voters in the area, the lowest voter turnout of all districts.

King County assessor Lloyd Hara lost his position to former aide John Wilson. Hara served three terms unchallenged.

Initiative 122 passed in Seattle with 60 percent of the votes. The initiative will establish “Democracy Vouchers” for all registered voters to create a fairer opportunity for citizens to contribute to campaigns and enhance oversight of election fundraising. Those against the initiative raised issue with funding the vouchers and argued it would lead to a potential increase in corruption.

Statewide, Initiative 1366 narrowly passed. The initiative would decrease the state sales tax unless the legislature allows statewide voting on an amendment to the constitution requiring a two-thirds legislative vote on issues relating to taxes.

Izumi Hansen contributed to this report.

Morales announces her concession at Hing Hay Coworks on November 17, 2015. • Photo by Lexi Potter

2 — November 18, 2015 – December 1, 2015 INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER

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IE NEWS

7-year family separation leads to 100-mile march for immigration reform

By Reagan JacksonThe Seattle Globalist

Two weeks turned into seven years.Amy Kele and her family moved from

Fiji to settle in Everett, staying on their fa-ther’s student visa. Things changed when Kele’s parents left the U.S. to attend a wed-ding in Fiji.

“They were only planning on staying for two weeks, but then my mom’s visa got de-nied,” said Kele, the oldest of four children. Kele, now 18, was 11 years old the last time she saw her parents.

Stories like Kele’s that describe the toll on families because of the lack of immi-gration reform was brought to the fore-front last month, as she and other women made a 100-mile pilgrimage from York County Prison, a 2,500-bed detention center in Pennsylvania, to Washington D.C. to greet Pope Francis.

“100 Women 100 Miles” was organized by the National Domestic Workers Alliance and the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum as a part of the We Belong Together campaign, which encourages hu-mane responses to human migration.

The women walked for eight days from York County Prison and culminated their journey with a vigil in McPherson Square in D.C.

The individual stories were different, but many involved an often marginalized demo-graphic in the United States: undocumented immigrants.

“There was like different races and differ-ent cultures, but we were all kind of able to be very united. It was literally a community, like a big family of people and we were all able to tell our stories and uplift each other, encourage each other,” Kele said. Their goal was to put faces to the Pope’s message that human dignity and compassion must be re-stored through immigration reform.

When Kele’s parents left for Fiji, Kele’s grandmother came from California to bab-ysit. When they weren’t able to re-enter the country, she picked up her life and moved to Everett to care for her grandchildren. “She’s the heart of this whole family. She’s kept us together this whole time. I don’t know where we’d be right now, maybe back in Fiji or in a foster home. I’m really thank-ful for her in our lives,” said Kele.

Though Kele’s grandmother has been living in the U.S. for almost 20 years she is also undocumented. “Because she’s also undocumented she can’t get benefits like Social Security and things like that. It kind of breaks my heart whenever I think about it.”

Kele, a student at University of Wash-ington Bothell, says she has kept in contact with her parents by Skype and phone, but it has been difficult. Kele’s parents remained in Fiji for a year before moving to Surrey, B.C. “As far as them supporting us finan-cially it was really hard for them because the currency in the U.S. is so much bigger than the currency in Fiji. So my parents de-cided to move to Canada to maybe help us out a little bit more. Since they’ve been in Canada they’ve been able to help us a little better.”

According to the Pew Research Center undocumented immigrants make up 3.5 per-cent of the U.S. population, roughly 11 mil-lion. The DREAM (Development Relief and Education for Alien Minors) Act was first proposed in 2001 to create a way for undocu-mented youth to access education and health care. The DREAM Act met with staunch op-position from Republicans and was blocked for more than a decade.

In 2012 an executive order by President Barack Obama created Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). With the ex-ception of Kele’s younger sister, who was born in the U.S., the Kele children have all enrolled in DACA, allowing them to have a renewable two-year work permit that ex-empts them from deportation, but limits in-ternational travel.

“So right now as immigration reform stands there is no path to citizenship, there is no path to a green card,” explained Marissa Vichayapai, the Special Projects Coordinator for 21 Progress. “So what the process is usu-ally like for a DREAMer is that they apply for their DACA status, they get their DACA status for two years and then they have to renew every two years to keep that status.” At any point, a new president can rescind the order, Vichayapai pointed out.

21 Progress sponsors monthly scholar-ships for APIs to enroll in DACA and has started a Build Your Dreams Program which evolved from a social lending circle to an interest-free microloan for the $465 necessary to apply for DACA.

The group also sponsored Kele’s trip to meet the Pope.

“It was cool because the first thing that he mentioned when he was speaking that day was that he said he’s an immigrant too,” Kele said. “So kind of right off the bat he was acknowledging us and saying I’m an immigrant, just acknowledging that a lot of us here in the U.S. were immigrants at a certain point.”

The Pope’s framing of immigration as a human rights issue may open the oppor-tunity for a more compassionate discourse on how to proceed both within the Catholic Church and in the broader communities im-pacted by these issues.

“There is displacement of people. There are people migrating and they’re migrat-ing for all different type of reasons,” said Vichayapai. “And so I think that in com-bination with his stance around migration and how people as a whole need to act with more compassion around these issues. I think it really speaks to the movement of the 100 Women, 100 Miles.”

Kele said the journey also spoke to her personally.

“It was really a healing journey for me every step of the way. I was thinking of my family, my parents. Even though they’re not with me they are with me in spirit every step,” Kele said. “We were talking about restoring our dignity. And I really felt like during the walk every step was restoring a piece of our dignity that we may have lost throughout each of our journeys and each of our experiences as an undocumented immi-grant or just an immigrant in general.”

This story originally appeared at www.seattleglobalist.com.

Amy Kele, second from right, joined other women in a 100-mile pilgrimage calling for immigration reform. The pilgrimage culminated with greeting Pope Francis in D.C. • Photo via Marissa Vichayapai.


IE NEWS

By Chetanya RobinsonIE Staff Writer

On November 10, one week after the King County elections, a group of panelists convened at the Southside Commons to reflect on what the elections meant for people of color. In a wide-ranging discussion, the panelists touched on subjects including media coverage of the elections, voting access for people of color, young people and people with limited English proficiency, and future prospects for the region.

Host Seferiana Day explained that the panel, called “Young, Gifted and Brown,” was partly meant to provide a counterbalance to the glut of similar but predominately white and male political panels.

The panel was made up of people of color active in local politics and progressive causes: Sejal Parikh, executive director of Working Washington; E.J. Juarez, executive director of Progressive Majority Washington; Crystal Reed, board president of Asian Pacific Islander Americans for Civic Empowerment; Brianna Thomas, District 1 City Council Candidate and Honest Elections Campaign Manager; and Tre Maxie, Chief Deputy Assessor of King County.

Local journalists Marcus Green of the South Seattle Emerald and YES! Magazine, Natalie Brand of King5, and Sonya Green of 91.3 KBCS moderated the panel.

Women and people of color in local politicsThe first question of the evening

was: “How can political consultants be more inclusive of women and people of color?”

Juarez said political consultants must understand the diverse communities candidates represent. “We also need to stop asking candidates of color and women to wait until they’re qualified,” he added—one of many statements to receive cheers and applause during the evening.

As for how to make politics a better place for women, Thomas—a former candidate—said people have to stop treating female candidates as though they all have the same platforms or priorities; male candidates are not treated this way.

Media coverage and framing of the election

Maxie thought the media ignored important races, like the fight for the County Assessor office, where he works. This department determines the value of all property in King County, the basis for property taxes. Maxie added that media focused overwhelmingly on Seattle’s elections, while King County, populated by more people of color than Seattle itself,

saw 39 cities hold elections that were largely ignored by larger media outlets.

The International District and South Seattle, where the panel took place, are both part of District 2. Reed thought the mainstream media’s coverage of the District 2 race was also neglectful. “Why was it a surprise that Tammy Morales was catching up to Bruce Harrell?” she wondered. Incumbent City Council Candidate Harrell won the election with just 354 votes, yet it was a race that media outlets such as the Seattle Weekly declared to be a shoo-in.

Voter turnout At one point during the evening,

Juarez observed that the elections dealt with issues central to peoples’ lives and wellbeing.

“Politics is about survival and it’s about protecting your family,” he said. “It’s real stuff.”

Moderator Sonya Green asked a followup question: If these are life and death issues, how can we engage communities of color to participate more than they did?

Voter turnout in King County was 39 percent

“There’s no magic bullet. Making it vote by mail was never going to increase turnout to 100 percent,” Juarez said. However, he pointed out that the paper ballot could stand to be made more accessible to voters.

“It does not look like something people can look at and immediately understand,” he said. “There are multiple steps to it, there are language barriers, there are cultural barriers. ... There’s no reason why it should be front and back with a thousand different words. There are so many other models for us to look at that are not being implemented.”

Voter turnout requiring access to votingReed reiterated that the low voter

turnout was not due to apathy, but the result of lack of access to voting.

“When we talk about lack of access we’re talking about, for example, Chinatown, why did we move the ballot box all the way two blocks up the hill so our aunties and uncles can’t get to it?”

