By Mahlon Meyer
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
An email implying that a candidate for the Newcastle City Council is a “member of the Chinese Communist Party” was denounced by civil rights groups as drawing upon a history of anti-Asian and anti-immigrant rhetoric and violence. It was considered particularly incendiary since anti-Asian hate speech has preceded and spilled over into violence against Asians and Asian Americans during the pandemic.
“A racist, red-baiting, anti-immigrant, anti-Chinese email was recently sent out by a group calling themselves the Newcastle Watchdogs. In it, these ‘watchdogs’ attack Sun Burford, candidate for Newcastle City Council, using innuendo, insinuation, and libelous statements to demean and discredit her in the eyes of Newcastle voters,” said Stanley N. Shikuma, co-president of the Japanese American Citizens League, Seattle Chapter.

Sun Burford is running for Newcastle City Council Position 1. She has taught middle school for 18 years while also teaching at the high school and the university level (Photo from Sun Burford’s campaign website)
“They would have us believe that she is part of some sinister Chinese plot to infiltrate the Newcastle City Council. They play upon her status as an immigrant, her ethnicity, and current rivalries with China to appeal to old prejudices and stir up new fears.”
True colors?
Newcastle Watchdogs, a conservative organization co-founded by a former Newcastle city councilmember, branded Burford a Chinese Communist sleeper agent—because she held a city planning job in China three decades ago before immigrating to the United States, a position she disclosed in her city planning application.
In an email widely distributed to the Newcastle community and beyond, the group insinuated that Burford, a longtime middle school Chinese teacher in the Bellevue School District, could show her “true colors” after she gained an elected position.
“Newcastle voters may want to ask Sun Burford: Have you ever been a member of the Chinese Communist Party?” said the email, which also endorsed her opponent and other conservative candidates in the race. “Newcastle voters may also want to ask Sun Burford: Have you been trained by the Chinese Communist Party to remain neutral in the public eye and never show your true colors until you are secure in your position?”
Following the dissemination of the email on Oct. 6, the progressive candidates in the Newcastle race at a candidate forum asked the conservative candidates to denounce the email as racist. Not one did.
The Newcastle Watchdogs did not respond to emailed questions about their email and whether it implied that any immigrant who had worked for a local government overseas was a potential sleeper agent.
Len Trautman, Burford’s opponent, also did not respond to emailed questions including one about whether his unwillingness to stand up for an Asian immigrant signified that he would not stand up for other immigrants in his community.
Newcastle is 53% populated by residents of color and 34% by Asians.
OCA–Asian Pacific American Advocates—Greater Seattle Chapter repudiated the smear.
“For centuries, Asian American Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders have been labeled as ‘perpetual foreigners,’ and accused of dual loyalty to their ancestral country and United States—often used as a scare tactic against our community,” said Connie So, president. “The language that our leaders use is important. Following this week’s report of anti-China language being used in a local election, we demand that all candidates refrain from using harmful rhetoric that is based on an individuals’ race as a political tactic. Elections should be about issues, not unfounded personal attacks. Period.”
OCA is a member-driven social justice organization of community advocates dedicated to advancing the social, political, and economic well-being of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs).
The email
The email stated that Burford helped “with citywide public works projects” in a district of Tianjin. It also alleged that Burford had ties to a Confucius Institute in Boston. The Confucius Institutes were part of China’s past attempts to spread culture and language abroad. They were subsequently demonized by right-wing Republicans in Congress as undermining the college campuses or schools with which they were affiliated.
The email presented no evidence about the first accusation.
For the second, it stated that Burford had received a campaign contribution of $200 from an International Studies and Scholars advisor at the University of Massachusetts at Boston who briefly served as the head of the Confucius Institute there.
“Newcastle voters may want to ask Sun Burford: How do you know your campaign donor?” the email stated. “Who else on Sun Burford’s donor list may be associated with the Chinese Communist Party?”
Burford replies
In an interview with Northwest Asian Weekly, Burford denied both accusations and condemned them as contributing to a narrative about Asians as unreliable and disloyal citizens—a narrative that was propagated during countless historical events in U.S. history.
