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International Examiner

The PNW’s only nonprofit ANHPIA media since 1974, based in the heart of Seattle’s Chinatown-ID. We produce a twice-monthly newspaper and daily-updated website.

Established in 1974, the International Examiner (IE) is the oldest and largest nonprofit, pan-Asian Pacific American publication in the Northwest. Named after the historic and thriving multi-ethnic International District (ID) of Seattle, the IE aspires to be a credible catalyst for building an inspiring, connected, well-respected, and socially conscious Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) c

ommunity. Our mission is to promote critical thinking, dialogue, and action by providing timely, accurate, and culturally sensitive coverage of relevant AAPI matters. We are a multi-media informational, educational, arts, culture, and heritage organization. The IE also provides learning opportunities for AAPI youth, professionals and community members.

07/27/2026

Check out our July arts calendar to see the remainder of events worth viewing! :)

Compiled by Arts Editor Alan Lau

07/24/2026

The annual Community Voice Awards return on October 22, 2026, at 5:30 PM at Diamond Bay Restaurant — and registration is officially OPEN!

As the Pacific Northwest’s only nonprofit ANHPIA newsroom, the International Examiner relies on CVA to fuel independent community journalism. When you attend, you’re not just celebrating our honorees — you’re helping sustain the stories and coverage our communities depend on.

Join us for a meaningful evening featuring a full banquet, cultural entertainment, prizes, an inspiring awards ceremony honoring leaders across six categories, and more. This year, we celebrate the power of collective voice: When We Speak, We Rise.

🎟️ Early bird tickets are available now — reserve your seat.
CVA Awardees will be announced soon.

📧 Sponsorship opportunities: [email protected]

If you can’t attend, you can still support: https://CVA2026.fundraiser.support

07/23/2026

With striking portraits and testimonies, “Guardians of Life” shows indigenous peoples’ indispensable ecological worldviews

By Juanita Tamayo Lott - https://iexaminer.org/with-striking-portraits-and-testimonies-guardians-of-life-shows-indigenous-peoples-indispensable-ecological-worldviews/

🌸🌸🌸

Not surprisingly, “Guardians of Life” is an ambitious, visually stunning coffee table book of the natural world. Award-winning National Geographic photographer Killi Yuan has created timeless portraits of the indigenous peoples on the lands and the waters of Alaska, Palau, Ecuador, Mongolia, Australia, Greenland, California, Alberta-Montana and Vancouver Island. From the Ecuadorian rain forests to the various waters surrounding the Palauan archipelago, Yuan’s photos have the elements of presence, of being there. One is feeling, tasting, seeing, smelling, and hearing the land, the waters, the fires and the ice and then, comes face-to-face with the animals and humans. The thoughts and words of the community people who shared their stories with Yuyan and Mann evoke a pause for reflection.

The subtitle is “Indigenous Knowledge, Indigenous Science and Restoring the Planet.” It is a pleasure to hear the voices of peoples whose knowledge and way of life existed thousands of years before Western science. Over and over again they articulate and live a world view not as the “Lord of Creation” to alter the world in one’s own image. Their worldview is that they are a part of creation. In Greenland, Qaanaaq hunter and musician Aleqatsiaq Peary succinctly states, “It’s not like we’re the only animals in this world…We are not the only ones in the world that need to live.” Fashion model and land protector Quannah Chasinghorse in Alaska says: “When we understand that we are a part of nature and the cycle of life, it allows us to see ourselves as a relative of and part of the land.” Victor Steffensen, founder of Firesticks Alliance in Australia notes: “The knowledge is in the landscape. The Elders have not passed. The land is an Elder too.”

07/20/2026

Lotus L. Kang’s multi-media installations at the Frye are in a continuous state of flux

By Susan Kunimatsu Susan Kunimatsu - https://iexaminer.org/lotus-l-kangs-multi-media-installations-at-the-frye-are-in-a-continuous-state-of-flux/

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When you enter a museum or gallery, you expect to see finished works of art, objects that are the end results of thoughtful conception and skilled ex*****on by an artist, sometimes completed years in the past. Lotus L. Kang conceives of her work as a permanent state of transformation: no piece is ever finished. To enter her current exhibition at the Frye Art Museum, “Lotus L. Kang: I hear the hollow boom of time,” is to experience it in the moment. The next moment will not be the same.

