SYMPOSIUM ON ASIAN-PACIFIC PEOPLES AT THE AYPE, Sept 12-13 2009
Resumés of Speakers and Commentators
Patricia O. Afable
is a Philippine-born anthropologist who divides her time between Maryland and the northern Philippines. She was educated at the University of the Philippines and Yale University, and her dissertation field work focused on an ethnography and ethnohistory of communication in the Cordillera of northern Luzon. Her main research interests are in ethnolinguistics and oral literature, early 20th century Japanese migrant communities, Filipinos at international fairs, and Philippine culture history and material culture. Her recent publications include Japanese Pioneers in the Northern Philippine Highlands (2004), of which she was editor; a co-edited volume (with Cherubim Quizon, Philippine Studies 2004, vol. 52 ) commemorating the centennial of the 1904 St. Louis Fair; an article on Kalanguya ethnohistory (Journal of History 2005); a photographic exhibition and an article on the search for the Japanese community of Baguio City, Philippines (Haponés: Baguio's Early 20th Century Japanese Community, University of the Philippines Vargas Museum, 2007; and Asian Studies 2008, vol 44); and a study of Japanese culture, society, and work in the Baguio "hill station" in The Philippines and Japan in the U.S. Shadow (in press, Singapore University Press). Currently, Afable is a research associate in the Asian Cultural History Program, National History Museum, Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC.
Shea Shizuko Aoki
was born in Portland in 1914 and will turn 95 in October. She graduated from Milwaukie High School and Multnomah College and attended Cherette School of Fashion Design.
She met Clarence Arai, the eldest child of Tatsuya Arai, in 1938 in Portland, while he was the president of the National Japanese American Citizens League. Mrs. Aoki came to Seattle in 1940 when she married Jiro Aoki who and Clarence grew up together in Seattle’s International District. Clarence’s son, Ken, was the ring bearer for Shea’s wedding. In 2004 when the last member of the Arai family left for California, Shea Aoki was asked to keep the Arai family heirlooms, including its photo albums.
Before WWII, Jiro and Shea with Jiro's parents operated two hotels, including the Alps Hotel in the International District of Seattle. When the war broke out, Jiro's father Sei was arrested and sent to prison in Montana. Shea and Jiro were interned in Minidoka and their daughter was born in 1945. After the war, the family moved back to Renton and then to Holly Park. The Aokis owned and operated Broadway Cleaners on Capitol Hill for almost 30 years.
In 1967, Jiro suffered a major stroke. Shea continued operating Broadway Cleaners while took care of Jiro at home who at that time was president of the Seattle Chapter JACL.
She is active as a historian and board member of the Seattle chapter of the JACL. Since 1936 she never missed a JACL national convention, except for the two when Jiro was still recuperating from his stroke. She is also active in Seattle's Cherry Blossom Festival, primarily taking charge of making and selling sushi during the festival. In 1997 she helped roll the world's longest maki sushi, now listed in the Guinness Book of Records.
Bennet Bronson
specializes in the archaeology of human cultures in eastern Asia and in the history of Chinese Americans. He has been involved for a number of years in a program of archaeological and ethnographic work in China, Thailand, Indonesia, China and Sri Lanka, combined with research on the Asian collections of the Field Museum. He has been curator and content advisor for numerous exhibitions, including Pearls, shown at the Field Museum and several other North American museums in 2002-4. With Chuimei Ho, he was the co-curator of a major loan exhibition from Beijing, the Splendors of the Forbidden City, in 2004.
Born in Connecticut, Ben received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1976. He was Curator of Asian Archaeology and Ethnology at Chicago’s Field Museum from 1971 to 2008 and is now Emeritus Curator at that institution. From 1988 to 2007, he was also an Adjunct Professor in the Anthropology Department of the University of Illinois at Chicago. In the last ten years he has published four articles and two books on China-related topics. One of the books is a co-authored companion volume to the exhibition mentioned above, titled Pearls: A Natural History (Harry N. Abrams, 2001). With Chuimei Ho, he was coauthor of Splendors of the Forbidden City: The Glorious Age of Qianlong. He was co-author (with Chapurukha Kusimba and Claire Odland, eds.) of Unwrapping the Textile Traditions of Madagascar (Fowler Museum, UCLA, 2004) and author of “Becoming American,” in Ho and Moy eds., Chinese in Chicago. He was editor and webmaster of a Chicago Chinese history website, www.ccamuseum.org, and is currently co-editor and webmaster of the Chinese in Northwest America Research Committee website, www.cinarc.org.