Burford’s grandfather was a landlord and considered a capitalist after the Chinese revolution of 1949, which put her father and her family into the category of “the four black types,” meaning those who would be discriminated against by the party and denied many privileges, she said.
It was through her hard work in school that allowed her to obtain a position as a public relations manager for a city planning company after she had majored in Chinese language arts and comparative literature.
Not only did she say she was never a member of the Chinese Communist Party, but she worked for a decade for the U.S. Department of Defense as a language trainer and site inspector for a national security program, she said.
As for her connection to the donor, Burford said she met her several times at world language conferences, and they shared a passion for teaching Chinese.
Burford was initially reluctant to respond to the email. But she joined the race in part because of the upswell of anti-Asian hate speech and crimes over the past few years and in centuries past, she said,
“What they did was completely wrong, but we’ve just wanted to be positive and support each other so we didn’t want to make a huge thing about it,” she said. “But there were some people who looked at our faces during the pandemic and said ‘go back home,’ that’s why I felt I wanted to do something.”
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1889 and the incarceration of people with Japanese ancestry in concentration camps during World War II also made her heart “heavy,” she said.
Moreover, the myth of the model minority, which defines Asians as pleasers and rule-followers can be used to attack them.
“People oftentimes feel we are not citizens because we don’t really speak up. We do not want to be silent.”
All Americans are equal?
During a candidate forum on Oct. 10, three of the progressive candidates asked his or her conservative opponent to denounce the email.
None did.
Instead, many of them claimed that they made no distinctions among all Americans, a claim that the email’s argument seemed to belie.
Burford’s opponent, Len Trautman said that as a white person he was now in the minority in Newcastle but wasn’t seeking to exploit his status.
“According to recent statistics, I’m an under-representative in the city. But I’m not looking for special attention.”
It “crossed the line”
Conservative members of the council have also opposed the creation of an AAPI commission.
According to Newcastle Deputy Mayor Ariana Sherlock, the purpose of such a commission would be to more deeply ascertain the preferences and needs of the AAPI population.
“The culture is not engaged a lot in local government, we hope to bring them to the table so they can have their voices heard, that’s the hope, but we want to make sure it’s what they want,” she said in an interview.
Sherlock has been providing support to Councilmember Chris Villasenor, who has been leading the effort.
The need is pressing. Of the 13,000 people in the city, under 9,000 are registered to vote. And during local elections, less than 40% of registered voters vote, said Sherlock.
The stakes are high since recent races have been decided by less than a dozen votes.
The Newcastle Watchdogs has been the source of “a lot of misinformation” before, said Sherlock. “But the racist part of this email really just crossed the line for me.”
Newcastle itself has a history of racist atrocities against Chinese. Anti-Chinese violence between 1885 and 1886 culminated in white labor organizations burning down the homes of Chinese miners along Coal Creek. Three Chinese were killed in the spreading violence, according to the University of Washington Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest.
With that history in mind, many see recent anti-Asian hate crimes as part of a longer continuum—including the email and its insinuations.
“In other times, such ludicrous statements might be laughable and unworthy of mention. Yet just last month, an older white man stated ‘it’s all the Chinese fault—someone has to do something about them and that’s why I came to Chinatown’ as he took a sledgehammer and broke nine plate glass windows at the Wing Luke Museum. (I know—I was there)” said Shikuma.
Stand up
The Newcastle Watchdogs self identifies as “dedicated to transparency and good government in the City of Newcastle.”
The group was co-founded by Nola Coston and Bill Erxleben, Newcastle residents, on March 6, 2017.
“The defamatory and incendiary verbiage sent out by the Newcastle Watchdogs can inflame and inspire people to commit racist, anti-Asian acts,” said Shikuma. “We must not ignore these statements, no matter how twisted and illogical they seem, because someone may be listening and ready to act on them. As Japanese Americans whose families were removed and incarcerated during WWII, we know where such rhetoric can lead if left unchecked and unchallenged.
Shikuma continued, “We sincerely hope that residents of Newcastle will reject these calls for division and fear and instead strive to share cultures and ideas, educate each other on our similarities and differences, and build an inclusive and respectful community. We are always stronger together.”
