Welcoming Week starts at the Moon Festival

In cities and towns across the United States, Welcoming Week is held each September to celebrate the work in communities to be welcoming places for all, including refugees and immigrants. Tacoma’s Welcoming Week begins on Saturday, Sept. 14, at the Tacoma Moon Festival, and the public is invited to come and take part in welcoming local refugees and immigrants who have just recently attained their U.S. citizenship.

For the past several years, the Moon Festival and the start of Welcoming Week at Tacoma Community House have overlapped so it became apparent that there was an opportunity for collaboration and partnership. 

“It just so happened the Welcoming Week began during the weekend that we have the Moon Festival so we let Tacoma Community House know that we have the festival and that we would welcome everybody to join us to celebrate,” said Theresa Pan Hosley, president of the Chinese Reconciliation Project Foundation that has brought the Moon Festival to Chinese Reconciliation Park since 2012. “Our planning committee was very gracious to revamp our vendors location, site map and program so that we can be together now.” 

Tacoma Community House Executive Director Aimee Khuu said she couldn’t be more pleased with the arrangement to welcome new citizens that have benefitted from the programs and services at Tacoma Community House.

“One of them just got citizenship on Tuesday so these are people who just recently got their citizenship and we want to recognize them and celebrate them as a community,” she said. “It’s a powerful collaboration as we think about how the Chinese were treated, the work of the Chinese Reconciliation Project Foundation, and the work today of celebrating and honoring immigrants and refugees. It’s really turning a new page in our city if you think about the history and where we are today.”

The history that Khuu refers to is the “Tacoma Method” used to expel Chinese residents from the city in 1885. This term came to define how an angry mob forced the Chinese from their homes and pushed them away with no concern for where these families would go. Fast-forward to 2024 and Chinese Reconciliation Park is the epicenter of inclusion and embracing all people as blessings upon us as a human race. 

Tacoma Weekly

For the first time, Tacoma Community House will bring a welcoming of new U.S. citizens to the festival.

“It is important that we work together to bring harmony to our community,” Hosley said. “Violence has no place in anybody’s life. All human beings have a right to equality and every individual must be treated with dignity and respect. By creating harmony in our community, we can achieve that and create a bright future and prosperity for all of us.”

Serving as emcee again this year will be Maricres Castro, newly appointed manager of Asia Pacific Cultural Center’s Mental Health Program. She also serves on the City of Tacoma’s Commission for Refugee and Immigrant Affairs.

“I’m so excited and proud of it too,” she said of the festival and its welcoming of new citizens. “In Tacoma, we’re really trying to help people feel that they can truly participate in our democracy and community and find their place here, that we’re trying to make that more structured and enhancing that structure every year. It’s an honor to be part of this.”

This year’s Moon Festival puts a special focus on Tacoma’s Mexican and Latinx communities and traditions alongside those of Asian Pacific Islander communities. It kicks off with the crowd favorite Mak Fai Lion Dance Association at 1 p.m. and what follows will be an international cultural experience.  

Seattle’s Tlalokan will bring the splendor and power of Mexico’s indigenous Anahuac dance and music; Tacoma’s own Sabor Flamenco will perform Spanish and Cuban Flamenco dance; and the youthful Mariachi Almanueva and Mariachi de Pacifico de PLU will combine to demonstrate the embrace of this joyous Mexican music by the next generation.

More nations will be represented by the Karisma Dancing Group showcasing contemporary Vietnamese dance; Cambodian Classical and Folk Dance of the Northwest; and Guma Imahe presenting the song and dance traditions of the indigenous Chamorro people of the Mariana Islands in the Pacific. 

New citizens will be recognized at 6 p.m. and Khuu will be there to address the audience. The Hwa Sheng Chinese Opera Club will close the stage with performances, in full makeup and costume, of arias from famous scenes of Chinese Opera. The anticipated lantern parade at 6:45 p.m. will be led by the Moon Princess and is always a magical experience for kids and a great photo opportunity for parents.

Tacoma Weekly

The Mak Fai Lion Dance Association will make an appearance to delight festival-goers of all ages. 

WELCOMING WEEK BEGINS

“We’re really excited to coordinate with the Moon Festival then have a full week teaching our community and honoring our immigrant population by identifying ways to celebrate our community,” Khuu said. 

On Monday, Sept. 16, Tacoma Community House will host a free screening of the documentary, “To the State of the Good Life,” an intimate exploration of the American Dream through the eyes of Raúl Arcos Hawkins, a community leader and DACA recipient in Grand Island, Neb. Hawkins will be attending the screening for a Q&A afterward.  

“We’ll talk about the effect of DACA on young people,” Khuu said. “We have about 600,000 young people in our country who are DACA recipients but whose lives are in limbo. They aren’t eligible for federal benefits, Social Security that they have been paying into for years, or unemployment… They’re really living in the shadows and at the whim of our policymakers when it comes to what’s going to happen to DACAs. This is going to be an important conversation for our community to have.”

A citizenship clinic will be held on Tuesday, Sept. 17, at Tacoma Community House with about 15 of its clients being helped through the process of becoming U.S. citizens. The general public is invited to a restaurant takeover all day at La Ca Bar, 606 S. Junett St., and a networking session there from 4:30-6:30 p.m. La Ca Bar’s owner will be giving 25 percent from all earnings that day to Tacoma Community House.

On Wednesday, Sept. 18, Tacoma Community House will partner with the University Place Pierce County Library for a takeover at Happy Duo Café, 3609 Market Pl. W. in University Place. 

“We’ll have a conversation started at each table to encourage people to talk about what it means to be a welcoming community, how and when we feel welcomed and that we belong. We’ll be encouraging people to share with one another,” Khuu said. “We’ll be bringing many of our students there and we hope that there will be many people from our community there as well.”

Thursday, Sept. 19, brings the free panel discussion “What Makes Communities Welcoming & How to Support Newcomers” to Tacoma Community House. The Commission on Immigrant and Refugee Affairs for the City of Tacoma and Pierce County will facilitate and be part of the conversation and representatives from Gov. Jay Inslee’s office will be there as well. 

Tacoma Welcoming Week wraps up on Saturday, Sept. 21, with a “Know Your Rights” presentation and discussion in partnership with the Northwest Immigration Rights Project and Pueblo Unida PDX. 

Tacoma Community House is located at 1314 S. L St., Tacoma. Learn more at tacomacommunityhouse.org, email info@tacomacommunityhouse.org, or call (253) 383-3951.