Reed said it’s important to reach out to young people of color because in the future, King County voters will be overwhelmingly from this group.

“Specifically for young people of color, we need to meet them where they’re at,” Reed said. “It is so hard and intimidating for young people to get engaged in politics. I’m not talking about people who came out of colleges but I’m talking about people who come straight out of high school or in disenfranchised communities.”

Making politics relevant to votersMaxie agreed with the importance of

voting access, but added that to increase voter turnout, people must see the results of their voting. People in politics should focus on outcomes first, and strategies second.

“People are trying to survive, people are trying to find a job,” he said. “When I take this uniform off and put on my hoodie, I’m trying to not get killed by the police. ... Until we make breakthrough on those issues of police violence and equity, and making sure people can live in this community and be able to feed their kids, we can do a lot of strategies that will help, but a lot of people just will check out.”

Translating election materials Reed and Parikh brought up

translating election and other political

documents into other languages. “When you’re sitting at a table watching a budget get drawn up and there’s not a line for translation, that’s a problem,” said Parikh.

Reed said the Honest Elections campaign was a good example of providing materials in community languages. Businesses in the ID stocking these materials saw them fly off the shelves. “People took them, people cared,” she said.

With a new, more diverse City Council, will Seattle see progressive changes?

Maxie hoped the City Council, now elected to represent individual districts, will be more compassionate to everyday people. “Nothing against downtown, but sometimes our council feels very downtown-friendly,” he said.

Reed said she hoped housing affordability would become a priority in the future.

Though not a moderator, Juarez asked the audience about Proposition 1, the Move Seattle levy. Did South Seattle get enough out of the deal? No one in the audience raised their hand, and murmurs of “No” swept the room.

Maxie felt that overall, the Seattle elections might not turn out to be a major change. With local government resources shrinking in Olympia, he argued, progressive proposals will be harder to accomplish.

Thomas, however, was optimistic about some changes.

“I do think that this race and social justice lens won’t be a lens, but it will start being a way we actually have conversations,” she said.

Why participants came to the panelAt least a hundred people filled the room

to attend the panel. Rachel Wilch, who recently moved back to Capitol Hill after a spell in San Francisco, attended to hear more about the district elections. “I voted in this election, but I feel a little bit out of the loop about local politics and particularly about the impact that districting has on council races,” she said.

Rosie Bancroft lives in the Central District. She said she came to the panel to hear “Seattle addressing institutional racism on a legislative level, from speakers I have not heard of before. ... From my perspective, Seattle is a very diverse but very divided city and I’m hoping to hear about what we’re doing about it.”

Cleveland Stockmeyer, an attorney, lives in North Seattle and took an Uber down to South Seattle for the event. “I think that a lot of the focus we normally get is downtown, downtown, downtown, what’s the view from City Hall. I like coming down here and seeing this part of town,” he said.

‘Young, Gifted and Brown’: A post-mortem on what Seattle elections mean for people of color

Left to right: Sejal Parikh, EJ Juárez, Crystal Reed, Brianna Thomas, and Tre Maxie. • Photo by Chetanya Robinson


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IE COMMUNITY

The following is a reflection of this summer’s event by the From Hiroshima To Hope Planning Committee:

The 31st From Hiroshima to Hope floating lantern event began with energetic building of a stage, canopies, unloading of tables and chairs and a bamboo pulley system. Over the next five hours, 10 canopies and many tables and chairs were set up to accommodate calligraphers, origami makers, and photos of two cities, taken days after the bombings to show what happened 70 years ago.

As to why we were there, Stan Shikuma said: “Seventy years after the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we still gather to remember, learn, understand, and heal. Peace is a process nurtured in community and shared experience, and our annual program helps that process grow.”

On August 6, 2015, in the upper northwest corner of Green Lake Park not far from the Seattle Public Theater, about 1,500 people gathered to watch a Butoh dance procession move a golden silk sculpture of “Little Boy Folded” in front of the stage, slowly, white faces and red kimonos focused until the life-size sculpture was carefully pulleyed up on a bamboo frame. “The Cloud of Unknowing” read by Herb Tsuchiya and the flute playing of Larry Larson accompanied this awe-inspiring performance. This quiet movement followed happy singing by the Sound Singers, a group of Japanese and Japanese American singers.

Once the sculpture was safely in place, Shikuma, the emcee, took the stage with his voice for peace introducing Dr. James Yamazaki who was the lead physician of the U.S. Atomic Bomb Medical Team assigned to Nagasaki to survey the effects of the atomic bomb particularly on children which he included in a memoir of his experiences in Children of the Atomic Bomb. Honored by the Physicians for Social Responsibility, he honored our event with his presence,

Rev. Cederman gave a blessing and was followed by Rasmig Keutelian who talked about the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide. Gayane Grigoryan played a short piece “Nocturne” by Armenian composer Edvard Baghdasaryn, accompanied by Yoshiko Yamamoto on the piano. Seattle Kokon Taiko once again entertained the audience with its resounding drums playing one of Stan Shikua’s compositions inspired by the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The keynote speaker, Estela Ortega, executive director of El Centro de la Raza, gave a passionate speech about the perils of war, of the stockpiling of nuclear weapons, and the effects of so much funding drawn from social, health and education which is put toward war. Her community is especially affected by the lack of funding, but has just recently found funds to build a new structure to provide more housing, better health care and education for her community.

Mike Stern entertained with his guitar, playing a piece he wrote inspired while visiting Hiroshima some years ago. Stan talked about the availability of nuclear weapons today, almost 16,000 of which are in storage all over the world and the kind of threat they pose. He asked the audience to imagine what one Hiroshima sized bomb would do if dropped on the center of Seattle.

Koto playing by Marcia and her mother Kuniko Takamura, a family tradition which started 30 years ago closed the program on stage. Rev. Don Castro gave a short Buddhist message and explained the toro nagashi history, the floating of lanterns with beautiful calligraphy on the lake, then led the procession to the water. Over a thousand lanterns were put into the water by volunteers and floated out to be photographed by hundreds of cameras. Some lanterns were blown across the lake by a wind that came up about 11 pm so volunteers collected them until 2 am!

Looking back at the 31st From Hiroshima to Hope

Photo by Martha Brice

Community activist Doug Chin speaks about the film, API Struggle for Racial Equality, which premiered at the Honoring Veterans Day/OCA-Greater Seattle Luncheon. The November 11, 2015 event was part of the 2015 Pre-Conquest Indigenous Cultures and the Aftermath Converence (PICA). Chin hopes the film will one day be used in schools to help educate students on the long history of discrimination and struggles by the API community. • Photo by Travis Quezon


IE COMMUNITY

By Dominique Etzel IE Contributor

Bruce Lee was, and continues to be, a source of inspiration to society. He once said: “Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.” Bruce Lee fought to be true to himself and broke barriers by changing how Asian Americans were viewed in the media and pop culture.

Do You Know Bruce? Breaking Barriers is the current exhibit on display at the Wing Luke Museum in the International District through September 4, 2016. This exhibit is part of a three-year, ongoing exhibit with a new theme each year. On October 3, the exhibit opened to the public with a celebration of martial arts in the streets and a speech given by Bruce Lee’s widow, Linda Lee Cadwell.

Bruce Lee was named one of Time Magazine’s most influential people of the century in 1999. Not only did he pack a punch and raise the bar for martial artists, he fought to break stereotypes of Asian-Americans in the media.

Bruce Lee exhibit packs a punch, breaks barriers

This exhibit aims to show this side of Lee to the public.

“He inspired me to be a martial artist. Growing up in Asian culture, being Filipino, he was an idol or a hero, somebody that was in the limelight,” said Sam Timple, one of the first people to arrive to the museum for

the exhibit’s opening. “Normally you see Americans doing this and that but he was one of the first Asian cultures to actually become a superstar worldwide that was known in the United States. His quest to be the best and his quest to be a martial artist in his own right sort of inspired me to become my own martial artist.”

At the exhibit, people can expect to see rare memorabilia including the largest display of The Green Hornet toys and collectibles, letters from his early television career, behind the scenes photos from the set of Enter the Dragon, photos from his apartment in the University District in Seattle, where he once lived, and more.

“This year we’re exploring Bruce Lee’s trajectory and TV and film. But we are also exploring Bruce Lee in the context of stereotypes and racism so you’ll really be able to see the long standing barriers that he faced, stereotypes of the evil Asian villain or the dutiful help maid,” said Cassie Chinn, deputy executive director at the Wing Luke Museum. “We get to explore what were those barriers that he faced and how did he show us a new vision of what Asians and Asian-Americans could be.”

Lee not only inspired those in Seattle, but impacted the lives of people across the globe. He broke barriers and stereotypes of Asian-Americans in media and pop culture by fighting for what he believed in.

Announcement

Donnie Chin honored at Seattle Police Awards Banquet

IE News Services

On Friday, November 6, at the 14th Annual Seattle Police Awards Banquet, the late Donnie Chin was recognized with the Community Member of the Year award.

