Seattle Community Leaders

Pastor Livingston, 01

“The impact of this gentrification is a very negative one for people who look like me. It means that people like me have a sense of dislocation and disconnection. You’re dislocated because you’re trying to figure out how can I make a new community. The people that you used to know… they’re all spread out.

It means a loss of institutions. We used to have the Black Bank. The bank is gone. We used to have a number of things, and it’s the loss of those things. They’re not just forming it again in Auburn, forming it in Kent. It’s a total lost. That hurts everybody.

Now we look like a city that is thriving and somewhat inclusive, more open to new immigrants coming in with money or specialized skills, but [we are] not supporting those who are traditionally being discriminated against. We should hold on to what we’re doing now but not throw away the old.”

- Pastor and Professor Carl Livingston (Kingdom Christian Center & Seattle Central College)

Mr. Prawl, 01

"This is a big fight that’s been going on for generations. And that's the issue that I'm very concerned about. We don't realize that we keep fighting the same fight over and over. We still in the same spot, then you got the next generation to come and have to do the same thing again because we didn’t. We didn't defeat the issue that’s keeping us back. We have to come together. We got to join. We got to set aside our own personal agenda, and we have to go working together to win this."

- Mr. Gabriel Prawl (Seattle Chapter President at A. Philip Randolph Institute & Former President at International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 52)

Dr. Mason, 01

"The best way to work with people is help them become accomplished at what they're trying to do. Don't do it for yourself. The best way to become involved is helping people to accomplish what will better them, rather than you're going in to see what I can get out of this for "me". So knowing when enter, be willing to allow yourself to be guided and find people who accomplish things, not just talks, and to listen to them and hear them."

- Dr. Dawn Mason (Former State Representative & Former President of First Place Charter School)

Mr. Yasutake, 01

"As long as people are being treated unfairly, as long as there's no equity, everybody suffers, even white people. I have something in common with the common man and woman. Okay, regardless of what the races or color, we are the same thing — we want a nice home, education, nice job, all of these things. We're all in the same boat, but the problem is that we have to work together. We can't do it alone. We have to put in all of our efforts, but we haven’t been able to do it. Because this country has a very hard time dealing with race and racism. That's number one. Because of slavery and because of genocide, this country had a policy to kill every Native Americans they could and to deal with slaves in the harshest way."

- Mr. John Yasutake (Former Conciliation Specialist at Department of Justice’s Community Relations Service & Member of Washington State Civil Rights Coalition)

Mrs. Cordova, 01

"I was the first one in my family born in the United States, and my parents came here as American national. They weren't aliens when they grew up. Filipinos were American nationals because we were part of the United States. So I grew up thinking I never belonged anywhere. I had to create my own universe. So people like me started to say very early that we are Filipino American. Because we weren't being accepted."

- Mrs. Dorothy Cordova (Founder, Director, & Historian at Filipino American National Historical Society)

Pastor Livingston, 04

Pastor Livingston, 02

Pastor Livingston, 03

Mr. Yasutake, 02

Dr. Mason, 03

Dr. Mason, 02

Mr. Prawl, 02

Mrs. Cordova, 02

Seattle MLK Day, 01

African American Legislative Day, 01

Seattle MLK Day, 03

African American Legislative Day, 02

Seattle MLK Day, 05

African American Legislative Day, 06

African American Legislative Day, 05

Seattle MLK Day, 04

Seattle MLK Day, 02

c11683b9753f63d885196ad4148a2bee8_53625524_200601_0012.jpg

(Image titles and quotes will show on hover.)

I started this project because of the welcomeness that I felt in the African American community during the hardest time in my life and because of the stories and injustice that I saw and heard in Seattle. It was 2019, and as an international student, I heard the people sitting next to me telling me the horrible stories just like the ones told on textbooks and in movies. After some research on the Internet, I started reaching out to people and began a photo project on gentrification.

Gentrification is just one part of a bigger problem, but the media is focusing on it right now as tech companies are expanding in Seattle along with all the developments for more luxury apartments, hotels, sports arena, and office buildings. People are leaving due to increasing rent, increasing tax, or waiting for redevelopment. Communities are broken apart, and as Seattle Central’s Professor Carl Livingston once said, “they aren’t forming it in Auburn or in Kent.”

I first got in touch with Professor Livingston at Seattle Central College. He was my Political Science professor back in 2015, and I came across his name several times when I was searching gentrification in Seattle online. He welcomed me to his community and has since introduced me to Mr. John Yasutake, Former State Representative Dr. Dawn Mason, and Mr. Gabriel Prawl. These connections lead to other amazing opportunities and people. For example, Mr. Yasutake introduced me to Mrs. Dorothy Cordova. There are many people that I met and would love to interview, but it is also important for me to concentrate on only a few in order to sort through what I really want to talk about.

As I develop relationships through interviewing and shadowing them, my view on this project becomes less about gentrification but more around community leadership and how community comes together to battle and tackle issues. These five leaders/members all represent different aspects of a community. They are all bridges of the community, physically connecting people together through their work and virtually passing their knowledge and wisdom to the next generation and the public.

Professor Livingston, a pastor as well, devoted himself in the church community while supporting students at Seattle Central College not only as a professor but also as a mentor. His leadership is not only presented in his activities among the pastoral coalitions but also exemplified in his efforts to bring up the next generation. Mr. Yasutake has been working in the government for equity among all people; his connection in the Asian- and African-American communities is a testament to how everyone can come together despite their race or ethnicity. Dr. Mason was a State Representative from 1995 to 1999 and is known for her continuing leadership in public affairs, specifically in the education sector in recent years. Mr. Prawl knows that in order to get the win for all people, everyone must come together without personal agenda, so he sacrifices his time and money to hold meetings, events, and forums to connect diverse communities and educate the next generation. Mrs. Cordova is the gatekeeper for the little known history of Seattle and Filipino Americans. In her office, there are boxes after boxes of documents, photos, and posters of different people, events, and groups. Seattle’s culture and history live inside her brain, her home, and her storage; she hopes people understand that everyone — whether white, black, Asian, African, or European — all lived in the same area in Seattle before war, laws, and human-force separates people.

Each of the leaders in this project represents different sectors of public affair that are crucial for a community to come together. Professor Livingston, Mr. Yasutake, Dr. Mason, Mr. Prawl, and Mrs. Cordova are all working in different places and organizations focusing on distinct subjects and areas. Through church, civic government, schools, public representatives, unions, and cultural groups and coalitions, people have a chance to join together not only for public affairs but also for leisure. Through shadowing these leaders for interviews and at different functions, I realize that people will not fight together if there is no common respect or love for each other, and all of the community leaders in my project have known or worked with each other in one way or another, and there is a common respect between them that make them support each other and work together. Each sector of public affair has their own leaders, and the leaders of each sector comes together to unite everyone for a bigger cause.

I was trying to document Seattle’s gentrification and to find a solution for it when I started. However, at the end, I found out that gentrification did not simply begin in the recent five or ten years. The fight has always been there, and the problems are still the same for everyone, whether you are white, black, yellow, or whatever. When people recognize the work and need to come together with these leaders along with the wonderful people I’ve met and heard, the inequalities and injustices in Washington State can come to an end.

This is a compilation of Seattle community leaders' audio monologue and photos from my photography project, Seattle Community Leaders, featuring Pastor and Professor Carl Livingston, Mr. John Yasutake, Former State Rep. Dawn Mason, Mr. Gabriel Prawl, and Mrs. Dorothy Cordova.