By Carolyn Bick
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
Quynh Pham
Quynh Pham was just 2 years old when she and her family came to the United States from Vietnam in 1990. She and her family were part of the wave of immigrants coming from Vietnam, following the passage of the 1987 Amerasian Homecoming Act that allowed children born in Vietnam to U.S. servicemen and Vietnamese mothers to immigrate to the U.S. Pham’s mother was one such child.
“That was the program that brought us directly to Kent, Washington—and I never left. My family and I lived in Kent for many, many years. I was raised there,” Pham recalled. “My weekdays were spent in the suburbs, but my weekends were spent in Seattle. We were looking for a community and just resources. And Seattle had a growing and robust Vietnamese community. I think that was also at the height of Little Saigon when it was coming together. There were a lot of businesses. This was a thriving community that was happening during this time, so we were fortunate to be able to connect with them.”
Decades later, Pham is now the newly minted director of Seattle’s Department of Neighborhoods (DON). She knows the department well—not because she previously served in a different, related City position, but because, she told the Northwest Asian Weekly with a small laugh, “I’ve applied for every grant from this department.”
Place-based development, measurable impacts
Before Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson tapped Pham for the DON director position, Pham had served on the mayor’s transition team. But before that, she was the executive director of Chinatown International District (CID)-based community organization, Friends of Little Sài Gòn (FLS), a position she had held since 2017. In that role, she worked to support the neighborhood and community she and her family had originally relied upon, when they first immigrated to the area.
But just because she now manages relationships with all of Seattle’s neighborhoods doesn’t mean that Pham has lost touch with the CID, or that the department doesn’t pursue neighborhood-specific, place-based development.
“When we say ‘place-based,’ I think we’re looking at the conditions of the neighborhood, the history, the really specific culture, and the people. We’re trying to center solutions and programs that meet the needs of the people,” she explained. For instance, she said, two programs the department offers are P-Patches—small, community-managed open gardens—and the Neighborhood Matching Fund, which provides matching dollars for neighborhood improvement programs. “I have P-Patch gardeners that are working in very specific communities alongside gardeners within a very specific P-Patch. And then we have the Neighborhood Matching Fund where … it’s like seed money for new opportunities within the neighborhood or really small-scale projects that people are trying to explore. It all stems from the community rather than from the city down to community.”
The CID has been slow to recover from the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Coupled with the rise in and persistence of anti-Asian hate and the disruptions the 2023 All-Star Game caused within the neighborhood, the CID has weathered much in recent years. Pham said that she believes the City has genuinely worked to deepen partnerships within the CID, including CID-specific investments and a CID coordinator in her department. Still, she sees opportunities to grow.
“I think there’s an opportunity to work across all of our departments to better coordinate and to be more accountable to the community about our commitments,” she said. “Instead of just listing the numbers, I think the community is really looking for, what are these investments actually leading to? What is the impact that you’re leaving? Because we’re still seeing the same challenges come up time and time again.”
“So,” she continued, “I think there are opportunities for the City to do a better job at talking about the investments in a way that actually result in impact and change for the neighborhood. But I think at least our department has a really unique and special relationship with the CID. And I hope to continue to build on that.”
Pham said that the City continues to engage with CID residents. One of the primary concerns they hear about is safety—“public safety, community safety, however we define it.”
“I think community is looking for the city to chart out a clear pathway of how we’re addressing the issues around 12th and Jackson,” Pham said. She said she has been working with community members to utilize SAIL (Stabilize, Activate, and Invest Locally) funds. These are funds that are specifically meant to support Little Saigon as part of the Phố Đẹp Initiative, which FLS launched in 2025 to address safety and liveability in the neighborhood. “I’ve been working with community members on these SAIL funds and how we can help shape these resources that are really short-term, one-time funds that have the biggest bang for our buck. Like, what is the best investment for it?”
She also highlighted the City’s partnership with the CID Visioning Advisory Group, which is composed of different stakeholders throughout the CID.
“They have priorities that they’ve identified. And I think it’s just having the city implement those priorities and work with community to make sure that these are still top of mind, especially during budget season or as major projects come through that the city already has a plan that we should be referring to,” she said.
World Cup games
As for the World Cup games, Pham said that the City is working hard not to have a repeat of the All-Star Game. One major thing the City has learned, she said, is that the focus can’t just be on what happens in the stadiums or events connected with the games.
“We have to assess the impacts of the neighborhoods surrounding. I think that’s what’s different about the World Cup and the FIFA games. At least with the local organizing committee and with the City, we’re thinking about the guests and people coming and staying and hanging out in neighborhoods in Seattle and not just going to the game,” she explained. “It’s a whole experience. And I wish that was the case for the All-Star game, but it wasn’t, we can’t go back to that.”
In order to support people spending time in Seattle’s different neighborhoods—especially those closest to the stadium, including the CID—the City has invested money in different neighborhoods to activate parks and other spaces. While it’s not her department, she also noted the City’s emphasis on transparency around safety challenges and transportation.
She also noted that part of the issue with people treating the CID as a pass-through area or a place to avoid, when foot traffic was at its peak, rather than a place to spend time, was due to the public narrative about the CID.
“I think the narrative wasn’t focused on local residents and having people come and enjoy,” she said. “I’ve seen a shift this time around. [For] World Cup, everyone’s like, ‘No, come out, enjoy the neighborhood. There’s gonna be a lot of activation and really cool things happening.’ … So I think that narrative has shifted and I’m hoping that that helps, but we’ll see.”
Looking ahead by looking back
To Pham, the CID is “definitely one of our most unique neighborhoods, because it is so close to downtown, and there’s just a lot of history and challenges that this neighborhood has experienced over decades.”
“I didn’t realize this until I started working for the department that I’ve interacted with DON and its programs over a very long period of time. And I’ve touched every program within this department through my work and community,” she said. “I don’t think I can say that about any other departments. … That speaks a lot to what this department offers, but also there’s so much more opportunity to deepen relationships and to have more impact.”
“I think there’s a lot of legacy work that has been done for the department, but I see a lot of opportunity to deepen our investments and demonstrate impact of the work that our communities are doing with the resources that the department offers to them,” she continued. “I don’t think we do that enough to illustrate the impacts. One of our priorities is to make sure that we highlight best practices from community. So if there is a best practice around community engagement, we want to honor that and also advocate for that to be something that other departments also take on. Those are things that I hope to push forward and improve as I lead the department.”
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