nwasianweekly.com
Nov. 19, 2005

Dr. Larry Matsuda

Dinner finds new things to celebrate

By Carol N. Vu
Northwest Asian Weekly

Don’t expect the usual at this year’s Top Contributors to the Asian Community awards dinner.

This annual event, which usually draws about 300 people, is building on its past popularity. In addition to handing out five awards to “top contributors,” the ceremony will also present, for the very first time, Lifetime Achievement Awards.

Two longtime community volunteers will be the recipients of the Lifetime Achievement Awards — Dr. Larry Matsuda and Frank Irigon. Both were originally considered for the Top Contributors Award, but a mere glance at their achievements showed that they were deserving of a much greater tribute from the community they serve. A new award had to be created for them, organizers said.

Matsuda, 60, is a former teacher, counselor, principal and assistant superintendent in the Seattle school district who has used his professional and personal lives to educate others about Japanese American history and expand opportunities for Asian Americans and other people of color. (See Page 6 for related article.)

Irigon, 58, is a vocal activist for the Asian American community. Among his many accomplishments, he is credited with jumpstarting the flow of money into the International District. In the 1970s, he and fellow activists demanded and got money for social and health services in the I.D.

Irigon and Matsuda will be honored Dec. 8 at 6 p.m. at Four Seas Restaurant in Chinatown/I.D., along with the Top Contributors awardees:

• The Boeing Asian American Professional Association (BAAPA), which recently unveiled a permanent exhibit at the Museum of Flight that honors Wong Tsu, the first engineer at The Boeing Co. BAAPA, under the leadership of Key Donn, spent several years gathering information and documents for the exhibit.

• James Arima and Nadine Shiroma, community activists and volunteers who have spent countless hours and incalculable energy strengthening the political voice of the Asian Pacific American community.

• Shelly Krishnamurty, who volunteers to educate schoolchildren about Indian arts and culture. She realized soon after the 9/11 attacks that many people in America are still very ignorant about Indian people and their culture and decided to do something about it.

• Dara Duong, founder of the Cambodian Cultural Museum and Killing Fields Memorial, the first museum of its kind in the United States. Duong quit his job and used his own savings to start the project.

• The Korean American Voters Alliance (KAVA), which has registered more than 4,000 people to vote since its founding three years ago. The nonprofit, nonpartisan group has also translated voters’ pamphlets into Korean and put on conventions to help Korean Americans learn about candidates and the election process.

It will be the first time the Northwest Asian Weekly is honoring a Cambodian American with any kind of award.

It will also be the first time the paper is honoring two organizations whose missions are rooted in both the Asian community and in the mainstream community. Both BAAPA and KAVA serve Asian Americans, but they are also dedicated to helping their members find success and empowerment in mainstream society.

“This year, some of our honorees are well known in the community and some are not,” acknowledged Assunta Ng, publisher of the Northwest Asian Weekly and its sister paper, the Seattle Chinese Post. “It’s a good balance and representation of the Asian community.

“Half of them are not visible in the International District, and that’s fine,” she continued, “because the Asian community is bigger than the I.D. Our goal is to let both the Asian community and the mainstream realize that Asian Pacific Americans are diverse and their contributions are significant in their own ways.”

The emcee of the dinner will be KCPQ-TV weekend anchor Derek Wing.

Last year, then-Gov. Gary Locke was honored as the sole Top Contributor. Attended by nearly 900 guests and held at Bellevue’s Meydenbauer Center, the dinner was a chance for the Asian American community to say thank you and goodbye to the nation’s first Chinese American governor.

The year before that, former state Sen. George Fleming and former University of Washington regent Ark Chin were among the nine Top Contributor honorees. The award has been given out annually since 1990, but 2002 was the first year a dinner was held in honor of the awardees.

More than anything else, this award is about volunteering in the community. The recipients are recognized not because of their jobs or occupations. They are recognized because of the work they are not paid to do — what they choose to do in their spare time. Their contributions are made more significant by the fact that they don’t expect a paycheck in return.

The only exception to that rule was Locke, who organizers felt was deserving of the award because of his history-making role in the Asian American community.

Tickets to the Top Contributors dinner are $40 per person. They can be purchased by calling 206-223-0623 or e-mailing rsvp@nwasianweekly.com. Guests are also asked to bring one can of food to donate to Northwest Harvest.

Even those who have been to past Top Contributors dinners will find this one to be new and different. Don’t miss it. 

Carol N. Vu can be reached at carol@nwasianweekly.com.

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