If you said “Superstar” in a crowd today and could see the first image that came to mind over their heads like cute little dialogue bubbles over the top of a character in the comics, 9 times out of 10 a face of a popular celebrity or athlete would bob happily overhead.
Whisper “Superhero” and you'd get bubbles with portraits of Superman, Batman, Spiderman…and the Wizard of Oz. Oops! That’s too far north. We're talking about Pierce County. Well although I can't speak for you, just now when I was thinking about the people I consider super heroes, a trio of local authors with a zest for the past popped into mind.
So I'm the odd duck. These fellows are still community giants and I’m not content to simply plug their books. I’ve decided to create my own awards. Let’s start the show by playing a few bars of my opening award theme song. The secret to the melody lies in the silent bars which were after all, created just especially for this special occasion.
Federal Way, WA – Local artist Mizu Sugimura announced today that Auburn-area researcher and writer Stan Flewelling, Tacoma historian and community college instructor Ronald Magden and crusading author and former Eastside journalist David Neiwert will form the winning trio at the 2007 Puget Sound Basin Cross-Cultural Champion (PSBCCC) awards.
The PSBCCC is a conceptual honor and brainchild of its artist Mizu Sugimura a citizen appointee on the very first City of Federal Way Diversity Commission (1993-1995) and who was subsequently elected by her colleagues as its very first chairperson.
The award has been created to allow Sugimura, a short and diminutive woman of five feet tall, a more imposing podium to salute and honor persons who have lived and worked during some portion of their lives in the Puget Sound Basin and have made a lasting contribution to education, understanding or improvement in the relationships between diverse communities.
* Stan Flewelling is being honored for his work in the photo-rich local history: “Shirakawa: Stories From a Northwest Japanese-American Community” published in 2002 by University of Washington Press. Weighing in at 254 pages the book is a superb and detailed chronicle of Japanese-American community life in the White River Valley.
* Ronald Magden, a Pierce County treasure in countless other ways, saluted for his superbly researched 248 page volume which made its debut in 1998, : “Furusato -Tacoma-Pierce County Japanese, 1888-1977” and was published by the Tacoma Longshore Book & Research Committee.
* Rounding out our trio is award-winning journalist turned author David Neiwert whose 2005 book “Strawberry Days: How Internment Destroyed a Japanese-American Community” devotes 280 value-filled pages published by Palgrive McMillian and documents the fascinating and all too true story as to why this Eastside metropolis bears today few traces if any of the busy and bustling pre-World War II settlement of Japanese-American immigrants and their families.
Speaking to members of the press after the list of this years winners were announced, Sugimura said: “We extend our warmest thanks to these authors and their works for which I want to personally honor with a cup of coffee and free play of Carol King’s oldie hit “You’ve Got A Friend” from her classic album Tapestry."
“Authors Flewelling, Magden and Neiwert are true superheroes to the last man. These gentlemen - humanitarians all, are owed an everlasting debt of gratitude for preserving in print for the entire region the legacy of sacrifice, hard-work and dedication left to us by all three of these pioneering immigrant communities.”
“Instead fame, fortune and wads of cash, aside from the aforementioned java moment and song play, as one individual I can only offer these winners my sincere and heartfelt thanks and those of my family – along with my personal opinion that were I authorized to speak for the entire Japanese-American community in the Pacific Northwest that an equal endorsement of all three authors could easily be secured.”
“The curiosity, scholarship and the dedication by all three men, to commit a part of their lives to do the necessary research and then give breath to stories rapidly in danger of being lost for all times, allowed for community members as myself to peak into the windows of history and watch our parents and grandparents going about their daily lives," Sugimura said. " It is an irreplaceable gift . Equally invaluable is bringing to life for mainstream community members those people and places which have completely disappeared from today's landscapes. In those instances authors Flewelling, Magden and Neiwert create platforms that allow the citizenry of such bustling centers such as Tacoma's Japan Town for which few if any landmarks now exist, to briefly speak to us once again."
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