Fred and Dorothy Cordova
have been involved in Filipino American activism since the 1950s. They began promoting Filipino American identity at a young age with student publications and organizations at Seattle University (see 1953 edition of Bamboo: The Filipino People in American Life). They later formed and directed the Filipino Youth Association (FYA), with activities ranging from soccer to dancing and marching. The FYA became an important force for organizing demonstrations in the 1960s and 1970s.
Dorothy Cordova also served as Director for the Demonstration Project for Asian Americans (DPAA), which conducted a wide variety of studies on the problems Asian Americans faced in the 1970s. Through the DPAA, she collected research and oral histories. After the DPAA closed in the early 1980s, the Cordovas moved their work to a new organization they had created called the Filipino American National Historical Society (FANHS), which they still run today. A book coauthored by Dorothy and FANHS has just been published: Filipinos in Puget Sound (Arcadia 2009).
FANHS now has nearly two dozen chapters around the United States. In Seattle, it houses the National Pinoy Archives (NPA), which is one of the largest collections on Filipino American history anywhere. It includes materials on more than 9000 individuals and approximately 1500 organizations throughout the United States.
Jeffer Daykin
is a lecturer of history at Portland State University and Portland Community College in Portland, Oregon. His primary field of focus is modern East Asia with a special emphasis on Meiji-era Japan. He has recently completed research on Japan’s participation at the Portland 1905 Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition. As part of his teaching, Jeffer is also currently working in partnership with the John Wilson Special Collections on a project that has Portland State University students creating an archive of materials related to Henry E. Dosch, Director of Exhibits at both the Portland (1905) and Seattle (1909) Expositions.
Chuimei Ho
was born in Hong Kong. She received her BA from the University of Hong Kong in 1977 and her Ph.D., in art history and archaeology, from the University of London in 1984. Her current main interests are history of Chinese in Americas. She was a founder of the Chinese American Museum of Chicago and its first president, from 2001 to 2007. Her earlier interest are the ancient and historical ceramics of Southeast and East Asia, maritime and neolithic archaeology in Southeast Asia, ceramic archaeology in China, traditional Chinese temples and temple furnishings, and court life in China during the Qing Dynasty. She has conducted archaeological research in several parts of China as well as Thailand and Indonesia, has been a collection or exhibition consultant to a number of museums in America and England, and has been a visiting curator at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and the Denver Museum of Natural History. She was an Adjunct Curator at the Field Museum from 1986 to 2007 and was lead curator of the Splendors of the Forbidden City exhibition that opened at the Field Museum in March 2004. Chuimei has been a clinical social worker in Chicago and Seattle since 2000. She taught social work at the University of Washington, Tacoma in 2007.
In the last fifteen years, she has published 25 articles and three books on Chinese art and archaeology, and is founder and editor of ACRO Update, the quarterly newsletter of the Asian Ceramics Research Organization. Two of her more recent books are the co-edited volumes, “15th century Asian Ceramics” (Special Issue, Taida Journal of Art, Taiwan National University, 1999) and Life in the Imperial Court of Qing Dynasty China (Denver Museum of Natural History 1998). With Ben Bronson, she was the author of Splendors of the Forbidden City: The Glorious Age of Qianlong (Merrill 2004). With Soo Lon Moy, she was editor of Chinese in Chicago 1870-1945 (Arcadia 2005). With Ben Bronson she is co-editor and webmaster of the Chinese in Northwest American Research Committee’s website, www.cinarc.org
Martha Hoverson
has been a librarian with the Hawaii State Public Library System for 32 years, working in a variety of library settings, from bookmobile librarian on Maui to Information Systems Administrator. Along the way she has continued to study Hawaiian history and natural history and has taken part in interesting projects on several islands. On the Island of Kauai, Martha organized a series of programs to celebrate the sesquicentennial of the Koloa Plantation, the first successful sugar plantation in the Hawaiian Islands. As part of that project, she edited Historic Koloa a compilation of oral history and historic photographs. In 2004, Martha realized a long held ambition to work in the Hawaii & Pacific Section of the Hawaii State Library, where she is responsible for Hawaii state and county publications distribution program. In 2008 Martha created an exhibit on the life and work of Emma Nakuina, a 19th century Hawaiian intellectual.