Said Burford, “It’s really dangerous for some people still trying to turn the clock back against what we have fought for for more than a century. They want to turn the clock back. I think they cannot do that. That’s why a lot of us have to stand up. I know it’s hard, but you have to defend yourself.”
Mahlon can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.
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To answer the question about why bring up Newcastle’s racist history in an article about an election campaign smear: the past informs the present , which influences the future. The ugliness of past anti-Chinese racism in Newcastle tells us racism has been around a long time, that we can avoid the mistakes of the past by demanding a halt to the present campaign smear against Sun Burford in order for Newcastle to move into a future without racial rancor.
This comment made above.
Newcastle itself has a history of racist atrocities against Chinese. Anti-Chinese violence between 1885 and 1886 culminated in white labor organizations burning down the homes of Chinese miners along Coal Creek. Three Chinese were killed in the spreading violence, according to the University of Washington. I am not sure what this comment is meant for in this article. Lets look to the present and the future.
Yes, let’s now focus on the present and future – my comments were based on the present and not from nearly 40 years ago. There are always lessons to learn from the past, to learn what to do better or what not to do again, but hanging onto the past is why we have so many people today virtue signaling and trying to make people in current times pay for something that happened so many years ago.
Don’t get me wrong; racism exists (albeit not even close to what it was like 40+ years ago). Every single person of all skin colors/cultures/short people/fat people/disabled/veterans/elderly is or has experienced hate from others. It’s time to choose to live by what we do, not what we look like. It’s time to be diligent to ensure that agents of horrific regimes aren’t sneaking into our town by vetting candidates properly and asking smart questions if it’s known they are from one of these countries. There will always be small factions and small-minded people in the world. The rest of us should choose to be big enough to stop the rhetoric and become better at fact-finding and sharing those facts or questions left unanswered. As I see it, that’s exactly what Coston did and I for one appreciate her bravery for trying – for all of us – to get answers to the critically important questions. Especially considering she comes from the same ethnicity.
Thank you, Ms. Coston, for taking the hits from people who are showing this is a game to them and not taking Newcastle’s safety and freedoms seriously. It’s much more about winning to some and for others it’s about pulling the reins back on an out-of-control spending-frenzied current city council. God help us all.
Since the co-founder of Newcastle Watchdogs is a senior citizen AND 3/4 CHINESE, this article lacks the courage to find out the truth behind candidate Sun Burford. It is shameful for their campaign, along with a fewNewcastle councilmember lackeys to feign “anti-Asian incitement” just to get the press to do your dirty work. But whatever wins, right??. As more and more facts gets out, I’m certain the citizens are smart enough to know better than to buy into this dirty campaign trick. Burford’s opponent is not playing games to win. He’s talking with citizens, business owners, and is leading through listening, not looking for an edge by saying he’s a victim.
If a candidate has had affiliations with organizations that appear to have a tie to the CCP (via the front door or back door), do citizens care that said candidate chooses NOT to answer those hard but necessary questions? It’s a red flag to me. The campaign is proving themselves desperate for a win. What makes me say that? Because the Burford campaign focused on finding someone to write an article written to disparage Nola Coston and use all the colorful racial-inciting verbiage they could come up with, albeit not steeped in reality. Problem is they have just ticked off literally hundreds of voters. This article wouldn’t have come out had they been focused on giving truthful responses in the first place. Instead, Burford has been evading answering the hard questions asked in Coston’s original message. It’s always about winning for some people who run for office, and very rarely does truth or fact-finding seem to matter for them. Throw around “incendiary” and “anti-Asian” verbiage to get people riled up—it’s all in hopes of gaining ground to incite an emotional response. Playing victim when hard questions are asked is a tale-tell sign for discerning people. Consider using wisdom when filling out your ballot.