The event’s program book read: “Donnie touched the lives of thousands of people in the International District over his decades of service helping his community and he was in a league of his own. He would later become the founder and director of the International District Emergency Center (IDEC) where he worked to make the community a safer place for everyone to live, work, and visit. For many patrol officers, Donnie Chin was the first person they looked for when they were patrolling their district. He was the on-the-ground ‘eyes and ears’ for real time information regarding criminal activity. Donnie was a man of strong moral conviction and character. One patrol sergeant noted that, ‘Donnie made everyone feel that they were the most important person in the room and each of us felt that we had a unique relationship with him.’

“Donnie was shot and killed this past July in the neighborhood he spent his life

protecting. Losing Donnie was a tragic loss to this community, but we remember the life Donnie lived: a life in the service of others. It is with a heavy heart and great pride that we honor this paragon of our community. Donnie is the true embodiment of the Community Member of the Year Award.”

Chin was nominated by Sergeant Don Leslie.

Donnie Chin. • Photo by Dean Wong

Bruce Lee’s widow Linda Lee Cadwell delivers a speech during the exhibit’s opening October 3, 2015. • Photo by Dominique Etzel


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By Eva CohenIE Contributor

Seattleites have a milestone to look forward to: Korean contemporary art is being presented for the first time this decade in the Pacific Northwest at an exhibition in the city.

Paradox of Place at the Seattle Art Museum’s (SAM) Asian Art Museum, which began October 31, is co-curated by Xiaojin Wu, curator of Japanese and Korean art at SAM’s Asian Art Museum and a special guest: Eunju Choi, a veteran of the field who worked as the chief curator at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) in Korea for 26 years, and earlier this year moved to become the director at Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art.

Prior to commencing work on the Paradox of Place exhibition, Choi visited Seattle in late 2014 to host a panel discussion on Korean contemporary art, and was the first in-residence visiting curator sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation at SAM.

Choi believes this exhibition in Seattle is very important. She explains that outside the American cities of Los Angeles and New York, the American level of knowledge about Korean culture is limited. In those two cities, there are large Korean populations, and people are more familiar with Korean cultural movements, art, and travel. As the first Korean contemporary art exhibition in this region of the United States for quite some time, Choi sees this show as a great opportunity to shed light on a new topic for Seattleites.

“At first, I did not know very much about Seattle, but little by little, I have been learning about the city, and the first characteristic that comes to mind is that it is a very progressive place,” Choi says. “Seattle is amongst the most progressive cities in the country, and it takes a progressive society to accept new and progressive concepts from elsewhere in the world, such as Korean contemporary art.”

Choi says Seattle’s progressive art scene has allowed for the curation of an especially poignant exhibition, that she knows the local community will appreciate.

“The six artists that were selected to be a part of this exhibition, from the many we looked through before coming to a decision, are especially progressive in Korea,” Choi says.

Eunju Choi brings Korean contemporary art exhibition to Seattle

Within her position at MMCA, Choi observed the Korean contemporary art of the 1980s and 1990s, and has seen the lifespan of Korean new media trends, especially in the case of Korean video art. Choi sees importance in all mediums of art, because through them one can see the different dialogues about Korean contemporary society, art, and contemporary culture. Works in Paradox of Place will range from mix-media installations, to video art and photography.

Since art is a means for people to search for identity and reflect upon contemporary culture, and how the past has impacted this culture, Choi believes to learn about this field is very important in understanding a culture as a whole. With this being the first show of its kind for many in Seattle, attendees of the exhibition will be able to gain a better grasp on Korea, the country’s history, and Korean contemporary culture.

“This art reflects Korean social and political situations, the country’s industrialization, and how average citizens wanted to find their identity, as a contemporary people,” Choi explains. “And this situation was not only for the artistic field. The entire population really wanted to search for their identity in the newly realized contemporary atmosphere. Korean artists played an important role with their art within the quickly growing Korean contemporary society.”

The participating artists of Paradox of Place were chosen due to their work reflecting the title: their art presents a paradox, whether it is traditional and contemporary, personal and public, the present and the future, or angel and soldier.

“They all show the meaning of what a paradox is within their work,”

Choi says. “These artists re-project peoples’ lives, contemporary history, and contemporary problems, within the Korean society, and the paradoxes that lay within all of these areas.”

Choi gives the example of artist Minouk Lim, who she believes expresses this paradox very well. Lim’s work is entitled, “The possibility of the half,” and is composed of two opposing video screens: the first shows North Koreans, and the second their South Korean peers. Lim uses her imagination to build upon the Korean film dramas she grew up watching. The images from these films, due to their frequency in South Korean popular culture, are permanently etched into the minds of every South Korean.

These films give a visualization of what it looked like in the war for those who were not there, but yet who every-day live with the fallout from it, Choi says. Lim did not experience the Kore-an war, Choi e x p l a i n s , because she was born af-terward, but she knows very well about war, Korean divi-sion, and the differentia-tion between North and South Korea, because her fa-ther and mother experienced it. They in turn taught their daughter.

“She experienced the aftermath of it, and she can express this kind of ambience between North and South Korea,” Choi says. “In the case of Lim, we can learn a lot about Korea’s current situation, and its political division.”

Minouk describes her own art as carrying this message, one that could also speak broadly about the theme the entire show means to bring across: “The possibility of community does not come from the reigns of media and ideology, but the power of tears, and fears of fusing and breaking it down based on the solidarity of the common.”

Paradox of Place: Korean Contemporary Art will run through March 16 at the Seattle Art Museum’s Tateuchi Galleries in the Asian Art Museum. For more information, visit the exhibition’s SAM event link: http://seattleartmuseum.org/Exhibitions/Details?EventId=38802.

Show is first of its kind this decade in Pacific Northwest

Broken Mirror, 2011, Lee Yongbaek, Korean, b. 1966, video, mirrors. Collection of MMCA, Korea.

Choi


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By Tamiko NimuraIE Contributor

A gorgeous riot of sunflowers, peonies, roses, daisies, and lilies framed by a crim-son wall. Wait. The flowers begin to move slowly, and then begin to shift into shapes. The shapes take on a human form: arms, legs. Wait a little longer. The humans move, take slow steps. They are soldiers, dressed in floral camouflage. And they have guns.

Lee Yongbaek’s video art mural, “Angel-Soldier,” is one of many welcome surprises in Paradox of Place, the first major exhi-bition of Korean contemporary art at the Seattle Asian Art Museum. Don’t miss the chance to see the exciting work of six con-temporary Korean artists working in ceram-ics, video, photography, mixed media, and 3D printing.

Walk into the Tateuchi Galleries just to the right of the main entrance, to find a long, low white table that’s nearly the size of the room. On it are a thousand ceramic shards gleaned from master Korean ceramicists—discards, and therefore deemed useless. They’ve been given new life here in “Thousand,” an instal-lation by Yee Sookyung. Yee has taken these shards and glued them with epoxy, outlining each seam painstakingly with gold leaf. It’s an interesting twist on the Japanese art of kintsugi, which seeks to repair that which has been damaged. Rather than trying to piece the shards back into their “original” forms, the artist has instead glued them to-gether in order to create new forms.

Because the exhibition focuses on place, it’s hard not to think about the shards as a commentary on the political division of Korea itself. In Yee’s hands you can see the former lives of the shards—which might have been tea cups, kettles, bowls, or con-tainers—as new creations. Three little pigs, which may have been ornamental handles on separate pieces, are reunited and placed in a row. Considered against the highly regi-mented images of North Korea so prevalent in the West, this installation seems to chal-lenge Western notions of North Korea.

Just behind “Thousand” is Yee’s 3D-print-ed “The Very Best Statue.” The artist creat-ed this statue based on responses to a survey that she conducted in the Ukraine. She con-ducted similar surveys in Japan, Korea, and the UK, then generated other statues based on these responses. Moving from the scope of “Thousand,” it’s almost easy to overlook the statue, but I’m curious to see how the statue will look in its next iteration, based on responses from the United States.

After the quiet greens and creams and gold of Yee’s work, the next room comes as a surprise. Six mixed-media sculptures surround the room—something like round metal clothing racks that you’d find in a department store. Here they are pedestals with various domestic articles hanging on them—crocheted scarves, light bulbs, artifi-cial plants. Yang Haegue has titled these fig-ures “Female Natives,” and each figure has different accessories. The border between everyday household object and human form is playful in this exhibit, as well as her se-

ries of photographs at the back of the room, “Gymnastics of the Foldable”—black and white pictures of a clothes drying rack doing exercises.

The next gallery strips away the color of the sculptures, moving into Noh Suntag’s black and white photography series “the strAnge ball.” Each photo involves differ-ent scenes in the same region. However, all of them share one feature: a white ball, framed in different perspectives—as omi-nous moon, as echoing artificial surveillance to a cow’s eye, as golf ball below a tattered but fluttering flag. The ball, the catalog tells us, is a “radome,” a high-performance radar device installed by the United States to col-lect military information about the penin-sula. Through persistent and multifaceted research, Noh discovered the reasons for its existence. The series is thus a powerful comment on the U.S. military presence in Korea and the effects of this presence on the everyday lives of Koreans.

