Every ten years following the U.S. Census, Washington State undergoes a redistricting process to rebalance each of the state’s 49 legislative districts so they all have roughly equal populations. The task of the bipartisan Washington Redistricting Commission is to redraw each district into equal sizes based on the 2010 Census while respecting communities of interest. [...]
The late journalist, Robert C. Maynard once wrote that as a nation we are divided along the fault lines of race, class, gender, geography and generation. To provide a more nuanced understanding of the racial divide, Maynard believed that journalists are compelled not only to acknowledge their existence but also discern their consequences. Never [...]
SEATTLE – The forging of Seattle’s Asian community, particularly its growth in the city’s Central District, was inseparable from the history of racial discrimination and immigration in the Northwest. Indeed for that community, the emergence of the civil rights movement of the sixties was transformative. With the growth of the Asian population nationwide — according [...]
SEATTLE – They are as upstanding a group of civic leaders as one might find anywhere. Dr. Lawrence Matsuda, 66, a former educator, was once an assistant superintendent for Seattle Public Schools and visiting professor of education at Seattle University. Seattle business manager Ken Nakamura, 63, was director of the Washington State Lottery. Jim Yoshida, [...]
SEATTLE – Three years ago, former Microsoft senior executive Scott Oki had an epiphany. Encouraged by his wife, Laurie, the 62-year-old Bellevue philanthropist decided to refocus his time and energies on a new project for the Oki Foundation: reforming K-12 public schools. Frustrated by the slow pace of reform in public schools, Oki [...]
SEATTLE – In her ten years of teaching students in Seattle Central Community College’s award-winning film and video communications program, Sandra Cioffi has reason to be proud of her protégés. Graduates of her two-year associate of applied science degree program have made their mark as successful photojournalists, radio producers, independent video filmmakers, lighting technicians, set [...]
SEATTLE – Diversity in the nation’s newsrooms is becoming the latest casualty of the economic woes facing the American newspaper industry. For the third consecutive year, the number of minority journalists continues to decline, mirroring a national trend of newspaper layoffs. In its most recent 2011 census, the American Society of Newspaper Editors reports that [...]
In the two years since Washington’s “Death with Dignity” law was enacted, Asian Pacific Islander use of physician-assisted dying continues to be negligible according to a new report by the state Department of Health. Only five percent of the 87 terminally ill patients who requested lethal doses of medication in 2010 were non-white or Hispanic. [...]
In her bestselling novel, “Shanghai Girls,” published two years ago to wide acclaim, Lisa See chronicled the lives of two sisters, Pearl Chin and her younger sister, May, and their privileged life in pre-World War II Shanghai, then known as the Paris of Asia. Pearl, the alluring older sister, and May, her docile sibling, made [...]
SEATTLE – A time traveler seeking a glimpse of the International District’s past would do no better than to take its measure through the eyes of its Asian-Pacific Islander American storytellers. A good place to begin is the Panama Hotel. The historic local landmark figures prominently in Jamie Ford’s debut novel, “Hotel on the Corner [...]
SEATTLE – After 12 years of unsuccessful efforts to redevelop its Dearborn campus, Seattle Goodwill Industries has unveiled plans to build a new job training center. Demolition of its vacant buildings along Dearborn Street has begun and is scheduled for completion by the end of September of this year. “The new parking area will include [...]
With Seattle School Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson’s ouster over a financial scandal last February, community leaders are taking a second look at the structural challenges facing a beleaguered school district. As Seattle School Board candidates begin their campaign for the fall election, and an untested new school administration regains its footing under interim Seattle Schools Superintendent [...]
For denizens of the Pacific Northwest, the summer months of June through August mark the harvest season for cherries, boysenberries, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and blackberries. Long before large-scale fruit growing became a successful staple of the region’s economy, Japanese American immigrant families pioneered the first strawberry farms in the Puget Sound region in the early [...]
Collin Tong – IE Staff Reporter – Planting roots in San Francisco’s Chinatown. In 1937, when my parents set sail on the S.S. Cleveland from Guangzhou [Canton] bound for Honolulu, and thence to San Francisco, they carried little with them except the typical dreams of first-generation Chinese immigrants. Forty-four years later, when my wife and [...]
Diem Ly – IE Editor in Chief – A war propels an immigration wave and one family’s journey across America. For Nhuan Ly, the events of April 30, 1975 will be forever seared into his family’s memories. Leaving his village of Can Tho, about two hours south of Saigon, Ly narrowly escaped South Vietnam on [...]
As detained American journalist Dorothy Parvaz’s situation dragged out, her colleagues and supporters throughout the world were stepping up their efforts to win her release from Syria. Now, the efforts will have to refocus on Iran, where she is reportedly being held after being sent from Syria. Syrian officials had earlier assured her news service, [...]
SEATTLE — Seattleites will usher in the 2011 Year of the Rabbit in high style with a panoply of community events and celebrations in the International District ranging from traditional song-and-dance performances, to parades and cultural events. On Saturday, Jan. 29, the Seattle chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) hosts its annual Lunar [...]
Francesca Cauce, a high school junior in Miami, is considering attending the University of Washington in 2012 and paying out-of-state tuition. Yet her aunt, Ana Mari, the UW’s Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, worries that further cuts in higher education funding, as forecast in Gov. Chris Gregoire’s proposed budget, will erode academic [...]