Memberships: American Library Association, Hawaii Library Association, Association of Hawaii Archivists (Board Member), Hawaiian Historical Society, Friends of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park (Past President). Exhibits: “Rediscovering Emma” -- Emma Kailikapuolono Metcalf Beckley Nakuina, a Hawaiian Intellectual of the 19th Century. Hawaii State Library May-June, 2008; the exhibit’s opening program featured a panel of scholars from various disciplines giving perspectives on Emma Nakuina’s life and work. Presentations and publications: “Hawaii Among the Nations: Hawaii’s Participation in 19th century World’s Fairs” given at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Pacific Division, June, 2008, Waimea, Hawaii. Publications: Editor of Historic Koloa, A Guide, Published by the Friends of Koloa Library 1985.
Richard L. Kay
Born and raised in Seattle
Parents; Lew G. Kay and Rosaline Goon
Graduated from U of Wash. with BA in business administration and a reserve commission in the US Army through ROTC program.
Served 2 years in the Korean War.
Returned to U of Wash and graduated with a BS in pharmacy.
Worked as a pharmacist for 2 years, then owned a pharmacy in the Beacon Hill area for 40 years.
Worked as a King County part-time pharmacist for 8 years, then retired.
Married to Helen Eng of Newport, Washington.
3 children, 4 grandchildren.
Active in following organizations : Kong Yick Invesment Co., Chong Wa Benevolent Assn., Cathay Post 186
American Legion, Chinese Baptist Church.
Daniel Kerlee
is a Seattle native who attended the 1962 Century 21 exposition as a boy. He has collected local ephemera for over forty-five years, with a special emphasis on early twentieth century photography of Washington State.
Dan became interested in the AYPE thirty-five years ago. While pursuing a career in software development, he has published an ongoing series of short Internet articles on the AYPE, the first of which appeared in 1997. He has written occasionally on other local subjects of the era, and photographs from his collection have appeared in numerous local books and publications. He and his wife, Carol Wollenberg, were raised by artist mothers and have enjoyed the casual study of Oriental art together for many years. They also perform orchestral and chamber music throughout the area.
Along with the AYPE centennial, Dan is presently working on projects related to the early Seattle Symphony conductor and composer Henry Hadley, and on the photographic history of the coastal defense of Puget Sound.
Howard King
is a grandson of Ah King. He was born and raised in Seattle, graduated with a BSEE degree from the University of Washington and an MSEE degree from the University of Illinois. Together with his wife Vi Mar, they have eight children and 16 grandchildren.
From 1946 to 1952, he worked at the RCA Victor Division, Camden, NJ, and from 1952 to 1953 at the Andrew
Corporation, Chicago, IL to help with the development of New York’s Channel 9 TV antenna. While in Illinois he became a University of Illinois research assistant and earned the MSEE degree in 1955.
In Los Angeles, CA, from 1955 to 1991, Howard worked for Ramo-Woolridge Corporation, Space Technology Laboratories and The Aerospace Corporation. Howard’s pride and joy, the projects receiving the Outstanding Accomplishment Awards, were antennas for the FleetSatCom (a U.S. Navy communication satellite) and for the Global Position System (GPS), which was developed for the military and is now extensively used for civilian programs.
In the early 1960s he was a graduate school lecturer at UCLA. During his working career he authored (or coauthored) 59 technical journal papers and 56 technical reports and awarded one patent. He has a life-time membership in the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and while working was a member of the IEEE Professional Groups on Antennas and Propagation and Microwave Theory and Techniques. For a six-year period he was an Associate Editor for the technical journal IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation.