More photos appear in the next hallway, this time life-sized portraits arranged in pairs. These are a sample of Jung Yeondoo’s series “Bewitched,” named after the Ameri-can 1960s TV show about a witch who can perform magic with a twitch of her nose. Each diptych shows a man or woman in their “real” lives or day jobs, and then the same man or woman in their dream existence. The side-by-side portraits are intriguing, but I found the video installation of the full se-ries even more interesting. Because the artist has placed his human subjects in exactly the same position and posture in both photos, it’s mesmerizing to watch the same subject morph gradually from reality to fantasy. In one pair of photos, for example, the young woman holding a child from one portrait watches us with the same eyes and expres-sion as the child in her arms transforms into a bouquet of flowers in the next portrait.

I entered Lim Minouk’s full-room mixed-media installation “The Possibility of the Half” from the right, and was disoriented at first. The room is supposed to be a futuris-tic but defunct newsroom, including laptops,

news cameras, several video projections, and a boom made out of a large tree trunk. A wooden satellite dish provides an organic (but broken) beacon of light and rest amid the wall-size video projections, cameras, and shattered glass on the floor. The loop of the larger wall-sized video projection is fairly long, approximately 3 minutes. The video is divided into two “channels,” one on the left and one on the right. On the left we see one “channel” of larger-than-life footage of Koreans weeping openly at the funerals of national leaders Kim Jong-Il (2011) and Park Chung-hee (1979), in an open collective grief. On the right, we see another spliced with thermal footage of nature, including palm trees, mushroom clouds, flames, and human hands. Eventually the mushroom clouds collapse in on themselves, seeming to represent attempts at healing and rebirth. Sometimes the footage on the left and right halves are the same, while at other times we see different footage on each half. A smaller video projection appears on screens behind the viewer, providing an interesting subtext, showing three different texts scrolling on the screens, nationalist rhetoric about the Kore-an leaders. A slightly different form of the installation won the 2012 Korea Artist Prize from the National Museum of Contempo-rary Art.

Finally, there’s Jung Yeondoo’s work in a crimson room. Two walls display the flowered headdress, flowery uniforms, and combat boots used in his video installation “Angel-Soldier.” “Broken Mirror” (2011) is a video installation projected onto a mirror—as soon as the viewer appears in front of the mirror, the mirror appears to shatter with the intensity (and sound) of a gunshot, and then restore itself again. The video installation Between Buddha and Jesus also appears on a mirror, and images of Buddha and Jesus morph quickly from one to another. Both in-stallations are clever comments on the shat-tering image of the self (especially in the age of the selfie), but they’re also an eerie accom-paniment to the soundless “angel-soldiers” in camouflage on the walls.

Paradox of Place is a beautifully curated exhibition, and the Seattle Asian Art Muse-um’s been given an extraordinary opportu-nity to share this with our region.

Paradox of Place: Korean Contempo-rary Art will run through March 16 at the Seattle Art Museum’s Tateuchi Galleries in the Asian Art Museum. For more informa-tion, visit the exhibition’s SAM event link: http://seattleartmuseum.org/Exhibitions/Details?EventId=38802.

Paradox of Place a beautifully curated exhibition

Angel-Soldier (video still) (detail), 2011, Lee Yongbaek, Korean, b. 1966, HD Video Projection, 23:14 min. Courtesy of the artist.


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The Cedar River is an unfiltered surface water supply that produces some of the best water in the world, with surrounding pristine forests acting as a natural filtration system. Mountain snowmelt and rainwater collect in two reservoirs—Chester Morse Lake and the Masonry Pool. In an average precipitation year, the two reservoirs have just enough water storage for one water cycle year, making management of the water supply a delicate balancing act, especially in times of drought.

“We are only as successful as our customers,” said Michael Davis, the Director of the Environmental Justice and Service Equity Division at Seattle Public Utilities, who joined the Bhutanese community on the watershed tour. “It’s really important for [the community] to understand what the resources are and how they benefit them, but more importantly what their role is in helping us maintain them.”

During the tour in October, the watershed was experiencing a water shortage due to a lack of rainfall over the summer. The tour group was able to see firsthand just how much the water in the reserve had receded during the shortage. Although recent rains have increased our region’s water supply to nearly normal levels and brought us to the lowest advisory stage of our water shortage plan, a potential water supply problem may still exist, with El Nino expected to bring a warmer, drier winter with less snowpack.

Done in language, the tour broke barriers and inspired knowledge of the

importance of our natural resources and the part we play in preserving them, Kaf explained.

“Our people were able to connect with our water resources,” Kaf said. “Now they know where their water comes from, how the water is being treated, and what impact they could make to our limited drinking water supply, if they conserve water every single day.”

The majority of refugees from Bhutan living in the United States are descendants of Nepalese migrants, known as Lhotshampas, who settled in southern Bhutan in the late 1890s. As the group became more successful, they were seen as a threat by the ruling elite. Nation building in Bhutan from 1958 to 1985 lead to measures that discriminated against the group, politically and socially, and ultimately denied them human rights and citizenship; displacing thousands of families and individuals who have lived in Bhutan for generations. Bhutanese refugees were finally allowed to resettle in third countries in 2007. According to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, between 2012 and 2014, 730 Bhutanese refugees arrived in Washington state.

The Refugees of Shangri-La, a documentary about the group, reports over 107,000 Bhutanese have spent as long as 20 years living in refugee camps in Nepal established by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. Thousands more are living outside the camps in Nepal and India, and some in North America, Europe, and Australia.

. . . WATERSHED: Continued from page 1

Bhutanese community tour of watershed done in language

Bhutanese community on an in-language tour of the Cedar River Watershed. The water shortage was visible on the October 24 tour. • Photos by Travis Quezon

Event coordinator Alan Kaf (center) also helped in translating the tour. • Photo by Travis QuezonThe tour takes a stop outside of the education center. • Photos by Travis Quezon

Alan Kaf delivers a speech on the tour bus, which was provided by Seattle Public Utilities. • Photo by Travis Quezon

The tour observes a model of the water shed. • Photos by Travis Quezon


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PSE customer, Chris Meierding

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By Jocelyn MooreIE Contributor

With Thanksgiving and the holidays around the corner, many households in Seattle are busy grocery shopping for the best ingredients to impress their families and guests at the dinner table.

Yet, not every family can afford a festive feast during the holiday. The problem of food insecurity is especially prominent among low-income Asian Pacific Islander (API) families in Seattle.

“Most people who are low income are food insecure which means they may not know where their next meal is coming from,” said Alison Pence, the director of The Food Bank @ St. Mary’s. “More likely they are the people who have to pay rent or mortgages, utilities, medications, etc. and then they don’t have enough money for food at the end of the month, or before the next paycheck.”

Pence said that a majority of the people who line up at St. Mary’s are elders from the API community. Pence said that she and her staff have also noticed more middle aged and younger API members coming to the food bank.

Food for thought: One-third of food thrown away by Seattle residents could have been eaten

“Because of this, we try very hard to have a variety of food for the different cultures we serve,” Pence said. “Luckily, we do have many of the Asian vegetables available for our clients.”

Pence also said that low income groups are either unaware of basic nutrition or cannot afford to maintain a healthy diet.

“When people are low income, getting anything into their stomachs is what they hope for,” she said. “Much too often the foods that are the most nutritious are also the most expensive. Therefore, when low income people are buying food, they get used to buying the food with high starch, high sodium, high sugar, trans fats, no nutrition with high calorie food that are cheaper than food that is better for them.”

Adam Holdorf, Communications Director at Children’s Alliance said that hunger disproportionately affects children of color and better data is needed to understand its impact.

While some low-income families may struggle to bring fresh produce home, other households may be tossing their food away too casually.

Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) said that a study from 2013 showed that about one-third of the food Seattle residents thrown away was wasted food that could have been eaten.

“We have been told in the past that food would go to waste if we didn’t take it,” said Jesse Swingle, the communications manager of Northwest Harvest. “Many of the items we receive are not the highest grade, saleable in the retail market. If we turned them down, it’s hard for us to track where they may go.”

In fact, wasted food, if not composted, usually ends up in the landfill. Approximately 100,000 tons of food from the Seattle population is sent to landfills to wither every year, according to a Washington Post report in 2014.

“It takes a huge amount of water to grow food,” SPU said. “When we waste food, in addition to wasting large quantity of water, we are also wasting all the chemicals, energy, and land resources that were used to produce, package, and transport food to our plates.”

According to the Department of Agriculture, 80 percent of all the fresh water that the country consumes is used to produce food, yet 40 percent of the food in the United States goes uneaten.

“It takes about 26 gallons of water to grow one pound of tomatoes and 42 gallons to grow one pound of cucumbers,” SPU said.

So when you let your pound of tomatoes sit in the fridge for days and eventually throw them out, you just tossed 26 gallons of freshwater down the gutter.

Pence encourages people who are in need of food to stop by the food bank and she is thankful for all the donations the organization receives. She stressed that the role of the staff at the food bank is to serve, not to judge, and they don’t check people’s ID to verify their needs.

“Nobody stands in these lines because it’s fun,” she said. “We have people lining up as early as 5:00 a.m. on distribution days. I sometimes run into people who should be coming to the food bank and they are ashamed to come. As I said, we don’t judge.”


