By Kai Curry
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
David Song, the new executive director of Town Hall Seattle. (Photo by Dan DeLong for Town Hall Seattle)
David Song’s career is one of those that makes you believe life has a plan for us after all. Seemingly unrelated interests really do one day combine to create the perfect circumstances. Song took over as Town Hall Seattle’s new executive director on April 24. Yet, safe to say, he’s been getting ready for this position for most of his life.
“In a weird way, it connects all the different threads of my lived experience and professional life in ways I didn’t anticipate,” Song told the Weekly. Song took over from his predecessor, Wier Harman, who left Town Hall in December 2022 (Christine Martin acted as interim executive director until Song arrived). Song had met Harman during a prior visit to Seattle, and during a previous interview with Town Hall.
“I remember thinking, ‘This guy has the coolest job.’” Song didn’t take the Town Hall job at that time, but life was pointing him in this direction.
Song had been in a long distance relationship for about five years with his current partner, Cynthia. When the pandemic hit, it brought home to him the need to be close to loved ones. Cynthia lived in Seattle.
“As our relationship grew, I grew to love the city as well. I got to spend more time here and came to think of it as a second home. [The pandemic] made everybody think about ‘who should I be with?’ and ‘where should I be?’ I wanted to be with my partner in Seattle.”
A child of Korean immigrants, Song was born in Seoul and about 4 years old when his family moved to a “steel town” in Pennsylvania. Used to the “concrete jungle” of his home city, Song remembers vividly the first day of school.
“I was so excited and I told my teacher I’d never been in a place where there were trees and deer.” He spoke to this teacher in Korean, “I saw Bambi for the first time,” and of course, she did not understand him. Song said he “went home crying” and asked his parents, “What are we doing here?”
Song soon found his footing though, and has thrived in school and work. His family relocated a lot, including to Chicago three times, which Song began to consider “home.” His dad, a scientist and researcher, “moved around building his career and doing his training. It’s not easy for a foreign educated person to break in.” His mom, formerly a music teacher, retired at marriage, but Song still feels he got his love of arts and entertainment from her.
“I’m a musician and comedy performer myself, in one of my other past lives,” he said. In college at the University of Illinois, Song developed a taste for debate, and as life—not luck—would have it, he was the student chair of a lecture series, and had the honor of inviting famed author, Ray Bradbury, to the school.
“I loved that job. Now I get to run an organization that does this at a grown-up level.”
Leadership positions for Song include 10 years with Chicago Debates, an organization that coaches young people to reach their potential; Kandelia (formerly the Vietnamese Friendship Association), which addresses systemic inequities towards immigrants and refugees; and The Stability Network, which strives to turn concerns about mental health from a negative into a positive. Song has done a lot of work “helping young people find their voices [and] share what’s great about themselves,” as well “mental health storytelling.” He really liked that Town Hall was already doing “such important equity programming,” and hopes to keep this up, and then some.
Song wants Town Hall “to present a range of perspectives from different parts of society and represent different ideas.” His vision is that, maybe not during, but after a presentation, attendees will get into a healthy debate, say, over dinner or in the car on the way home.
“I want to present ideas and have people not just accept them, but go to a talk and in the lobby afterwards, debate, ‘I didn’t agree,’ or ‘they didn’t understand my position’…those are the kinds of conversations I would love to encourage.” In his view, the more you know the other side, the more you understand your own position. “That’s where the debate part of me comes out.”
This doesn’t mean that Song won’t take into account the character of Seattle and Town Hall’s regular audience. However, don’t expect to find a lecturer that agrees with you every time.
“People will find their ideas already…something that challenges them or something that they want to challenge,” is an area where Town Hall can step in—in a spirit of understanding and diversity. “[Seattle] is a community and people who are interested in ideas. I want to make sure that people are going to engage. We are not a place for hate speech or [ideas] that have no merit for society, but if there is a real debate about [an] issue, I want us to be a part of it.”
Song is excited to be in the Pacific Northwest, and explore the area with his partner. He has been pleasantly surprised at the selection of great restaurants here, coming as he does from one of the “best food cities in the world” (Chicago).
“We love being in a place with so much Asian food…we’re spoiled here,” he admitted. “I have competing options for delicious dumplings.” He and Cynthia also enjoy the wealth of museums, especially the Asian Art Museum. Again, having lived in Chicago, the city that hosts one of the most reputable art museums in the world, that’s saying a lot.
“I feel very lucky we have a museum dedicated to Asian culture, which is not something we have in Chicago.” And of course, Song is becoming a true resident, by getting outside.
“We love the outdoors and…little day trips on the weekends.”
A couple of upcoming AAPI-related Town Hall events Song recommended include on May 20, a family concert, “Ihaw-Ihaw Bayan Ko: Celebrating Filipino Songs of Protest, Past and Present,” and May 21, when R.F. Kuang will talk about her best-selling novel, “Yellowface.”
“Town Hall will continue to be a place [of] relevant, meaningful social justice ideas, but there will also be things about science, politics, economics. Some of those will not be from the left side of the spectrum…I’m very aware that Seattle is a city where we wouldn’t be doing our audience justice if we didn’t talk about racial equity and economic justice,” Song said. While he is executive director, he wants to preserve, “Town Hall’s role as this civic treasure for Seattle where everyone can find ideas, art, a community, they might not otherwise have. As a transplant, I’m super aware this is the kind of thing I’d look for and if it didn’t exist, I’d want to make it.”
For information about Town Hall Seattle programming, visit https://townhallseattle.org/.
Kai can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.