Remarkable People: Making a Difference in the Northwest; Assunta Ng Interview 003

our heroes and that's a lesson to pass that is insisting that hold it people need to know the difference and maybe so maybe you can speak to that you know even though hong kong has ninety nine percent chinese population of ethnic chinese and that wondrous land and in those days worse were caucasians you know is sometimes you tend to view this year is there going to be a chinese he says there are many ways because there's hardly any policies in the colony that they try to impose on the chinese population the nation feel like your inferiors to the british government and one reason why i can tell you is that you know when i was alone in the class so the teacher would ask you know how you wear boy

aram hong kong natives such a few years and you were automatically british subject and then the people at the one on the racing has really probably i'm probably and then they immediately write that audiences at all ok now how many of you and then over from you was disapproving of the birthplace and heritage and your identity and called you are how they were going to china and then the first two tries it was very difficult for that you owe us that were born in china to raise our hands because of the frowning and disapproval low and kind of the rating because he you know i have a birth certificate you were born in china in those days but you were born in hong kong you have a precedent that you know that means that piece of paper you know he would have taken because you know how that he's a paper and then if you have that piece of paper or later you'll be granted at this

past fall whereas you and you go to the summer where you have to apply for a passport you don't have a passport you have some kind of identification kasich have to get a spat of view because everywhere you can be accessible to a country as you know have a nationality you know because it's a very strange situation between china and hong kong you were arrested you know one point you know if you look at the chinese policeman industry he would not be afraid of a chinese policeman but if a policeman walked by you know we were very nervous you know thinking something wrong with you so this is the kind of our heritage has you know i was raised on all think of myself i mentioned that i wasn't born in hong kong you not like my cat classmates you know and then the report

card they have a place where you filled birthplace i'll also in may to entice you not to put china you know and always nice to fill your cell phone call up religious subjects i mean you will ask you this question because you are afraid to utter that we're trying to you know if you were one of the local level class they still on call natural it so that was the kind of situation i was i was racing you only see an incredibly strong woman in here be a lot of confidence scene had a lot of loving care is a tiny baby in in review in a chinese village or what what what pleasure situation as out of those first five years he says in the city of i don't remember very much but i do remember that it was a very disciplined

they care i do remember doing some exercise every day it to exercise and they carry follow the pattern that was quite striking how to but i do remember that we had some kind of an indoctrination little bit about the communist regime than in a junior member of the day we left and there were red guards on the train station they're happy that we were able to legally that was that was not much that we did go back to china in nineteen eighty and it's all the house that i was very proud of my heritage but i stay and i may not be able to a few proud of my chinese heritage but in america things changing and you were very proud of cool you walk your identity us to the americas was skewed of the parties inside you that heritage is not to be

forgotten and that's how i raise my children to see is was very different different from the way i was raised as opposed to the way i raise my an atom bomb shelter but you've got to face discrimination here and now do you know what and what kind of discrimination be face in in seattle and gentlemen here and mercer island or do you i think basically seattle is a very open place where people are much more educated and where they have interactions of asian people are they traveling a sure our they're all had i imagine it by going to the midwest where there were a smaller asian population are as small african american population that discrimination would be more severe i have experience making

less you know obvious discrimination the more subtle kind of discrimination because i was able to speak english language own but i knew people that if they don't speak the english language a very well they were consider as less smart less creative class articulate a less certain because they help this language area where is for me at this country even though i have why american citizenship because of my slight accent there were lots of times when people meet me they don't treat me as an american citizen and i loved this country i always consider that america is my father and china is my mother and i love them both but it was difficult for my american friends you know to understand that teaching me the same i am

as one of them i think i do feel that because i carried assassin and usually the first question they ask me is where you from they were not saying that i'm just like one of them i'm an american so i don't know if that kind of bell relationship would have created a distance between us where is that they just think of me as one of them i would be able to help the ice or they would be able to know the eyes of me right away so i don't know you know that's an interesting question as people ira i get mistaken for a japanese very often does that bother you in the rotary club that i was saying were there are eight hundred white males and only twenty women and to asian women and the whole club there is another asian woman

japanese descent and she's much taller than me and they always come to me and say hi susan and as an excuse me we don't look alike and menacing oh i'm sorry you know and they didn't know they had no bad intentions i used to have to get personally but i know that there are people who would take that very personally and for example a columnist in my newspaper she always put her picture and the column was i don't have any changes in the economy now and i don't like to use her picture in the newspaper because i always think it's very self serving and so when people say when they heard from the news was the chinese coast they always say you know the same happened over time so it doesn't bother me but i tried to use a very humorous situation and just say that we don't look alike the

law that there are one billion people in china but everyone looks different and the same thing in america and in seattle the asian community over here is all but two hundred thousand and i don't find the same person that looks like a sun setting such i use a lot of humor to educate people here rather than being the answer then take that personally because i don't think that will serve any purpose oh i like the way that people are building bridges these days and bring people closer to one another and i'll try to educate them and make them understand that you know china is a very diverse country and asian americans as a very diversified community where japanese americans with some will and civilians filipinos you know the chinese and even asian pacific islanders we have so many groups how was in america's song cannot say that we're just one voice we're diverse of our community and we have