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By Roxanne RayIE Contributor

Local musician Tomo Nakayama performs for his hometown on November 22 at the Triple Door, joined by two other current Seattleites, jazz pianist Emi Meyer and multi-instrumentalist Betsy Olson.

This show will be the first time that these three musicians have shared a stage. “I’ve been friends with Betsy for a long time through music,” Nakayama said. “I’ve played on the same bill as her when I’ve backed Sera Cahoone on keys and when she’s played with the band S, but this is the first time playing our own music on the same bill.”

Betsy Olson is also looking forward to this unique musical combo. “I have known Tomo Nakayama for several years and have always loved his music,” she said. “Although I’ve never played a show with Tomo or Emi, I’m excited to share the night with such an eclectic crew.”

For Emi Meyer, it’s the Seattle connection that makes this lineup most compelling. “I’m excited to share the stage with some musicians who really have stuck to their roots in Seattle where I grew up,” Meyer said.

Nakayama also points to his Seattle roots as formative of his musicianship. “In the late 1990s and early 2000s, there was a really strong all-ages music scene in Seattle and the eastside, which is where I grew up,” he said. “I played shows with people who’ve gone on to play in bands like The Shins, Fleet Foxes, Death Cab For Cutie, Blood Brothers, really an amazing diversity of talented kids who just happened to live in the same suburban area.”

This surfeit of musicians provided good training for Nakayama in how to launch himself in the music industry. “There was a really strong DIY work ethic and a sense that anyone could pick up a guitar and start a band, and press CDs and book tours,” he said. “That attitude has definitely carried

over into my career, though the Internet has made it one hundred times easier than when I first started.”

Nakayama found musical inspiration early, and the Japanese community was integral to his explorations. “I’ve loved singing for as long as I can remember,” he said. “I started on the viola in elementary school orchestra, and played that for a few years.”

His teenage years proved even more influential. “I picked up the guitar at 14 when my friend who was visiting from Japan showed me how to play Yutaka Ozaki’s ‘15 No Yoru,’” Nakayama said. “I started writing songs soon after. The music that was coming out of Seattle at the time like Nirvana and Sunny Day Real Estate were big influences.”

Nakayama also considers his family’s support important, as well. “My parents never pushed me into music,” he said, “but they would get me instruments, like a piano and a drum kit and a karaoke machine, at garage sales of friends in the Japanese community who had to move back.”

The upcoming show at the Triple Door demonstrates aspects of how Nakayama’s music practice has evolved from his earlier bands Asahi and Grand Hallway to his current solo work. “I think with every project and album I’ve learned how to better communicate my ideas with people, and how to be a better collaborator and musician,” he said. “I think the longer you play and the more experience you have, the more you are able to have confidence in yourself and in other people. You’re able to recognize your own weaknesses and find the right people to help you out in those areas.”

For this show, guitarist Olson and pianist Meyer fit the bill. And the two women share some commonalities in their musical backgrounds. “My dad had an old Hohner Contessa guitar that I always wanted to learn to play as a kid,” Olson

said. “I ignored the guitar for several years, though, and studied classical piano through college.”

But while Meyer stuck with classical and jazz piano, Olson veered off in another direction. “I picked the guitar up when I was about 19 and started teaching myself to play and found out it was something I could do, especially after joining a band in college,” she said.

Meanwhile, Meyer played piano at hotels and events during high school. “I always knew it was something I’d continue but I didn’t think I would become a professional musician until one day I started singing at the age of 17,” Meyer said. “It just sort of happened in a jam session. It was really suspenseful and exhilarating.”

Then, after high school, Meyer faced another crossroads. “In college I studied Ethnomusicology while recording solo albums,” she said. “Gradually my professional career overtook my academic path, and by the time I graduated, I was living a double life: touring in Japan while finishing my senior thesis.”

Although Meyer is a Seattlite, she draws heavily from her multicultural background. “Being born in Kyoto is something I came to appreciate more as I got older,” she said. “Like the great guitarist-songwriter Robbie Robertson says, who also shares a bi-cultural background, it’s like being given a key to two worlds.”

Meyer says that these worlds are not separate, but rather help to illuminate each other. “Studying traditional music that uses different tunings or rhythm structures, combined with having a career based in Tokyo, puts whatever contemporary music that’s popular or hip in context,” she said. “It makes you think, ‘ok, this is the perspective of this culture at this time.’ I think it keeps you grounded as an artist, not worried about following trends or what others are doing because it’s so different in each country.”

This broader outlook also frees Meyer in her musical practice. “It gives me room to experiment,” she said. “I’ll release an album in Japanese one year because it’s playful and I know a sector of my fans want that part of me, the next year I’ll release a jazz album because that’s what I grew up on and it challenges my chops.”

While Meyer continues to focus on a solo career leading to the release of a new jazz album next summer on Origin Records, Olson is splitting her time between multiple bands. “My band is a three piece with Sera Cahoone behind the drums and Rebecca Young on bass,” Olson said. “It’s a good feeling to be able to bounce ideas off people with the massive amount of experience that Sera and Reb have.”

But Olson likes to keep busy. “I also currently play bass and keys in S, Jenn T. Champion’s post-Carissa’s Weird project,” Olson said. “Playing with experienced musicians in two bands of completely different genres keeps the music interesting and expands my musicianship.”

Olson is no stranger to hard work. “I grew up in a hard-working middle class family in Billings, Montana,” she said. “After moving to Seattle, I found a good balance of working to make a living and still being able to play a lot of music, which at times, means playing in two or three bands and leaving for a few weeks here and there to play music on the road.”

But despite the common thread of hard work between Olson, Meyer, and Nakayama, it’s the impact on the audience that is the ultimate goal. “When we play a song, we want the audience to feel something, and I would say that is probably the most important thing to me,” Olson said.

For those familiar with Nakayama’s recent work, he promises some surprises at the Triple Door. “I just got back from a big U.S. tour where I gathered a ton of ideas and inspiration, so I’m hoping to have a few new songs by November to debut at the show,” he said. “It will be nice to close this current chapter and move on to the next album, which I’m going to record early next year.”

But he doesn’t plan to stop evolving then. “I’m still learning,” he said. “Every day is an education, and I’m grateful to every single person who has listened to my music.”

The performer-audience connection has also fostered new experiments for Nakayama. “Touring and performing solo for the past couple years has really opened up for me the sonic possibilities of the guitar and voice,” he said. “I’m really enjoying discovering new ways to do more with less, in all aspects of life and music.”

This exploration of frugality and minimalism has led Nakayama toward greater gratitude. “It’s an amazing privilege to be able to do this for a living,” he said, “and I hope to write many more songs, and to keep recording and releasing them on my own terms, for many years to come.”

Tomo Nakayama performs with Betsy Olson and Emi Meyer on November 22, at The Triple Door, 216 Union Street, Seattle. For tickets, visit http://tickets.thetripledoor.net/eventperformances.asp?evt=992.

Tomo Nakayama to share stage with Emi Meyer, Betsy Olson

Tomo Nakayama. • Photo by Alicia Palaniuk

Betsy Olson Emi Meyer


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By Susan KunimatsuIE Contributor

Roger Shimomura has emptied out the attic for “Great American Muse,” his latest show at Greg Kucera Gallery. The 40 paintings in this show recombine memorable images from his past work and the history of modern art, tying them up in a messy thought-provoking package. Shimomura has dedicated his career to challenging the racial stereotypes faced by Asian Americans in general and Japanese Americans in particular, sometimes confronting them directly, in the form of buck-tooth yellow-face cartoons from World War II. Sometimes he parodies them, inserting characters from 19th century Japanese art into contemporary settings. He calls out younger Japanese Americans for their materialistic American lifestyle, and non-Asians who can’t tell Japanese from Chinese. His three decades-long body of work about the Internment is a poignant and powerful historical document.

An academically trained artist and a professor at the University of Kansas for 40 years, Shimomura’s work aligns with American Pop Art. For American Muse, he appropriates fragments of famous works by Pop artists Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Tom Wesselmann; icons of modern art such as Picasso and Mondrian; and Japanese ukiyo-e master Hokusai. Google them and you will be able to spot snippets of their work throughout the show. Wesselmann and Lichtenstein also influenced his compositional style: 24-inch square images so densely layered and tightly framed that people and objects are crowded off the edges. A Picasso portrait backgrounds two nudes, one Caucasian, one Asian, their poses draw from Wesselmann but rendered in the style of an ukiyo-e print (“Great American Muse #15”). A geisha faces off with Minnie Mouse in front of Lichtenstein’s “Smoking Gun” (#27). A samurai and a fashion model make an incongruous couple in front of Lichtenstein’s comic-book lovers (#48).

“A few years ago my wife gave me a book on artist Tom Wesselmann that caused me to re-examine his paintings,” Shimomura states. “…these compositions were based upon fixed sets of images and locales, such as the female figure, kitchen, bathroom, groceries, art, and appliances. Upon this realization, I began to juxtapose similar images that I had used in my own work, … images that commonly had ethnic connotations such as woodblock prints, World War II, samurai, and geisha. I discovered that the level of interpretation rose exponentially, as each additional component brought its own history and associations. This resulted in endless possibilities for dialogue and debate.” The resulting works are dense and visually complex. His highly developed painter’s eye for composition and color is what holds them together. The show encompasses a dizzying array of references to art history, American history, and Shimomura’s history. But it can simply be enjoyed as an exhibition of fine painting.