As a hobby he played a lot of tennis and then at the age of 45 to 65, participated in long-distance running races, from 50 yards to 48 miles, including 27 marathons. During this 20-year period he logged a total running distance of 55,000 miles. From 1992 to 2007 he provided tours of Seattle Chinatown for Chinatown Discovery, Inc. Presently he is volunteering and working part time at the Wing Luke Asian Museum.
Bettie Sing Luke
is an Educational Activist involved in Multicultural Training for educators, community and business. For over 30 years, she has conducted Diversity training in 36 different states, including representing the National Educators Association (NEA). She has authored articles and chapters on diversity and is artist and co-author of two Chinese Activity books for children. Working 11 years for Eugene, Oregon School District, Bettie impacted the community.
Besides her professional diversity work, she co-chaired revival of "Day of Remembrance" that culminated in a sizeable public art installation, commemorating Japanese Americans who endured WWII. Her leadership in a racial profiling case by the Eugene Police, resulted in a public apology from the Police Chief and Diversity Training for the entire Police Force. Currently working for a civil rights group, Organization of Chinese Americans of Greater Seattle (OCA-GS) Bettie also volunteers for several diverse cultural and historic preservation groups. These include Ethnic Heritage Council, Seafair Pow Wow, Northwest African American Museum, Rainbow Bookfest, Chinese/Jewish Partnership and Wing Luke Asian Museum (WLAM) Come see the NEW WLAM, the only Pan-Asian American museum in the nation (7th Avenue South & South King St.) It is fabulous!
Bettie invites participation in a 2011 project, marking 125 years since the 1886 expulsion of Chinese from Seattle. Plans will include educational opportunities and a permanent memorial art work. Contact her at ocaluke@yahoo.com
Lorraine McConaghy
Winner of the 2005 Governor's Award for Excellence in Teaching, Lorraine McConaghy is a well-known historian whose research interests include the study of family and community in the Pacific Northwest. She received her doctorate at the University of Washington in 1993 and is currently the senior historian at Seattle's Museum of History and Industry. An author of numerous books and articles, McConaghy is active in many national professional organizations, including the American Historical Association and the Urban History Association, as well as in regional and local heritage organizations, including the Northwest Oral History Association and the Pacific Northwest Historians Guild.
Assunta Ng
Born in China and raised in Hong Kong, Assunta Ng is founder and publisher of the Seattle Chinese Post and Northwest Asian Weekly. The newspapers recently celebrated their 25th anniversary in the presence of two governors, Gov. Christine Gregoire and former governor, Gary Locke among the 850 guests.
Founded several community organizations including Women of Color Empowered, she devotes her energy to help the disadvantaged youth and women. A frequent speaker, Ng has fund-raising for many causes including the UW Communication Dept., a scholarship in honor of Gov. Gary Locke at UW School of Public Affairs and API scholarship endowment for UW Business School. She writes a blog and stories for the papers. The Northwest Asian Weekly is the only Pan-Asian Weekly in the Greater Seattle area. The paper¹s goal is to inspire, engage, inform and empower the community. It promotes multi-cultures, diversity, leadership and community-building, serve as a voice for the Asian community and bridge between the mainstream and Asian community.
Trish Hackett Nicola
is a recipient of a 4Culture grant to research and write a paper on Chinese participation at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. She has created a blog of her research, http://chinese1909aype.wordpress.com/.
Trish served as the Program Chair for the March 2009 Pacific Northwest Historians Guild conference on the A-Y-P. She volunteers at the National Archives indexing the Chinese Exclusion Act case files. In June 2006 her article, "Chinese Exclusion Act Records: A Neglected Genealogical Source," was published in the Association of Professional Genealogists Quarterly. It is available at http://home.comcast.net/~btnicola/APGQMar06.pdf."
Trish is a public historian and professional genealogical researcher. She became a Certified Genealogist (CG) in 2000 through the Board for Certification of Genealogists. She is one of five CGs in Washington State. Trish is a founding member of the Puget Sound Chapter of Association of Professional Genealogists and served as president of the Chapter for three years. She is currently serving her third term on the National APG board. Trish has a B.S. in Accounting and is a retired CPA. She has a Master of Science in Library Service and has worked as a reference librarian.