It’s the Chinese people’s fault. It’s the white people’s fault. It’s the black people’s fault. It’s the brown-skinned people’s fault. In THIS case, skin color has nothing to do with what Coston was asking. The China’s government regime is trying every way possible to infiltrate the USA; this FACT comes from the state department. I for one don’t want the CCP in Newcastle business. I don’t want Iran’s government infiltrating our city’s business or Afghanistan’s. I don’t want terrorists in our country either. Do I care what their skin color is if they are a terrorist? Of course not. None of the concerns of these regimes has anything to do with skin color; Burford could be white and the questions would remain exactly the same. It has to do with horrible regimes who do not treat people humanely or who have clearly stated “death to America.” So, forgive me if I don’t buy into the “I’m a poor victim” sales pitch.
Coston, a patriotic Chinese-American, has every right to ask the hard questions on behalf of multi-hundreds of voters which Burford has yet to answer provide any real clarity. It’s a reminder to voters who are sick and tired of people using their skin color to win an election: Don’t be duped.
Interesting that you choose to purposely omit the fact that the so called “conservative party” you’ve tried to villanize in your article,
Whom Burford, Sherlock and Villasenor are running aganist, also has a Chinese American immigrant candidate as running mate for Citycouncil seat. Yet my associations has not been questioned, nor have I accepted or affiliated myself with any organization linked to China. As for the so called AAPI committee Sherlock and Villasenor has tried to promote as their efforts at outreach to the Asian community, none of the dozens of asians residing in my own apartment complex, or among the asian neighbors I’ve spoken with residing within 2 block radius of Newcastle Commons apartment complex, has ever heard of such a committee, or been approached or spoken to either Sherlock or Villasenor. It’s utter hypocrisy on their end to use the Asian name to tick off a box on their public resume, when they’ve done absolutely Nothing to actually promote policies that support the Asians living in this community.
As a responsible journalist, perhaps you should’ve fact checked first, before writing an opinion piece and publishing it as “news”.
The problem here, among other things, is the “linked to China” phrase of your comment. What do you really mean by “linked”? Are all of the people born in China now tainted by association and therefore ineligible to be full members of our community? There is a widespread fear campaign underway in our political discourse, built around supposed opposition to the Chinese Communist Party, but actually instrumental in winning political contests from the local to the national. Newcastle Watchdogs are clearly leveraging this fear (and ignorance), and they should be called out for it.
Amanda, the AAPI Commission doesn’t exist. That’s why your neighbors haven’t heard of it. You can follow along with the past council meetings to learn why that proposed commission was unable to get started. Hint, some fellow Watchdogs were opposed.
The Truth About Newcastle’s Unrealized AAPI Committee
Besides Councilmembers Paul Charbonneau & Chris Villasenor:
– Only 4 Newcastle residents attended the kick-off meeting on 4/27/2022
– Nola Coston: 3/4 Chinese; founder; Newcastle Watchdogs
– Len Trautman: Caucasian; grew up in Asian countries, married 46 years to an Asian woman
– Jesse Tam: Chinese; former Newcastle council candidate, current Port of Seattle candidate
– Unidentified Asian woman
There was a demonstrated *lack of interest* in an AAPI Commission by Newcastle’s AAPI residents, despite advertising the kick-off meeting on multiple Newcastle communication channels.
Councilmembers Charbonneau & Villasenor inflated the attendance and participation at the kick-off meeting when giving a report at the next council meeting.
Councilmembers Charbonneau & Villasenor lost interest in forming an AAPI Commission when their kick-off meeting didn’t turn out how they thought it would. The idea of an AAPI Commission gets trotted out occasionally to make false accusations alleging the council minority members have prevented its formation. Councilmembers Charbonneau, Villasenor, and Deputy Mayor Sherlock refuse to acknowledge what the REAL problem was/is: lack of commitment from Councilmembers Charbonneau & Villasenor. It’s not a good look for them that they walked away from something they claimed was *so important* to them just because they didn’t get the number of attendees they’d hoped for.
The AAPI Commission was first pitched to the council & community as a no-cost initiative for the city; that changed during later council discussions. It was also the basis for accusations that other councilmembers “refused” to fund the AAPI Commission… you know, the one Newcastle’s AAPI community doesn’t seem to want, and which only gets brought up as a political talking point.
The More You Know…