“Great American Muse” is at Greg Kucera Gallery through December 24. For more information, call 206-624-0770 or visit http://www.gregkucera.com.

Shimomura finds his museROGER SHIMOMURA, GREAT AMERICAN MUSE #48, 2015, Acrylic on canvas, 24 x 24 inches. • Courtesy of Greg Kucera Gallery

Announcement

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Pork Filled Productions presents a staged reading of Online Dating Tales of Old Japan by Kirk Shimano, Thursday, December 3, at 6:00 p.m. at the historic Wing Luke Museum, 719 S. King St. in Seattle’s International District.

Online Dating Tales of Old Japan combines traditional Japanese folk tales with modern dating anxiety. As Akira tells us the fairytales he learned as a child, we see them blending with his own experiences of finding love, losing love, and being stuck in the limbo between finding and losing love. Akira’s journey takes him through ten folk tales and eighty years of Japanese-American history as he attempts to make sense of the life that he wants to lead.

Directed by long time PFP artist Brad Walker, Online Dating Tales features

local talents Denny Le, Emily Feliciano, Rachel Rene Araucto, and Tim Takeshi.

Kirk Shimano is a San Francisco Bay Area based writer. He is a member of the PlayGround writers pool and his work has been presented by the San Francisco Olympians, San Francisco Theater Pub, PianoFight Production and Wily West Productions. He has also worked with the Playwrights’ Center of San Francisco and the Asian American Theater Company’s NewWorks Incubator, where earlier versions of Online Dating Tales of Old Japan were first workshopped. By day he works as a lighting engineer for Industrial Light + Magic, helping a talented team of artists to illuminate things that don’t exist with imaginary computer lights.

Admission is free with a talk back with the author afterwards. For more information, visit www.porkfilled.com or email [email protected].

Online Dating Tales of Old Japan happens December 3 at the Wing


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Race and Culture Shake Up The ArtsIssues of race and culture continue to make themselves relevant in today’s headlines and reverberate on our streets. Those issues permeate all fabric of

society and the arts is not immune. In two different but related cases, issues of representation/misrepresentation of writers of color in American literature continue to be an ongoing concern. Local poet Jane Wong addresses the recent controversy surrounding the yearly anthology, “Best American Poetry,” when a white man using an Asian Pseudonym had his poem accepted for this nationally known publication guest-edited by noted Seattle poet/novelist Sherman Alexie. In her response, she shifts the focus toward the five real Asian American poets in this year’s anthology. Also, Seattle writer Donna Miscolta takes issue with a recent anthology of Seattle writers she felt gave short shrift to local writers of colors. She wrote a letter originally published in the Seattle Review of Books on October 1, 2015 (seattlereviewofbooks.com), a recent online publication on books and literature that has provided a lively and stimulating dialogue to our local literary scene. More letters were followed by Paul Constant and Kathleen Alcala (http://seattlereviewofbooks.com/notes/2015/10/08/letters-to-the-editor-on-representation-in-seattle-city-of-literature/) and reactions continued on social media as well. The letter is reprinted with the permission of Seattle Review of Books. Stay tuned as the dialogue on these issues will surely continue.

Alan Chong LauIE Arts Editor

By Jane WongIE Contributor

Recently, it was revealed that Yi-Fen Chou, whose poem is included in The Best Ameri-can Poetry 2015, is actually a moniker used by a white man named Michael Derrick Hud-son. In Hudson’s biography note, he discussed his difficulty getting published under his real name. He decided to take on a Chinese name, which turns out to be the name of a real high school classmate. Numerous writers have re-sponded to Hudson’s actions via social me-dia, community forums, critical essays, news outlets, and creative work.

Inherent in Husdon’s note is his desire for attention. He writes about how he keeps de-tailed records of his rejections as Hudson and Chou: “As a strategy for ‘placing’ poems [us-ing Yi-Fen Chou] has been quite successful for me.” With the story of Hudson’s yellow-face act appearing in numerous high-profile places such as The New York Times, Slate, and NPR, I am concerned that the work of real poets of color are being underhigh-lighted. Rather than turn the attention toward Hudson, we must spotlight the work of real Asian American poets.

As an Asian American poet, I am proud to be selected by Sherman Alexie in Best Amer-ican Poetry 2015. You can read my BAP 2015 poem “Thaw” in Birdfeast. I’d like to feature and commend the other four Asian American poets in this year’s anthology: Chen Chen, Rajiv Mohabir, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, and Monica Youn. In this way, through solidar-ity and literary advocacy, we can push against people who share Hudson’s beliefs and cel-ebrate these beautiful poems and poets.

Chen Chen“for i will do/undo what was done/undone

to me” (appeared in PANK)Chen Chen’s poem begins with a familiar

refrain for those of us who grew up in Amer-ica: “I pledge allegiance.” Yet, this pledge quickly turns away from a patriotic refrain to-ward a promise to the visceral world around him. He writes: “i pledge allegiance to the al-ready fallen snow / & to the snow now falling. to the old snow & the new. / to foot & paw & tire prints in the snow both young & ag-ing.” This dedication to snow demonstrates a love for the mutable: snow that will stay, snow that will melt, snow that will we touch daily. Chen celebrates the underworld of what is “left behind”: “the breadcrumbs & the blood.

Shifting the Focus: Real Asian American Poets in Best American Poetry 2015

the toe- / nails & armpit hair of our trying & failing to speak.” I’m continually struck by the forward-moving energy of this poem and Chen’s ability to reimagine our idioms. Please check out his recent chapbook: Set the Garden on Fire (Porkbelly Press).

Rajiv Mohabir“Dove” (appeared in Prairie Schooner)Immediately, Mohabir’s poem stings us:

“A scorpion stings me; its toxins swim my veins, / one ill prick from you and I writhe in your fever.” We enter a feverish world via lan-guage—a dream world in which the speaker takes us along with him, turning poison into a toxin full of potential. Language disperses, across nations. He writes, “I will tie messages to the feet of doves, / set them to sail at dusk with a map to your country.” We move across countries, always transnational. This lyric world of doves turns back toward a darker poison with the penultimate couplet: “So my skin never blisters with your desire, / in bird-baths I empty vials of avicide.” He asks: what does it mean to kill that which is beautiful? Often full of lush language, Mohabir’s poems raise such striking questions about loss, love, and migration. Please check out Mohabir’s forthcoming collections: The Cowherd’s Son (Tupelo Press) and The Taxidermist’s Cut (Four Way Books).

Aimee Nezhukumatathil“Upon Hearing the News You Buried Our

Dog” (appeared in Poem-a-Day)Nezhukumatathil’s poem is a deeply alive,

deeply hopeful poem; she begins with a dec-laration: “I have faith in the single glossy cap-sule of a butterfly egg. / I have faith in the way a wasp nest is never quiet / and never wants to be.” That rebellious move (“and never wants to be”) celebrates the natural world’s stub-bornness. This poem finds faith in the strange world around us, with a necessary reassur-ance. Indeed, “a pile of forty / painted turtles balanced on top of each other will not fall.” Yet, rather than a dumbstruck kind of love for the natural world, Nezhukumatathil calls for understanding its daily occurrence. The love of science here is not so much in its precision, but in its constant messiness: “teeth grow lon-ger / in their mouths.” This poem asks us to pay attention – to consider and love the world each day. Please read Nezhukumatathil’s re-cent collections, Lucky Fish (Tupelo Press) and Lace & Pyrite (Organic Weapon Arts).

Monica Youn“March of the Hanged Men” (appeared in

The Paris Review)Youn’s poem, which ends the anthology,

is loosely based on Francois Villon’s 15th century poem, “Ballad of the Hanged Men.” As Youn writes in her note, the figure of the hanged man often signifies a moment of transformation into a predestined role. While this poem was inspired by her time in Italy and Villon’s poem, it also reverberates beyond ekphrasis. Youn’s language is

immediately striking; her word choice is precise and driven from the start, with “hyperarticulated.” This word, in its multiple syllables, feels like it has “legs” so to speak. The poem gathers terror as it marches forward, with ants pouring and replaying “a tape-loop vision.” There’s an uneasy endlessness to this poem, ushered through the lack of punctuation and the speaker’s absolute authority—“… there is no stopping point for what is infinite what cannot be destroyed…” Please read Youn’s recent collection, Ignatz (Four Way Books).


IE NEWS

By Donna MiscoltaIE Contributor

Ryan Boudinot’s anthology Seattle: City of Literature: Reflections from a Community of Writers was just released by Sasquatch Books and heralded in a Seattle Met review with this subheading: “The new anthology is a comprehensive snapshot of Seattle’s community of writers, past and present.”

If “comprehensive” means Seattle’s community of mostly white writers, then I suppose the descriptor is accurate. Boudinot in his preface calls the collection “a representative sampling,” which again can only be true if the community from which he is sampling is overwhelmingly white. But writers of color do exist, and the problem is that they are barely represented in the anthology.

