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COMMENTARY: The art of being

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By Ruth Bayang NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY As I start to resume my social life and re-engage with friends in real life after almost two months in relative pandemic isolation, a popular question seems to be, “What have you been doing?” or “What are you doing lately?” Up until recently, my answer had been, “Not much.” […]

Local public housing leaders criticize rollback in fair housing rules

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By: Andrew Lofton Executive Director, Seattle Housing Authority Stephen Norman Executive Director, King County Housing Authority Michael Mirra Executive Director, Tacoma Housing Authority Mark Gropper Executive Director, Renton Housing Authority As leaders of public housing authorities in the Puget Sound region, we are distressed that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is enacting […]

COMMENTARY: JACL: Our outrage for George Floyd’s murder is not enough

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It has been weeks since George Floyd was lynched by four Minneapolis police officers. The death of George Floyd was preventable, as were the deaths of Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, Nina Pop, Breonna Taylor, Sean Reed, Charleena Lyles, and countless other Black lives who have been lost to systemic racism in the United States.  Officer […]

COMMENTARY: Asian bashing and lessons from Loving

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By James K. Doane In 1967, the United States Supreme Court, in Loving v. Virginia, unanimously struck down a Virginia law that banned marriage between persons classified as “white” and  persons classified  as “colored.” Virginia residents Richard Loving, a white man, and Mildred Loving, an African and Native American woman, had been convicted of violating […]

GUEST EDITORIAL: A time to remember what happened to Japanese Americans during World War II

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By Mike Dillon It’s been a year since my slender book, “Departures: Poetry and Prose on the Removal of Bainbridge Island’s Japanese Americans After Pearl Harbor,” was published by Unsolicited Press in Portland. I wrote most of “Departures” in the first half of 2016, during the rise of Donald Trump. Here we go again, I […]

COMMENTARY: Asian people are not a disease

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As terms like “Chinese Virus,” “Wuhan Virus,” and “Kung Flu” are increasingly used by the president and other leaders in our country, so do we see the increase of racially-based hate crimes and xenophobia against people of Asian descent. While President Trump has defended his usage of these types of terms, as “not racist at all,” the impacts on our communities tell a different story.