Gail M. Nomura
is Associate Professor of American Ethnic Studies (Asian American and Pacific Islander American Studies) and adjunct associate professor of History and Women Studies at the University of Washington. Her recent publications include Contested Terrain: Local Japanese on the Yakama Indian Reservation, 1906-1942 (University of Washington Press, forthcoming), Nikkei in the Pacific Northwest, Japanese Americans and Japanese Canadians in the Twentieth Century (co-edited with Louis Fiset, University of Washington Press, 2005) and Asian/Pacific Islander American Women, A Historical Anthology (co-edited with Shirley Hune, New York University Press, 2003). She has served as Director of the Asian/Pacific American Studies Program at the University of Michigan and Washington State University. She is a past president of the Association for Asian American Studies, a member of the American Studies Association (ASA) advisory committee for the ASA- JAAS (Japanese Association for American Studies) project, and past board member of the Nikkei Heritage Association of Washington/Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Washington (NHAW/JCCCW).
Ken Tadashi Oshima
is Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture at the University of Washington, where he teaches in the areas of trans-national architectural history, theory, representation, and design. He earned an A.B. degree, magna cum laude, in East Asian Studies and Visual & Environmental Studies from Harvard College, M. Arch. degree from U. C. Berkeley and Ph.D. in architectural history and theory from Columbia University. From 2003-5, he was a Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Fellow at the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures in London.
Dr. Oshima's monograph Arata Isozaki (Phaidon, 2009) has just appeared, and another book, Constructing Kokusai Kenchiku: International Architecture in Interwar Japan (U.W. Press, 2009), is forthcoming. He is an author for the Museum of Modern Art Exhibition Home Delivery (2008), curator of the exhibition SANAA: Beyond Borders (Henry Art Gallery 2007-8), and co-curator of Crafting a Modern World: The Architecture and Design of Antonin and Noémi Raymond. An editor and contributor to Architecture + Urbanism for more than ten years, he co-authored the two-volume special issue, Visions of the Real: Modern Houses in the 20th Century (2000). His articles on the international context of architecture and urbanism in Japan have been published in The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Architectural Theory Review, Kenchiku Bunka, Japan Architect, L'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui, and the AA Files.
Cherubim A. Quizon [SYMPOSIUM PARTICIPATION CANCELED BY QUIZON, 09/01]
is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Seton Hall University in South Orange, NJ. She previously studied and taught at the University of the Philippines in Diliman as well as at SUNY-Stony Brook where she earned an MA in Art History & Criticism and a PhD in Anthropology. Cheree is interested in how ideas of nation, ethnicity and the self relate to symbols and their transformation, whether approached as art, popular imagery or material culture. Her research on the abaca textiles of the Tagabawa and Guiangan Bagobo of Southern Mindanao was based on multi-sited fieldwork among ikat textile producing communities in the Davao region along with the long-term study of Bagobo museum collections in the United States and Europe. Along with Patricia Afable, she co-edited and contributed to a volume re-assessing the display of Filipinos at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair from the perspective of the peoples on display, their descendants as well as American “others” (Philippine Studies, 2004). Her more recent publications include an article on Bagobo cognitive categories of costume versus dress (Ethnology, 2007), a chapter-length contribution on the significance of back-strap looms and abaca fiber in Southeast Asia & the Pacific in Paths of Origin-Austronesian Heritage (Art Post Asia, 2009), and an article on Southern Mindanao in the Encyclopedia of World Dress, Volume 4: South Asia and Southeast Asia (forthcoming from Berg). She is currently working on a video
David A Rash
received his B.Arch. and B.S. degrees from Washington State University and studied in the Graduate Program in the History of Architecture & Urban Development of Cornell University. He is currently a Roof Consultant/ Intern Architect at Madsen, Kneppers & Associates in Seattle and is a member of the Society of Architectural Historians, the Washington State Historical Society, the Marion Dean Ross Chapter/ Society of Architectural Historians in Seattle, and the American Institute of Architects.
David is an author and a co-editor of Shaping Seattle Architecture: A Historical Guide to the Architects, University of Washington Press. He has published 11 articles on historic architecture, produced numerous architectural tours and presentations, and created two exhibitions.