The book opens with an essay by Cowlitz tribe member Elissa Washuta on the oral tradition practiced by Vi Hilbert, noted elder of the Upper Skagit tribe. It’s a fitting place to start. But the rest of the book pretty much renders writers of color invisible.

Reflections by and about white peoplePerhaps Roberto Ascalon or Peter Bacho

could have been invited to contribute a piece about the Filipino writer Carlos Bulosan, who is buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery on Queen Anne Hill. Bulosan is best known for his semi-autobiographical America is in the Heart, which describes the brutal living and working conditions of Filipino immigrants in America. The book became integral to the Filipino American identity movement in the 1970s.

What about illustrious African-American playwright August Wilson, who lived in Seattle from 1990 until his death in 2005 as the subject of an essay, rather than a passing mention in the preface? What about Seattle playwright Cheryl West as a contributor or subject?

The eminent science fiction writer Octavia Butler lived in the area from 1999 until her death in 2006. Might the award-winning Nisi Shawl have been invited to write about Butler?

The list of possible authors and subjects is long. One needn’t search long and hard for candidates. There’s poet and visual artist Alan Lau, recipient of a Cultural Ambassador award from the mayor in 2014 for his more than 30 years of involvement

in and support of the arts. It would have been a lovely thing to read an essay about Lau by Jane Wong or Michelle Peñaloza or another one of the exciting, young Asian American poets in Seattle today. What fun it would be to know more about the book of poems he published with Oregon poets Lawson Inada and Garrett Hongo called The Buddha Bandits Down Highway 99.

And what about the late Kim-An Lieberman and the gorgeous work she produced before her life was cut short?

It seems that Boudinot’s anthology was submitted as part of the city’s official bid to become a UNESCO City of Literature. A successful bid would make Seattle only the third U.S. city to join the Creative Cities Network. One of the primary goals of the Network is “to improve access to and participation in cultural life as well as the enjoyment of goods and services, notably for marginalized or vulnerable groups and individuals.” People of color account for 33 percent of Seattle’s population, according to 2010 census figures. How much enjoyment will this often marginalized group receive from an anthology in which nearly 90 percent of its writers are white?

Another aim of the Creative Cities Network is “social inclusion and enhanced influence of culture in the world.” How is social inclusion reflected in an anthology that excludes writers of color? What kind of influence on world culture will Seattle have when it ignores a segment of its writing community?

One of the endorsers of the UNESCO bid is the city of Seattle, which has a race and social justice initiative “to eliminate racial disparities and achieve racial equity in Seattle.” Why shouldn’t this initiative apply to efforts such as the anthology?

And what was the publisher’s input? I suggest that Sasquatch try again, that the Seattle Met reviewer reconsider his use of “comprehensive,” and that the Seattle City of Literature Board hope the UNESCO folks don’t wonder about the intended readership for the anthology. Just white readers? Or also the readers of color who will not see themselves represented? In the end, the failure to acknowledge the existence and work of writers of color fails all readers.

This letter was originally published in the Seattle Review of Books on October 1, 2015 (seattlereviewofbooks.com).

By Alia MarshaIE Contributor

As Reel Grrls gets ready to begin its 15th year as a media-training organization, its executive director Nancy Chang reflected on the organization’s and her own personal growth in the past year.

Reel Grrls is a media-training organization that seeks to empower young girls and women ages nine to 21. Reel Grrls teaches media literacy and hands-on filmmaking production skills all year-long. Though the organization is gender-specific, it acknowledges that gender is a spectrum. Anybody who identifies as a girl are welcome to join their workshops and programs.

Since Chang joined Reel Grrls in September 2014, the focus has been trying out ways to set the organization in a different direction.

“I think this past year has been about rebuilding Reel Grrls into a version that is more accessible,” Chang said.

As part of the effort to rebuilding the organization that was founded in 2001, Chang launched a mobile program initiative with the goal of making storytelling more accessible to a diverse population of girls. This program teaches girls to make media and tell their stories using relatively affordable iPod touches instead of DSLR cameras and software.

Executive director Nancy Chang reflects on Reel Grrls as it turns 15An important feature of this program

is that Reel Grrls is going out into the communities who may not have the privilege of coming to them. Though the program is well-intentioned, the organization has faced with some challenges.

Earlier this year, Reel Grrls went to Aki Kurose Middle School in Rainier Valley and hosted a nine-week program designed using their mobile program.

“When girls come to us, they’re ready to learn,” Chang said. “But when we go out to the community, that might not always the case.”

Chang described how the organization did not gain the trust of the students at the middle school immediately at the beginning of the program, who might have seen Chang and the Reel Grrls team as strangers invading their space. It was interesting, however, to see the students becoming more comfortable and proud of the work they did at the end, Chang said.

“I think that first program was definitely a bit rough, but I think we did our job by making sure we’re being authentic and supportive of their comfort level,” Chang said. “They were helping us learn where they’re coming from versus us coming with an agenda, “This is the kind of media what we want you to make.””

Chang said that experience gave her and Reel Grrls more understanding

about young people. More than before, Reel Grrls is realizing the diverse talents and comfort levels of the craft of storytelling.

Reel Grrls does not expect every girl who participates in their workshops or classes to eventually become a filmmaker. Chang said people often asked her if the organization is a youth development organization or a filmmaker institution. The answer is both.

“A lot of what we’re doing is youth development first then hopefully they could become inspired and want to be filmmakers,” she said.

Even if filmmaking is not the goal, Chang believes Reel Grrls promotes other transferrable skills such as storytelling, media-making, and being

critical of the media that youth are consuming.

Recently, Reel Grrls recruited Stephany Hazelrigg as its new program manager. Chang said they are exploring opportunities to place more Reel Grrls in the community by having students create short videos for non-profit organizations.

“My personal goals for Reel Grrls in 2016 is to continue to build organizational capacity to build out our programs to serve more young people, create more jobs, and work collaboratively with other organizations,” Chang said.

Chang completed her undergraduate study at the University of Washington majoring in Sculpture before she changed her career path.

“I didn’t feel content,” Chang said. “So I transferred my art problem solving skills into community development and community building.”

Chang co-founded an all-inclusive skateboarding organization Skate Like A Girl in 2005. Before starting as executive director at Reel Grrls, she was a program coordinator at the City of Redmond where she led teen outreach programs.

Reel Grrls will kick-off its 15th year with a fundraising event “RG Benefit Screening” on November 20 at the Wing Luke Museum.

Nancy Chang • Courtesy Photo


IE COMMUNITY RESOURCE DIRECTORY

Community Care Network of Kin On815 S Weller St, Suite 212, Seattle, WA 98104ph: 206-652-2330 fx: [email protected] www.kinon.orgProvides home care, Alzheimer’s and caregiver support, com-munity education and chronic care management; coordinates medical supply delivery for Asian/Chinese seniors and families in King County.

Kin On Health Care Center 4416 S Brandon St, Seattle, WA 98118ph: 206-721-3630 fx: [email protected] www.kinon.orgA 100-bed, Medicare and Medicaid certified, not-for-profit skilled nursing facility offering long-term skilled nursing and short-term rehab care for Asian/Chinese seniors.

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Get the planthat fits

Call Washington Apple Health at 1-855-WAFINDER (1-855-923-4633). Choose Amerigroup.

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Arts & Culture

[email protected] www.deniselouie.orgMulticultural preschool ages 3-5 years old. Now enrolling Private Pay full-day ($900/mo) and part-day classes ($500/mo) with locations at ID, Beacon Hill, and Rainier Beach.

3327 Beacon Ave S.Seattle, WA 98144 ph: 206-725-9740

Education

Housing & Neighborhood Planning

HomeSight5117 Rainier Ave S, Seattle, WA 98118ph: 206-723-4355 fx: 206-760-4210www.homesightwa.org

HomeSight creates homeownership opportunities through real estate development, home buyer education and counseling, and lending.

InterIm Community Development Association310 Maynard Ave S, Seattle, WA 98104Ph: 206.624-1802 Services: 601 S King St, Ph: 206. 623-5132Interimicda.orgMultilingual community building: housing & parking, housing/asset counseling, projects, teen leadership and gardening programs.

Asia Pacific Cultural Center4851 So. Tacoma WayTacoma, WA 98409Ph: 253-383-3900Fx: 253-292-1551faalua@comcast.netwww.asiapacificculturalcenter.orgBridging communities and generations through arts, culture, education and business.

Kawabe Memorial House221 18th Ave S, Seattle, WA 98144 ph: 206-322-4550 fx: [email protected] provide affordable, safe, culturally sensitive housing and support services to people aged 62 and older.

Address tobacco control and other health justice issues in the Asian American/Pacific Islander communities.

601 S King St.Seattle, WA 98104ph: 206-682-1668 website www.apicat.org

Asian Counseling & Referral Service3639 Martin Luther King Jr. Way S, Seattle, WA 98144 ph: 206-695-7600 fx: [email protected] www.acrs.orgACRS offers multilingual, behavioral health and social services to Asian Pacific Americans and other low-income people in King County.

