Category Archives: Arts & Culture

Arts & Culture

Is Seattle Ready for a Cultural Space Renaissance?

by Beverly Aarons

It’s 1967, and tucked inside a half-storefront in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District, a tiny cultural space is born — Wing Luke Museum. Now, in 2021, that once diminutive cultural space resides in a massive 60,000 square foot building, home to over 18,000 objects, including artifacts, photographs, documents, books, and oral histories. Wing Luke is a prototype of what BIPOC cultural and artistic communities can create through Seattle’s new Cultural Space Agency PDA. 

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Arts & Culture

With ‘Born to Win,’ Draze Pays Homage to Zimbabwean Ancestry

by M. Anthony Davis

The Seattle Globalist was a daily online publication that covered the connections between local and global issues in Seattle. The Emerald is keeping alive its legacy of highlighting our city’s diverse voices by regularly publishing and re-publishing stories aligned with the Globalist’s mission. 

After success from his last single, “Black Wealth,” that not only accumulated over 2 million views across social media platforms, but launched multiple Black marketplace events that showcased Black businesses nationwide, hip-hop emcee and musician Draze is back with another new single, “Born to Win.” 

Both singles will be included in an untitled album set to release this summer. “Born to Win” pays homage to Draze’s Zimbabwean roots with a new sound that he calls “Ancestral Art.” 

“Being a Black man, and being from both Seattle and Zimbabwe, it was the merging and the meshing of these two worlds,” Draze explains. On “Born to Win,” these two sounds are merged seamlessly. The track opens with Ngonidzashe, who is Draze’s younger cousin, singing in their native language. His melody smoothly washes over hip-hop drums, before he transitions to English and is followed by Draze who delivers a verse that explores nuances of being a Zimbabwean growing up in Seattle through lines like, “ I remember the third grade them n***** they had waves, I had them beady bees you know the Zimbabwean grade, so they threw shade.” 

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Arts & Culture

POETRY: MI MADRE

by Bianca Santiago

There she goes again
a part of her unfulfilled
drowning in pain and sorrow
frantically searching the places she walked
with her boys
beautiful dark long curly hair
swaying behind her
as the sun
hits her gorgeous tan face.

The one she had after me in 1977
almost her spitting image.
The youngest
a mix of all the ancestors before him.
She searches for them
through the years finds them
and sees only emptiness in their eyes
from all the lies
they have been spoon-fed.
Their stares like daggers stabbing
a hole in her bosom
leaving behind a gaping hole
in her heart.

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Arts & Culture

Virtual Event Sunday to Honor Donnie Chin’s Legacy as CID Advocate

by Ronnie Estoque

The recent rise in violent attacks against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) nationally has galvanized community organizers, old and new, to take a stand for justice. History shows us that such hate-fueled violence is not new in any way, and activist legacies left by the likes of Seattle’s Chinatown-International District’s (CID) Donnie Chin continue to inspire the next generation of young AAPIs to organize and protect those most targeted and vulnerable in our neighborhoods.

Donnie Chin was a respected Seattle Asian American activist and organizer. Chin left his impact on the CID community through the establishment of the International District Emergency Center (IDEC), which started in 1968 as the Asians for Unity Emergency Squad. He was inspired by the Black Panther Party to support the CID community with a block watch patrol, free emergency medical services, de-escalation, substance-abuse and mental health check-ins that city departments failed to provide.  

“Donnie Chin was a selfless defender of this Chinatown-International District community,” said Robert Fisher, Collections Manager at the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience. “He spent his entire life helping others and the community. His daily presence is missed even more today.”

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Arts & Culture

FRIDAY FICTION: The Reclamation

by Reagan Jackson

It wasn’t unusual to awaken to a misty morning. After the ash of fire season and the yellow acid skies you had seen enough unprecedented celestial events that had made you wonder if you would live through the day. The gray rolled in, viscous and deep, but somehow also unnotable, even comforting in the way it clung tight and close, blanketing the house in wool socks-weather. This was a thing that happened most winter mornings and when the dawn broke it would burn off and dissipate into a slightly less oppressive gray. Except this time it didn’t.