Robert W. Rydell
is professor of history at Montana State University. He is the author of multiple books and articles on the history of world's fairs, including All the World's a Fair (Chicago, 1984), World of Fairs (Chicago, 1993), and, with John Findling and Kimberly Pelle, Fair America (Smithsonian, 2000). He is also the editor of The Reason Why the Colored American is Not in the Columbian Exposition (Illinois,2000), originally edited by Frederick Douglass and Ida Wells, and the co-author, with Rob Kroes, of Buffalo Bill in Bologna (Chicago, 2003). Over the past several years, he has been co-director of three Teaching American History grants from the U.S. Department of Education and served as chair of his Department. In 2005, he served on the international jury of awards for the 2005 Aiichi World Exposition.
Sarah Nelson Smith
recently and reluctantly left her position as archivist at the National Archives – Pacific Alaska Region (Seattle) to accept a position as Wife to her beloved new husband in the northern woods of Washington. At the National Archives, Sarah assisted many researchers with the Chinese Exclusion Act Case Files of the INS. She also taught workshops on using NARA records for genealogy research, and preserving family records. Recently, she co-chaired the 2007 Washington State Archives Month committee. Sarah had been with NARA since 2004; her other specializations include records of the Forest Service, National Parks Service, and Bureau of Land Management. Prior to working at NARA, she worked at University of Washington’s Special Collections under the Photography Curator, and for the Center for Pacific Northwest Studies at Western Washington University in Bellingham. Sarah has a MA in History/Archives and Records Management, and a BA in Art History from Western Washington University.
Connie Ching So
is an immigrant from Kowloon, Hong Kong. In 1969, her family came to Seattle to reunite with her maternal grandparents. She grew up in Seattle’s Beacon Hill neighborhood. She received BAs in English and Communications at the University of Washington, earned a certificate for Public Policy at Harvard University and, in 1989, received a Master’s in Public Affairs at Princeton University. She earned her Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, with an emphasis on political science, in 2000.
So’s teaching experience began at the Universities of California at Berkeley and at Davis. In June 1992, she returned to Seattle to teach at the University of Washington’s American Ethnic Studies department where she is now a senior lecturer. Her classes include The History of Racial Ethnic Minorities in the United States, Contemporary Issues of Asian and Pacific Islander Americans, Asian American Identity, Ethnicity and Culture, Chinese American History and Culture, and Southeast Asian History and Culture. She has also taught courses on African American Women’s History and Culture and Filipino American History and Culture.
Aside from teaching, So serves as the director of the American Ethnic Studies field internships and practicum. She had served as an educational advisor and/or consultant for a number of agencies including: the Wing Luke Asian Museum, King County Heritage and Preservations Committee, Washington State Historic Sites Project, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Seattle Public Schools, among others. At the Wing Luke Asian Museum, she co-curated the critically acclaimed exhibits, “If Tired Hands Could Talk’ on garment workers and “Out of Focus: Stereotypes of Asian Pacific Americans in the Media.” She has served on a number of boards and committees including the first boards of the Northwest Asian American Theatre and the Asian Pacific American Coalition for Equality, the International Examiner, and the Organization of Chinese Americans-Greater Seattle (where she has twice served as Vice President).
Connie Sugahara
is a third and fourth generation Japanese American born and raised in Seattle. Her father Teruo Sugahara was also born in 1929 in Seattle but raised in Yokohama, Japan after the age of 3. Her grandfather Sugahara had a car repair shop in the International District but decided to move the family back to Japan during the Depression. Her grandmother, Fumiko Kuramoto (Yamada) was born in White River Valley or Auburn, WA. Her Sugahara, Suguro, Kuramoto, Yamada relatives live in Seattle, Anchorage, California, Hawaii, Eastern Oregon besides Hiroshima, Matsuyama, and Yokohama, Japan.
She works part-time as the Account Executive for NW Asian Weekly newspaper and also does fundraising for the API Women and Family Safety Center. She's serving on the the boards of the Seattle Cherry Blossom and Japanese Cultural Festival and the National Association of Asian American Professionals or NAAAP-Seattle.
