Latest News

Kent International Festival a celebration of city’s diversity

by Allison Int-Hout
I had a big decision to make in the Kent Town Square Plaza on Saturday. Do I go with my gut, and pick the Mediterranean mixed gyro and falafel, or taste adventure with the Irish corned beef sliders? The Thai and Laotian gai yang dish, with grilled chicken and Thai seasoning, looked delicious, too, and my preference for Mexican […]
Jun 18, 2012

New citizens celebrate Flag Day as Obama promises to end youth deportation

by Sara McCaslin
Refugee and immigrant community organizers gathered in the country’s most diverse neighborhood, on Wednesday to redefine how Seattleites celebrate Flag Day. Immigrant rights organization OneAmerica put together the event in a Columbia City park to provide citizenship information, voter registration and other resources to new immigrants and refugees. Organizers said they hoped to revive the marginal holiday, which […]
Jun 15, 2012

Pakistani immigrant finds a taste of home at ‘Afghan Cuisine’ in Federal Way

by Mohammad Ismail
When my friend Kathleen invited me to a Afghan Cuisine and Banquet Hall in Federal Way, the first image that popped into my head was of the ubiquitous Afghan restaurants in Peshawar, Pakistan, where I lived before I came to Seattle. Millions of Afghan refugees fled to Northwest Pakistan after the Soviet War in the […]
Jun 13, 2012

As war rages on, a message from inside Syria

by Roxana Norouzi
I was staying at a beachfront hotel in Zanzibar, Tanzania when I saw the first images of the unrest in Syria on TV. I watched footage of Syrians in the southern city of Deraa brazenly burning the pictures of President Bashar al-Assad that once lined every street, store, restaurant, and home. I was glued to the news, watching the […]
Jun 11, 2012

Iranian-American candidates weigh in on foreign policy

by alma khasawnih
This election season Washington has an unprecedented number of candidates who are of Iranian heritage. Sahar Fathi and Cyrus Habib for are running for State Representative (in the 36th and 48th districts respectively), and Shahram Hadian is running for Governor. Though Hadian isn’t likely to make it past the primary, Fathi and Habib both have decent chances […]
Jun 8, 2012

Japantown’s Panama Hotel hides a treasure trove of history

by Sihanouk Mariona
In 1942, in a fervor of wartime paranoia, President Roosevelt ordered Japanese-Americans into internment camps for the duration of WWII. The internment had an especially large impact in Seattle’s Japantown, where Japanese-Americans, many of them US-born citizens, were forced to abandon their homes and businesses almost overnight. Before they were led away to the camps, some […]
Jun 6, 2012

The visitor brings the sharpest knife

by Sarah Stuteville
Telling the stories of others is a fraught endeavor. It’s hard enough when you’re doing it in your own city or community, but interpreting cultures and places that are not your own is especially problematic. International journalists and travel writers take (often deserved) criticism for superficiality, ethnocentrism or exoticizing their subjects. Not a day has passed since […]
Jun 4, 2012
Colin Powell UN WMD

Colin Powell is coming to Seattle. Will that work for you?

by alma khasawnih
Colin Powell is coming to Seattle on Wednesday for a conversation around his new book It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership. City Club (which also supports the Globalist), is organizing the event and has put up billboards around town. In the online advertisement, they urge you to join the conversation with Powell as he […]
Jun 1, 2012

International acts rock the Sasquatch festival

by Sara McCaslin
The international music presence at Sasquatch music festival this year was small, but global acts ranked among the more memorable of the weekend. Highlights included the powerful, female-led Little Dragon out of Sweden bringing the house down on Sunday night, Awesome Tapes From Africa mixing up an eclectic array of obscure found cassettes, and Beardyman (Darren […]
May 31, 2012
Cambodia film

