by Jasmine M. Pulido
Friendships aren’t just for personal individual benefit, they carry within them the potential to cultivate the power necessary to disrupt interlocking systems of oppression.
Continue reading OPINION | Cultivating Interpersonal Power in Our Friendshipsby Jasmine M. Pulido
On Monday, Sept. 5, a historic contract went into effect for the 1,700-person nursing team at Seattle Children’s Hospital (SCH). After 12 bargaining sessions, a 1,200+-person picket line outside the hospital, and three mediation sessions over five months, the Washington State Nurses Association (WSNA) and SCH finally reached an agreement.
Continue reading Historic Agreement Reached for Seattle Children’s Nursesby Jasmine M. Pulido
As early as 6 a.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 9, hundreds of nurses used their days off, came on their work breaks, or arrived earlier than their scheduled shifts to picket outside the Seattle Children’s Hospital (SCH) main campus on Sand Point Way. Throughout the day, over 1,350 SCH nurses and supporters total showed up between 6–9 a.m. and then again from 12–3 p.m. demanding fair wage compensation, safer working conditions, and better resources to help pediatric nurses fulfill their job duties.
Continue reading Nurses at Seattle Children’s Picket for Fair Wages and Better Working Conditionsby Jasmine M. Pulido
A woman in a fuzzy knee-length coat, one that sported her signature shade of bright red, made her way out of Immaculate Conception Church, Seattle’s oldest Catholic church located in the Central District, on a bright Sunday afternoon. She may be under 5 feet, but that didn’t stop her from standing tall. She was preparing herself to celebrate her 90th birthday with a cascade of family surrounding her.
Continue reading Dr. Dorothy Cordova Celebrates 90 Years of Building Beloved Community in Seattleby Jasmine M. Pulido
Alex Tizon is so much like me it’s almost laughable.
He was a Filipino American journalist writing in Seattle with a specific aim to uplift the narratives of those most marginalized from society. He wrote long-format philosophical essays driven by a need to deeply understand himself, others, and the most foundational parts of our humanity. He delved into themes like invisibility, complicity, and authenticity without shying away from the most difficult emotions like shame, guilt, and pain. He had two daughters. His Lola — the subject of his award-winning piece in The Atlantic — even shares my last name, a fact that my in-laws assure me is merely a coincidence.
All like me.
Continue reading OPINION: What Alex Tizon Taught Me About Visibilityby Jasmine M. Pulido
What does the making of modern history feel like to those of us who have been systematically erased from it?
In Washington State, it was only a little over two years ago, on May 7, 2019, when our Gov. Jay Inslee officially signed Filipino American History Month (FAHM) into law. While the Washington State Legislature has proclaimed October as Filipino American History Month since 2010, organizations like Filipino American National Historical Society (FANHS), along with other local Filipino community members and activists, have recognized it for decades and have pushed for it to be commemorated more seriously by lobbying for the signing of SB 5685.
Passing FAHM into law was a major event of modern history for Filipino and Filipino American community members. For Filipino American community members with real stakes in the larger goal of Filipino American culture and identity, having a legitimate home within our rainy city, it feels like the beginning of a deep wrong finally becoming right.
Local Filipino American community members and educators don’t take this step lightly and, in fact, have used it as a means to catapult Filipino American studies and language into Seattle’s public school curriculum within just a month’s time.
This October, multiple Filipino American organizations in Seattle have worked together to rapidly progress two City initiatives within the public school system — the development of a Filipino American curriculum and, separately but within the same month, the paving of a way for students to more feasibly receive school credit for learning or already knowing Filipino languages like Tagalog, Ilocano, and Visayan.
Continue reading Filipino Community Members Make Modern Historyby Jasmine M. Pulido
Rest is an invaluable tool for marginalized people.
The idea of rest as an act of radical self-care is gaining attention in books like adrienne maree brown’s Pleasure Activism or Instagram accounts like Nap Ministry. But do we even understand the reason why we don’t let ourselves rest enough to begin with?