Connie is very involved with the API community by attending various events and dinners. Currently she's in the Executive Development Institute leadership program, another non-profit. She enjoys collecting Japanese Ukiyoe woodblock prints and Japanese dancing dolls. She has traveled to Japan 3 times to explore Japanese culture and watch Kabuki. She's also a student of Fujima Fujimine, winner of the Japanese Emperor's Rising Sun Award, learning traditional Japanese dance. She has performed at the Japanese Gardens, Folklife Festival, Bumbershoot, Seattle Cherry Blossom Festival, 2006 NAAAP Convention, API Celebration, UW, and Vancouver World's Fair.
Tina Song
has an architectural and construction consultant business located in Kitsap County, Washington State. After gaining knowledge in architecture and construction on both the east and west coast, she is currently developing properties and building a house in Kingston, WA. She enjoys cooking, archery, kayaking, gardening, and construction.
Priscilla Wegars
is an historian and historical archaeologist who has worked on archaeological excavations in Idaho, Washington, Oregon, California, England, New Zealand, and Belize. She is founder and director of the [Asian American Comparative Collection] Asian Archaeology Comparatrive Collection at the University of Idaho. She received a Ph.D. from that university in 1991 with a dissertation entitled, The History and Archaeology of the Chinese in Northern Idaho, 1880 through 1910. Wegars edited the book, Hidden Heritage: Historical Archaeology of the Overseas Chinese (Baywood, 1993) and wrote a chapter for it on Chinese women. She is the author of Chinese at the Confluence: Lewiston’s Beuk Aie Temple, Polly Bemis: A Chinese American Pioneer, and co-editor of
Chinese American Death Rituals: Respecting the Ancestors (with Sue Fawn Chung).
Deana Weibel
is an associate professor of anthropology at Grand Valley State University, outside of Grand Rapids, Michigan. She received her doctorate in 2001 from the University of California at San Diego based on research into the contested use of Catholic shrines in France and New Mexico. Her work generally covers the anthropology of religion, looking at pilgrimage, ritual, and religious schemas. Recent research has expanded the notion of religious travel and sacred places to manned spaceflight, spaceflown objects, and the religious understandings of astronauts and cosmonauts. New areas of professional interest include the way a nascent anthropology conceived of the “Other” in ethnographic displays at expositions and amusement parks, such as the Igorot "villages" organized by Weibel’s great-grandfather, the showman Richard Schneidewind. Her publications
include “Of Consciousness Changes and Fortified Faith: Creativist and Catholic Pilgrimage at French Catholic Shrines” and “Malinowski in Orbit: ‘Magical Thinking’ in Human Spaceflight" (with Glen E. Swanson).
Michele Whitman
owns the former Furuya house on Bainbridge Island. She was born in Cleveland, Ohio, grew up in Seattle, graduated from Mercer Island High and attended the U of W. She has been married to Frank Whitman for 40 years. They have two daughters, a son and seven grandchildren. They moved to Bainbridge Island in 1976. She worked on the island as a secretary at Ordway Elementary for 28 years. Michele and Frank are retired and enjoying spending more time with their family in boating and traveling. She is active in a Philanthropic Educational Organization, belong to the Congregational Church, and enjoy gardening, yoga and visiting with family and friends.
Marie Rose Wong
is an Associate Professor in the Institute of Public Service at Seattle University . She teaches courses in Urban Studies that include Asian American Community Development, American Housing Design and Sustainable Community Development, Urban Planning Practicum, and Exploring the American City . She is on the Board of Directors of Interim Community Development Association and is the Public Information Advisor to the Kong Yick Investment Corporation, both of which are in Seattle’s Chinatown/International District. Her scholarship and writing is interdisciplinary and focuses on Asian American communities and the cultural manifestation of design in the built environment. She is author of numerous articles and Sweet Cakes, Long Journey: The Chinatowns of Portland, Oregon. Seattle: University of Washington Press (2004). Dr. Wong is currently working on a book about the history of single room occupancy residential hotels and Asian American community development in Seattle 's Chinatown/International District.
Other symposium pages: Asian-Pacific Perspectives on the AYPE
Other symposium pages: Asian-Pacific Perspectives on the AYPE