1601 E Yesler Way, Seattle, WA 98122ph: 206-323-7100 www.nikkeiconcerns.orgrehabilitation care | skilled nursing | assisted living | home/community-based services | senior social activities | meal delivery | transportation | continuing education | catering services

Legacy House803 South Lane Street Seattle, WA 98104ph: 206-292-5184 fx: [email protected] www.scidpda.org/programs/legacyhouse.aspx

Description of organization/services offered: Assisted Living, Adult Day Services, meal programs for low-income seniors. Medicaid accepted.

Senior Services

WE MAkE LEADERS

Queen Anne Station, P.O. Box 19888, Seattle, WA [email protected], www.naaapseattle.orgFostering future leaders through education, networking and community services for Asian American professionals and entrepreneurs.Facebook: NAAAP-Seattle Twitter: twitter.com/naaapseattle

Social & Health Services

Chinese Information & Service Center611 S Lane St, Seattle, WA 98104 ph: 206-624-5633 fax: [email protected] www.cisc-seattle.org

Creating opportunities for Asian immigrants and their families to succeed by helping them make the transition to a new life while keeping later generations in touch with their rich heritage.

International District Medical & Dental Clinic720 8th Avenue S, Seattle, WA 98114 ph: 206-788-3700email: [email protected] website: www.ichs.com

Bellevue Medical & Dental Clinic1050 140th Avenue NE, Bellevue, WA 98005ph: 425-373-3000

Shoreline Medical & Dental Clinic16549 Aurora Avenue N, Shoreline, WA 98133ph: 206-533-2600

Holly Park Medical & Dental Clinic3815 S Othello St, Seattle, WA 98118ph: 206-788-3500

ICHS is a non-profit medical and dental center that provides health care to low income Asian, Pacific Islanders, immigrants and refugees in Washington State.

Seattle Chinatown/International District Preservation and Development Authorityph: 206-624-8929 fx: 206-467-6376 [email protected]

Housing, property management and community development.

Executive Development Institute 310 – 120th Ave NE. Suite A102 Bellevue, WA Ph. 425-467-9365 • Fax: 425-467-1244 Email: [email protected] • Website: www.ediorg.org EDI offers culturally relevant leadership development programs.

Professional & Leadership Development

ph: 206-624-3426 www.merchants-parking-transia.org

Merchants Parking provides convenient & affordable community parking. Transia provides community transportation: para-transit van services, shuttle services and field trips in & out of Chinatown/International District & South King County.

Social & Health ServicesSenior Services

Horizon House900 University St Seattle, WA 98101 ph: 206-382-3100 fx: [email protected]

www.horizonhouse.orgA welcoming community in downtown Seattle, offering seniors vibrant activities, independent or assisted living, and memory care.

FAIR! ph: 206-578-1255 [email protected]

FAIR! provides undocumented Asians and Pacific Islanders with access to free immigration services, legal services & financial assistance, with translators available upon request.

Agape Senior Group Activity Center36405 Cedar St, Suite UTacoma, WA 98409ph: 253-212-3957 [email protected]

Japanese Language School for Children on Saturdays. Activities/Programs for all ages. Programs include Calligraphy Class, Chiropractic Taiso, iPad & Computer Classes, and more! Join us and make new friends!

IDIC is a nonprofit human services organization that offers wellness and social service programs to Filipinos and API communities.

7301 Beacon Ave SSeattle, WA 98108ph: 206-587-3735fax: 206-748-0282 [email protected]

Southeast Seattle Senior Center4655 S. Holly St., Seattle, WA 98118ph: 206-722-0317 fax: [email protected] www.sessc.orgDaytime activities center providing activities social services, trips, and community for seniors and South Seattle neighbors. We have weaving, Tai Chi, indoor beach-ball, yoga, dance, senior-oriented computer classes, trips to the casino, and serve scratch cooked lunch. Open Monday through Friday, 8:30-4. Our thrift store next door is open Mon-Fri 10-2, Sat 10-4. This sweet center has services and fun for the health and well-being of boomers and beyond. Check us out on Facebook or our website.

2500 NE 54th StreetSeattle, WA 98105ph: 206-694-4500 [email protected]

Working to prevent and end youth homelessness with services including meals, shelter, housing, job training, education, and more.

Organization of Chinese AmericansAsian Pacific American AdvocatesGreater Seattle ChapterP.O. Box 14141Seattle, WA 98114 www.ocaseattle.org

OCA—Greater Seattle Chapter was formed in 1995 and since that time it has been serving the Greater Seattle Chinese and Asian Pacific American community as well as other communities in the Pacific Northwest. It is recognized in the local community for its advocacy of civil and voting rights as well as its sponsorship of community activities and events.

Commission on Asian Pacific American AffairsGA Bldg., 210 11th Ave SW, Suite 301AOlympia, WA 98504ph: (360) 725-5667 www.facebook.com/[email protected] www.capaa.wa.gov

Statewide liaison between government and APA communities. Monitors and informs the public about legislative issues.

INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER November 18, 2015 – December 1, 2015 — 15ADVERTISEMENT

IE ARTS

Answers to this puzzle are on Wednesday, December 2.

By Vinh DoIE Contributor

Half-light is that transition time when night turns into day and dawn turns into sunrise. In Lan Cao’s The Lotus and the Storm, a novel about love, war, and loss, half-light becomes a metaphor used by the author for the state in which her characters live, except that her charac-ters never transition and are caught in between places—neither in Vietnam nor Virginia, neither fully Vietnamese nor American, nei-ther defeated nor vic-torious.

With the war in Vietnam as the cen-tral event in their lives, they inhabit “half-lives” as the author calls it, and remain torn be-tween countries, al-legiances, and loves. It is exciting to read the points of view of Vietnamese charac-ters living in Viet-nam as written by a Vietnamese author. Lan Cao writes about Vietnam with an au-thority: she regales with details about food, flora, fauna, and the customs of its citizens. The sweep of her tale is wide and huge: it speaks not only of the war between North and South and Ameri-cans and Vietnamese, but also the war within Saigon itself, and the war inside families and between friends.

Written from the various perspectives of different members of a Vietnamese family in Saigon pre-1975 and after, the book centers on one woman, Quy, whose charms and loveliness capture the attention of all in her path. It follows her and her family from a life of privilege in the Cholon district before the fall of Saigon to a life under Communist rule when Saigon fell and

the ensuing escape by boat across the open seas. The family later adopts a life in an unnamed city in Virginia and yet they live still in that half-light.

From Vietnam to Virginia, the author imbues this tale with history and poetry.

Of the war, she writes of the Ho Chi Minh Trail and jungles “cho-reographed for death” and renders details of military exploits, namely

battles in Hue and Saigon in 1968, with equal passion for its people and dispassion. She writes of re-educa-tion camps in Viet-nam run by Com-munists where it didn’t matter if you were a Viet-cong sympathizer because prisoners shared the same fate and among them no one had a future and yet in Malaysia among refugees, the same Vietcong sympa-

thizer could be beaten to death by fellow Vietnamese because “now the future mattered.” Of the war in relationships, she writes of women with “a future without happiness” and men with “a happiness without a future.”

Throughout, the author weaves in a love story with Quy—in Vietnamese, this means precious—at the center. Throughout, a sense of nostalgia and sadness pervades—like the scent of frangipani the author writes of. Nostalgia and sadness follow the characters as they live and are caught in that half-light—unable to leave a past and unable to live fully in the future.

Lotus and the Storm a tale imbued with history, poetry

Announcement

Minoru Yasui honored with Presidential Medal of Freedom

On November 16, President Barack Obama posthumously named Minoru Ya-sui as one of 17 recipients of the Presiden-tial Medal of Freedom, the Nation’s highest civilian honor. The award is presented to individuals who have made especially meri-torious contributions to the security or na-tional interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant pub-lic or private endeavors.

“The Presidential Medal of Freedom for my father is a historic achievement for the community and such an honor for my fam-ily,” Holly Yasui, daughter of Minoru Yasui, said in a statement. “We are thankful to President Obama for the award and to Sena-tor Mazie Hirono for making the nomina-tion, and Representative Honda and others for supporting my father for this honor.”

Holly Yasui is currently working on a documentary titled, Never Give Up!, about Minoru Yasui’s legacy.

Yasui was a civil and human rights leader known for his continuous defense of the ide-als of democracy embodied in our Constitu-tion. A graduate of the University of Oregon School of Law, Yasui challenged the consti-tutionality of Executive Order 9066 during

World War II on the grounds of racial dis-crimination, and spent nine months in solitary confinement during the subsequent legal battle. Yasui was incarcerated at the Minidoka War Relocation Camp as he

appealed his case to the Supreme Court. The Court ruled in 1943 that it was constitutional to restrict the lives of private citizens dur-ing times of war. After World War II ended, Yasui continued to fight for reparations and justice for Japanese Americans and commu-nities of color. While his conviction was va-cated in the 1980s after filing a writ of coram nobis, Yasui passed away in 1986 while ap-pealing the government’s conduct during his case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The awards will be presented at the White House on November 24.

Yasui, former chair of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) National Redress committee, was also recently post-humously recognized with the Martin Lu-ther King Jr. Business Award by the Asian Chamber of Commerce.

Yasui


Documents

November 18, 2015 International Examiner