many needs we have many many many many cultures just look at asian community the but here is your newspaper is an asian community newspaper is there a similarity to most asians be feel a camaraderie because you're asian there is a common experience because of the immigration history because of the discriminatory discriminate jury races immigration laws we were discriminated so easily when we came to this country now for fathers our first generations they weren't usually only laborers that's why they were in this country they were brought in this country agrees first place so the railroad experienced the farm laborers all brought us together because of our common immigrants history so when asked to kind of editorially want to bring across we need to work together we start to talk

from the common experience of our common goals we do have common goals our common goals is to bring together this community unified and to serve our children better and we send our voices to the government to bringing quality to this community and yes equal opportunity for this community for example we're talking about that glass ceiling in this country we know that many other people of color persons in this community they are unemployed so how do we in this community use minorities in this country and leadership positions how we make them see us as leaders rather than just set the tories our second class citizens as the bottom line of the organization so that's one of our common goals and then yes i think we have to educate the community is that when the whole model minorities ok don't look at the few asian american

school her receipt asked all these dealers into classrooms that although might be science genius formats genius it's not true some of them at least some of them have a very weak in the house and they need tutorial help in math and computer science is that if you look at us as they would say ok you don't need to know how you'd only computer on a system that would be very bad for our children what our hearts in the society because wherever they would not be able to get those candidates assistant babysitter just like any white kids just like any other african american children in this country so that's what we want to work for is to make and the mainstream society the gas and say they are very different people and for example if they look at the election process right now with gary locke running for king county executive oh this is the

nation look at him and say not as a democrat know what happens they don't look at him as a democrat or as a chinese american born asian americans we want our boat is the getty images that we'd want voters to look at him beyond the skin color and say hey they can be a very good leaders or this country he can be a very good king county executive fortis this county because of the skill that he has and because of that kind of issues that he raised in the community he has served this country very well so that's one of the goal of a newspaper it's to raise issues be a bridge between our community and the mainstream society is to look at our community differently or the same ok or to say that they can be part of us and we can be more of an

art your eyes thinking that your newspaper here and the the the headline for instance i'm just picking one here every thirteen nineteen ninety three and if i have or you have a story about somebody going murdered somebody the dating sentencing and then over here is spokane democratic party border where kramer calls hotel owners chinks in another article the fed's abandon plans for detention center i'd be in international district as it stands for dessert represent the fact that your community has had a lot of problems we know is a real problem those are problems asian gangs is a problem of the day or many asian youth at risk because when they first came to this country they do have a chance of problems

you know the audience to women's society unemployment problems the need for surviving in a new interview coltrane on our new speaker is free sending the reality of the community we don't want to say it will have any problems that seal a tunisian community because of losing they say don't want to tell a mainstream society or that you know this this is what they have a saying we need help and this is what it is they want to tell the other communities this is what we are going to need help and you are giving this kind of program to the african community dollar leave us out we need the same kind of progress to and so have you or i'll praising another community for what they have done we need that positive reinforcement you so that's kind of

the kind of voice that we want to get into mainstream community and they need to know more about our community that's the best resources they can only reason is that because as a voice for our community to i've been asked a reading and i read through all the issues you gave me and i was fascinated by how can do that because i've been brought up in another generation i was brought up in a generation where you don't admit hey melissa i think they're euphoric i mean that's the last thing you know that happen in a source it then you don't want to face the true and that it could be their worst thing that happened in the business and the like in our newspaper organization on when something happening there is battling on and you don't want you could find it you know want to face the truth that's not journalism at all it is reality assets

and so i want my employees to me to say if they know that i'm doing something wrong happens next tell me i don't want anyone to say because she is that was i don't want to tell her that you might not give me the race unless they know i wanted to challenge me and so you know all the time to find and use that or i don't have the final say you know you would say oh that's true because you're the boss you have the final say the biggest is true because someday like minded company and i don't like tech company but because the majority of my employer to say that's a good coffee and we need to change our copy and then i would have no say i lost my ball because saudi unease think is a very good what she saw sicko cattle on it that's just bust our asses you know in my organization because it and the bubble that easily you know you can be a good reasons that i should change so to practice in my newspaper what happens is that

i'll do it because that is the key to progress changes is the key to progress know used to kind of try and say oh i didn't do anything wrong and that's a shame because you are stopping progress and improvement you are stopping new employees to be honest to you and you dont at how many employees do you hand i'm about five full time employees and twenty nine part time employees and i'd made up mostly it ali she answered no i will asia's nations i have two different editor's the chinese addition to chinese after that takes care of the chinese polls and nine senator susan cassavetes therapy not causation weekly and she's white isn't that diversified perspectives because many