Burnout recently became an official psychological diagnosis. Add to that omnipresent pressure to “get back to normal” during a pandemic, and it seems that collective exhaustion is a root issue in our culture. My own personal “impossible goal” for myself in 2021 was to avoid burnout at all costs. But how do we even do that?
Continue reading Is the ‘Laziness Lie’ Responsible for Our Collective Burnout?by Jasmine M. Pulido
On Wednesday, Aug. 18, at 10 a.m., King County Equity Now (KCEN) hosted a community conference with speakers from a variety of local and state-wide Black-led organizations to make public their demands as an organizing coalition calling for Seattle Children’s Hospital (SCH) to compensate for harm done to Black people.
KCEN along with the Tubman Center for Health and Freedom, Black Community Impact Alliance, the African American Health Board (AAHB), and Surge Reproductive Justice are joining the growing demands for CEO Jeff Sperring and board of trustees chair Susan Betcher to resign from their posts as senior SCH leadership. Carolyn Downs Family Medical Center, the last Black Panther clinic in the nation, also expressed a desire to join the budding coalition during the call.
“I think you are going to begin to see Black folks from across the state getting to come together in alignment around this issue,” Candace Jackson from the AAHB said on the community conference call.
Continue reading KCEN Calls on Donors to Divest, Joins Growing Demands for Seattle Children’s Resignationsby Jasmine M. Pulido
About 100 employees from Seattle Children’s Hospital (SCH) participated in a one-hour silent protest in front of the hospital’s main campus on Sandpoint Way on Wednesday, Aug. 11, at noon. Smaller protests occurred concurrently at the Autism Center, Odessa Brown Children’s Clinic (OBCC), and the CURE center. The protests follow the conclusion of an independent assessment into systemic and interpersonal racism at the hospital, conducted by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and the Covington & Burling firm, and the initial decision by SCH to only release a summary of the recommendations from the investigation, not the findings. Following public outcry, SCH’s board of trustees released 11 main findings and detailed recommendations earlier this week, but community members say much more needs to be done.
The investigation was originally prompted after Dr. Ben Danielson, medical director at OBCC, resigned last November. After 20-plus years of service, Danielson cited multiple instances of racism he either experienced or witnessed as a medical provider at the hospital.
On Aug. 9, CEO Jeff Sperring and board chair Susan Betcher each released letters disclosing the summary of 11 findings statements as well as the detailed recommendations of Covington & Burling’s report. Yet despite releasing new pertinent information from the report, multiple calls for the resignation of the CEO and board chair are still being made based both on the premise that information was initially withheld to begin with under the guise of confidentiality and the stark findings of the investigation. Washington State BLM Alliance recently started a petition demanding both the resignation of SCH leadership as well as the release of the full report written by Covington & Burling.
Continue reading Seattle Children’s Hospital Workforce Protest for Full Covington Reportby Jasmine M. Pulido
After six months of investigation into systemic and interpersonal racism at Seattle Children’s Hospital (SCH), followed by considerable community backlash when findings from the assessment weren’t originally released, SCH’s board of trustees has now unanimously voted to publicly disclose Covington & Burling’s 11 finding statements as well as more detailed recommendations made in the report.
The Covington & Burling law firm and former Attorney General Eric Holder were hired by SCH to do an independent assessment on the hospital after racial allegations were publicly raised by Dr. Ben Danielson’s resignation last November. An assessment committee, composed of three members of SCH’s board and four community members, were also brought in to oversee the independent investigation. The assessment committee read the entire report but signed nondisclosure agreements (NDA) which prevented them from divulging any information on its contents.
Last week, CEO Jeff Sperring and board chair Susan Betcher furnished only a summary of recommendations made by Covington’s report and declared an action plan to be delivered by Sept. 1. Details of the recommendations were omitted as well as the findings from the report.
But SCH employees posted a petition demanding for the findings to be released in full, public apologies to Dr. Danielson and the patients, families, workforce, and SCH community for harm done, and resignations of the CEO and board chair.
Continue reading Call for Resignations Persist Despite Seattle Children’s Release of Investigation Findings