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Arts & Culture

‘Generation Mixed Goes to School’ Helps Parents and Educators Support Mixed-Race Kids

by Mark Van Streefkerk 

According to recent census data, the U.S. is becoming more racially and ethnically diverse at a faster rate than previously predicted, especially among Generation Z. Along with increased diversity comes an increase in multiracial youth, populations that Dr. Ralina L. Joseph and Dr. Allison Briscoe-Smith are calling “Generation Mixed.” Co-authored by Joseph and Briscoe-Smith and released in March, Generation Mixed Goes to School: Radically Listening to Multiracial Kids is a first-of-its-kind resource for educators, caregivers, parents, and anyone who wants to learn more about supporting youth populations that are increasingly mixed. 

The book is part of a multicultural education series edited by Dr. James A. Banks, the “Father of Multicultural Education.” 

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Arts & Culture

‘Black Splendor’ Series Spotlights Black Classical Artists, Celebrates Black Joy

by Chamidae Ford

As a part of their “Music From Home” concert series, Lakewold Gardens has begun their 10-part program, Black Splendor, featuring weekly videos spotlighting local Black artists. 

Each episode showcases an artist performing a song of their choosing, followed by a question and answer portion. Led by Creative Director Joe Williams, Black Splendor marks an opportunity to show Black musicians beyond their expected roles. 

“I’ve been collaborating with musicians in this area for some time now, and I realized there was no organization who had really committed to celebrating Black art music in a substantial way,” Williams said. “It’s kind of the occasional festivities, maybe in a certain short month and a year or what have you, but beyond tokenization, there has really not been a committed act of celebrating Black art music in this region.”

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Arts & Culture

PONGO POETRY: All True Story, No Lies

Pongo Poetry Project’s mission is to engage youth in writing poetry to inspire healing and growth. For over 20 years, Pongo has mentored poetry with youth at the Clark Children & Family Justice Center (CCFJC), King County’s juvenile detention facility.

Many CCFJC residents are Youth of Color who have endured traumatic experiences in the form of abuse, neglect, and exposure to violence. These incidents have been caused and exacerbated by community disinvestment, systemic racism, and other forms of institutional oppression. In collaboration with CCFJC staff, Pongo poetry writing offers CCFJC youth a vehicle for self-discovery and creative expression that inspires recovery and healing.

Through this special bimonthly column in partnership with the South Seattle Emerald, Pongo invites readers to bear witness to the pain, resilience, and creative capacity of youth whose voices and perspectives are too often relegated to the periphery. To learn more about Pongo’s work, join its GiveBig campaign today.

ALL TRUE STORY, NO LIES

by a young person, age 16

Group homes and detention had me institutionalized 
so my behaviors are the reasons of me being traumatized 
The way I act towards people 
and 
the way I take situations 
The way I believe a lot of stuff is lies 
It’s hard to trust 
in my relationships with people
Me not having trust and not wanting to get hurt
has me break trust first
so I don’t get hurt first 
Ends up making the situation worse

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Arts & Culture

Friday Fiction: Crocus

by NEVE

In her favorite dancing grounds, beneath the wisteria tree so purple in the moonlight, a hole opened up in the earth. Out of it, a hand reached. One she recognized as easily as her own, for she once had held this hand in hers every day. Studying its lines, its rises and falls, its peaks and valleys, its shadows and swirls, the way this hand sumptuously softened in the light, how its veins ached verdantly as its pulse quickened beneath her gaze. 

Now, her ex-lover was before her, yellow haired and milky skinned, skirts and boots textured with dirt, cheeks aglow with need, teeth bared, tongue discolored purple with wine. 

“Come home with me,” Orcus said, in her grit-lined, silky sinister way. 

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Arts & Culture

State’s First Indigenous Poet Laureate Aims to Spread Awareness Through Poetry

by Chamidae Ford

On April 15, Rena Priest was appointed Washington State’s first Indigenous Poet Laureate. A joint program with Humanities Washington and the Washington State Arts Commission, the position is dedicated to connecting people and communities through the art of poetry while celebrating the importance poetry has had to our state’s culture. 

Priest, a member of the Lhaq’temish (Lummi) Nation, is an experienced poet, having published two collections of poetry, won the Vadon Foundation Fellowship, and received an Allied Arts Foundation Professional Poets Award in 2020. For Priest, poetry has always been a part of her life, but she didn’t fully dedicate herself to it until later, initially planning to major in theater.

“I’ve loved poetry my whole life, but I think it didn’t really start to play a big part in my life until I was in undergrad,” Priest said. “Once I started off in the English department, then writing altogether, it just kind of became it for me.” 

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