Kang is of Korean descent, born in Toronto, educated in Canada and the U.S., and now living and working in Brooklyn. She imbues her work with cultural and material influences from each of these places. She has built an illustrious resume of international exhibitions capped by the current Venice Biennale. Her work is in the collections of major museums. Kang simultaneously works in photography, sculpture and installation. While she may pursue a theme or body of work over a period of years, each exhibition responds to the space in which it is shown.

Lotus L. Kang: I hear the hollow boom of time is at the Frye Art Museum through September 27. Information at FryeMuseum.org. Admission to the Frye is always free.

PHOTO: Artist Lotus L. Kang. Photo by Rafael Martinez/Frye Art Museum

Frye Art Museum Lotus Kang

07/19/2026

New water bottle filling station in Hing Hay Park will be removed after FIFA, but a permanent replacement is planned

Full piece by Chetanya Robinson - link in comments!

07/18/2026

Thien Phat’s restaurant closes: ‘I’m going to miss my community’

By Ron Chew Ron Chew - https://iexaminer.org/thien-phats-restaurant-closes-im-going-to-miss-my-community/

***

In July 2018, Fred Yee, former director of Kin On, introduced me to Thien Phat’s Restaurant in Columbia City. I had called him because I needed help to complete my memoir.

“Meet me at Thien Phat,” he instructed me. “We’ll have lunch.”

“I’ve never heard of it,” I responded.

“It’s not far from Kin On,” he said, “Family-run. Comfortable, not too loud. Chinese and Vietnamese food. Cheap. We can talk there. Park in front.”

I kept it simple. I ordered what Fred did: a delicious, heaping plate of veggies, chicken and noodles. I felt like I had just eaten in a neighbor’s cozy home kitchen. My stomach and soul were happy.

Fred spent the rest of the afternoon in the restaurant with me, patiently filling little gaps in my manuscript and revealing his own complex saga of journeying to Seattle from Hong Kong as an immigrant and fourth-generation Yee.

We sat for over two-and-a-half hours. Customers came and went. The owner, Oanh Nguyen, a young woman with big round glasses, seamlessly pivoted between managing the front counter, serving customers at their tables and bringing food orders to her mom, the cook, in the back kitchen. Oanh didn’t rush us or forget us, cheerfully refilling our teacups over and over.

Thien Phat Restaurant

07/17/2026

Three globe-spanning mystery novels offer up murder, secrets, and tangled families:

- The Midnight Taxi by Yosha Gunasekera

- The Librarians by Sherry Thomas

- Such a Perfect Family by Nalini Singh

All reviewed by Bharti Kirchner!

LINK IN COMMENTS.

07/16/2026

ICE OUT and the asymmetry of harm

OPINION by Jamie Cho and Joyce Shui - https://iexaminer.org/ice-out-and-the-asymmetry-of-harm/

***

Recently, while Jamie was gardening with her daughter in their front yard, a white man stopped his big SUV across from their house. Leaning out the driver’s side window, he pointed to their yard sign “ICE OUT of Our Neighborhoods,” and asked: “Have you seen ICE in our neighborhood?” Jamie replied, “No, but we need them out of ALL neighborhoods.” He shot back that “ICE is keeping murderers and rapists out.” When Jamie responded that it was a false characterization of the people ICE is targeting, he drove off.

It’s not just that he did not agree with the sign or with Jamie, or that he was compelled to express his disagreement with their yard sign, or even that he had no real desire to have a conversation. Instead, what stayed with us was the asymmetry of the encounter. His privilege allowed him to interrupt a peaceful evening between a mother and her daughter with false, ignorant, and racist accusations, then drive away and continue with his day. For him, the encounter lasted only seconds. For Jamie and her daughter, the emotional impact endured long after he disappeared.

It reminds us of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s 2018 confirmation hearings. Christine Blasey Ford testified under oath that he sexually assaulted her as a teenager. Kavanaugh denied the accusation. Whatever one believes about the competing accounts, the testimony highlighted a familiar asymmetry: an encounter that is profoundly traumatic for one person and recalled with detail many years later may be experienced very differently — or not remembered at all — by the other. Those with greater power or privilege move on, while those on the receiving end carry the psychological consequences for years or decades.

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