SIFF pick resurrects Cambodia’s forgotten film industry

by Allison Barrett
Inside the gutted remains of a 1000-seat movie theater that now is home to hundreds of squatters, an old woman sits with a baby in her lap and retells the plot of a Cambodian movie she loved as a child. The movie she speaks of probably no longer exists, destroyed under the reign of the Khmer […]
May 30, 2012

Surf’s up: Couchsurfing community thrives in Seattle

by Shawn Saleme
Casey Fenton was traveling in Iceland in 1999 and decided he wanted to connect with locals. He sent a mass email to the student body at the University of Reykjavik, describing himself while asking for a place to stay. He was amazed at the number of offers he got. Inspired, he teamed up with some […]
May 29, 2012
Egypt Elections

A Globalist primer on the Egyptian elections

by Allison Barrett
Egyptians went to the polls this week to vote in the first presidential election since the revolution last year. If all goes according to plan, the winner will be the first freely elected president in Egypt’s history, and the standard bearer for a new era of politics in the Middle East. In short, this is […]
May 24, 2012

Rose-Avila named director of Seattle’s new Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs

by Allison Barrett
Immigration advocate and former director of Northwest Immigrant Rights Project Magdaleno Rose-Avila, was named director of the Seattle’s new Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs (OIRA) this week. Rose-Avila grew up in a Mexican-American farm worker community in Colorado, and has a long history of organizing for progressive causes. He’s worked for the United Farm Workers, the Peace Corps, Amnesty […]
May 23, 2012

Seattle activists unite at G8 and NATO summit protests in Chicago

by J MZ
When the WTO protests happened in Seattle in 1999, I was a 17 year old teenager working for minimum wage at a Taco Time in West Seattle. I was about to graduate high school but I didn’t think I’d be going to college. I thought I wasn’t smart enough to get a scholarship and my […]

Poster campaign targets human trafficking along I-5

by Sean Duncan
The border with Canada, international port, and farm work make Washington State a hot spot for slavery and human trafficking. But our state is also a leader in innovative anti-trafficking action. The State Attorney General’s office website boasts that, “Washington was the first state to pass a law criminalizing human trafficking and we have the most stringent […]
May 22, 2012

SIFF film picks from Africa

by Allison Barrett
Of the 460-odd films from 64 different countries playing at SIFF this year, only a thin slice hail from Africa. To be fair to the SIFF programmers, they can only screen the films that get submitted, and only a few African countries have robust film scenes. But c’mon – only 5 features and 4 shorts? […]
May 20, 2012

Facebook co-founder claims globalist status to avoid taxes

by Alex Stonehill
Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin is catching heat from US senators for renouncing his American citizenship to avoid taxes. Saverin was born in Brazil, moved to the US at age 11, became a citizen at 16, and founded Facebook with Mark Zuckerberg while at Harvard. Then after all that stuff you saw in The Social Network […]
May 18, 2012

Travel Technology: What gadgets (not) to bring on your trip

by Lila Kitaeff
When it comes to packing for an international trip, I’ve always tried to live by the maxim, “if you’d be heartbroken to lose it, don’t bring it.” That means I’ll never take along my favorite old comfy T-shirt no matter how much I’d like to have it with me, for fear that it would be […]
May 17, 2012
blind activist Chen Guangcheng in Beijing

Ambassador Locke woos dissidents and confounds Chinese government

by Peter Johnson
China still doesn’t know what to make of Gary Locke. The former Washington Governor-turned-US Ambassador has raised eyebrows in the PRC lately due to his high-profile involvement in the ongoing saga of escaped human rights lawyer Chen Guangcheng. Locke put himself directly and vigorously into the fray by escorting the blind human rights activist from […]
May 15, 2012
King County Metro route 42

South Seattle immigrant communities fight uphill battle for transportation

by Kat Chow
Getting from point A to point B isn’t easy for 68-year-old Tuyet Mhi Mai. Especially when those points are her daughter’s crowded Lake City home and service classes or work in South Seattle. Since the King County Metro reduced bus route 42 because it runs parallel to the Light Rail, Mai’s commute is a little more […]
May 14, 2012