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Bruce Harrell announces diverse transition team Seattle Mayor-elect Bruce Harrell announced members of his transition team on Nov. 16—the nearly 150 members make up the most racially and ideologically diverse mayoral transition team in Seattle history. The transition effort, built around 12 topically-oriented committees, will be chaired by former United States Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell, Equal Opportunity Schools Interim CEO Eddie Lincoln, Uwajimaya President and CEO Denise Moriguchi, and Sea Mar founder and CEO Rogelio Riojas, along with
23 co-team leads. “With this transition team in place, we have the opportunity in front of us to thoughtfully develop the urgent and forward-looking agenda that will restore our City and propel Seattle forward,” said Harrell. The team of local civic, business, conservation, youth advocacy, philanthropy, labor, and community leaders will help shape and define Harrell’s agenda. “I’m excited Mayor-elect Harrell has made Seattle’s small businesses and working families core see TEAM on 12
Denise Moriguchi
Hyeok Kim
James Wong
Mike Fong
Sharon Santos
Dr. Shouan Pan
Want to feast without the stress of cooking on Thanksgiving? Here are the restaurants open on Thanksgiving Day in the Chinatown-International District. Taylor Hoang
Vivian Song Maritz
VIN
ON THE SHELF Grieving the loss of a parent 8
GUPTA
Photo by Jovelle Tamayo
By Mahlon Meyer NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
PUBLISHER’S BLOG Justice Mary Yu’s portrait unveiled at SU 10
Dr. Vin Gupta
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT ‘Sesame Street’ debuts Ji-Young, first Asian American muppet 11
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Restaurants Open Thanksgiving 2021
Photo by Han Bui
VOL 40 NO 47 NOVEMBER 20 – NOVEMBER 26, 2021
Finally, the death threats have stopped. For most of 2020 and until a new administration came in, Vin Gupta regularly received not only threats but even unmarked packages to his home. Gupta, who is a leading health policy analyst for NBC and MSNBC, has always tried to remain apolitical. But when the networks made him fact checker for the
Sung Yang
see LIST on 3
UW professor, NBC contributor on communication Republican National Convention, it was very hard to be seen as anything but partisan. “Actually, the whole of 2020 was that way...It was hard not to be perceived as political,” he said. This was difficult because one of the keys to his success—besides his mentors—has been “staying in my own lane.” This does not apply to other subjects though. When it comes to medicine and policy, Gupta is outspoken. During an interview with Northwest Asian Weekly, Gupta offered several bold policy recommendations, including delicensing doctors who spread false information about Covid-19 and encouraging health authorities to come up with a unified definition of the purpose of vaccination. Even though he is a few months shy of turning 39, the journey has been much longer, and less straightforward. His parents were immigrants from India, his mother a neonatal intensive care doctor and his father a civil engineer. After she completed her training at several top medical schools, she found a job in Toledo, Ohio. But Gupta’s father was working in Long Island. So the family split up. The marriage remained intact, but Gupta spent much of
his early childhood raised by his mother. “She did everything for my brother and me, and given how young we were and the nature of her demanding career, to do it largely by herself for years— that’s a tribute to her selflessness and unconditional love,” he said. When his older brother went off to college, it was decided the father should quit his job and move to Ohio to help look after Gupta. Gupta was sent to Maumee Country Day School, a private school. But he was shy and introverted. “I didn’t develop those communication skills early on. I don’t think I innately had those skills, I had to really work at it. Even when he went to Princeton, he said he spent the first years simply putting one foot in front of the other to get the highest grades possible. He had chosen a hardcore science track, like his brother, who was shining at schools like Stanford. And although he did well, albeit not quite as well as his brother, something was missing. It was not until he spent his junior year abroad, in South Africa, that he learned to start taking risks, he said. The country was less than 10 years out of Apartheid, and everyone was taking about issues that would later come to see GUPTA on 13
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