times we see things and his find to work together you know because we learned so much from one another we need to calculate that multiplied respected in order to make the switch and you know strong in every aspect if you tend to see once sided it is there will not grow for sure you're not be able to go to market share i'm sure because you would not be able to reach those people that you don't tend to think of them not only answer is interesting you know how we discuss what that diversified perspective i've seen things from all sides of the same scene and ride it and saying that we need to look at things from all sides and that's very important to have the web editor in a newspaper although at the beginning beginning we ran across some positions from the asian community they set you talking about affirmative

action and why don't you start founder of the sabre and i sat you know in terms of the number of employees in a newspaper we do have a majority of patients now but we do need the other perspective we do need nominations in our paper and i made that very clear we would have to say isn't that you would have to set an example sunset and an example i have a lot of opportunity to other communities to another how you can read it at me to say it again when we got the day in sentencing may send a message which of course there's a murder case of bunks games spokane democratic party or board member play board member calls hotel owners changes and then the feds abandon

plans for a detention center in it being the idea being the international district so that that looks like a lot of problems to me hey yourself a religious person no so what's this one well it can be announced so i was a catholic and he has wanted to get into the school my mother at a catholic but one or two american because there was so let's discuss freedom of religion i was six lot of different things to the agents and i began to go back to work as i find myself really the militias that

listen carefully catholic community is their state was that was a really policy and that has a lot to do why i just didn't just know that that is that in and the epa here i am on my question was are you religious person yes and no is it's not a question i can really answer yes in really he has it doesn't it has unleashed and you're going through what happened in your life i find that i'm older i have wrong the less religious art become i don't know why maybe yes i have more self confidence of myself i've

tried to rely on my intuition and my judgment on things rather than pray to god that everything turning good but for other people for my friends it happened that i can't pray for my friends here no i was just saying i'm guessing this question because i never thought about it but i do pray for my friends that have gone through some very traumatic instances in their lives like the house and i wonder and so my girlfriend is feeling just the end of the warsaw preakness at least a year ago and when i pray i don't think science actually if i'm trying to build is you know christian says guerra discusses a dear god please take care of my friends knew but i never really praying for myself you know to get good things are divided mean as a business the only how

it's an anxious now that think about it like a lot of my friends and you know they have gone from the very tragic difficult things and live in a you know immediately how say to myself here please please help him help her make it easy on her art ok i'll fly past the new religion and that has changed i was a catholic because i was a lot of catholics who are so naturally for eighteen years of my life you know i've been very devout catholic and really practicing in or the you know you know it shows like going to church on sunday again until i think because of the ecologically issue really bothers me and so i thought why so getting away from him and moving to us listen because i like the philosophy of being a bonus

any abortion at issue then obviously you feel that it strongly that the catholic church is not having to write to and post on woman's body it's only for god's sake leave us alone you're so outspoken it never worried that you're in a circus a bit of wrong thing maybe this corner and take a nice people i think truth is the most beautiful thing in this world and so i want to be honest to my thighs eye and doing her a favor and she is so she's doing a favor so like treasure true very much and i hate distortions and hypocrisy and this front you know

so i want to do away with all that stop wasting time and i want to be honest to people so that people will be on this to me says that's my basic philosophy of life it sometimes accused of being aggressive the organ it often angry are very unusual for a woman to be so certain or oppressive or speaking out right away i know what i think any on missiles it will be a bass in the long run for everybody it really is i mean if you think of think about it carefully in any families in any organization profit or nonprofit and you carried a content culture that you carried this euphoric attitude in poor circumstances it really doesn't doesn't do anybody any good in terms of moving forward operating

progress to the organization or to the community people have to be honest and speak up what is in their mind i mean if we have this guessing game going on what we want to do things like we're going to solve any problems when we were army massacre occurred i understand you're one of the few people who was willing to let the outside press what happened on that how is it nice during the massacre in the press the mainstream press they were frantic because they had no idea no previous research and no previous com with the asian community someone this a crime occurred they were panicking where i'm going who should we call what's going on either don't want to mess with it missing pieces of this community we don't know what we're supposed to do we have the rats were

supposed to cut red yet and so here i was the publisher of the seattle chinese told me just publish one zero one you know and so overnight you know they're more national radio's the mainstream press they call us and say could you know so we just come home was one thing was a mission to promote chinese new year cry at massacre happened during chinese new year so we we had to make a decision she would go out in the english edition she would not go on with the english edition just want the chinese edition i was thinking that it would be very detrimental to both the mainstream press pass was to our community wind has the mainstream press and say i've told you this chinese community a secretive they don't happen is have heard in chinese and not letting us know what's going on in their community but at the same time we hacked into

mainstream community know what's going on throughout the english edition this will be a very good bridge we are doing a good thing for a community feel that you know go on his theories to serve the community and why so not why not carry out missions to go on with the english edition even though we have the same status as we have for the chinese edition about time soon we can expand asked at that time so