2019 Fred yee citizens award Honorees

2019 Honorees

Faye Hong is a popular restauranteur who has operated restaurants in Seattle’s Chinatown/ID and in Renton for many years.  Many people know his restaurants including the Atlas Café, House of Hong and Hong’s Garden.  He is a well-respected leader in the Chinatown/ID community and was honored with the NW Asian Weekly’s Top Contributors.  He served on the board of Kin On, International District  Review Board, Seattle Chinese Chamber of Commerce and has been a leader in the Seattle Hop Sing Tong and the Lee Family Associations.  He helped form the Business Improvement Area (BIA), was involved in the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Statue Foundation and helped raise money for the Chinatown Gate .  He is retired now but continues to be a voice for the community.

Kathy Hsieh is the Cultural Partnerships & Grants Manager for the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture. A change agent in transforming the Office’s community engagement and arts funding practices through a racial equity lens, she helped the agency earn the Seattle Management Association’s first Race & Social Justice Management Award. She is also a Co-Exec Producer for SIS Productions which aims to create and provide opportunities and visibility for Asian American women in theatre. She is also an award-winning theatre artist having worked with many of Seattle’s theatres.

Over the years, she has served as Board President for the NW Asian Weekly Foundation, helping to develop their Asian American Summer Youth leadership program; chaired Freehold Theatre’s Diversity Scholarship Committee; advised for the KING-5 TV Community Diversity Advisory Council; and served as ReAct Theatre Board President. She has also served as a board member or planning committee member for the Natl Association of Asian American Professionals – Seattle, Theatre Puget Sound, Seattle Rep Theatre Community Advisory Committee, the League of Fringe Theatres, Seattle’s Asian American Heritage Month, Japanese American Day of Remembrance, the Seattle Asian American Film Festival and the Fred Hutchinson Research Center's Chinese Women's Cancer Project.

She has been honored by the Natl Assoc. of Asian American Professionals in Seattle as their Artist of the Year and as an actor by ArtsFund in 2003, featured in the Dramatist Magazine as “50 to Watch” in 2007, received A Special Award of Recognition by The Seattle Theater Writers Gypsy Awards for Excellence in Playwriting and Verizon’s Asian Pacific American Bash’s Innovator Award in 2012, is the 2015 Intl Examiner Community Voice Awardee in the Arts, received a Seattle Times Footlight Award and a Gypsy Award for acting in 2015, was nominated for an Elly Award for acting in 2016, and is the recipient of the 2017 Gregory A. Falls Sustained Achievement Award in theatre. 

The Seattle Chinese Community Girls Drill Team was the idea of Ruby Chow and a girls group called the Chi-ettes.  The Chi-ettes had been impressed by a performance of the St. Mary’s Drum and Bell Team based in San Francisco. Ruby Chow convinced Chong Wa Benevolent Association to sponsor a community Drill Team in 1952.  Since its inception the SCCGDT has won top honors from every regional parade, such as the Grand Sweepstakes in Seattle's Seafair Torchlight, the Olympia Lakefair, and the West Seattle Hi-Yu.  Now in its 67th year the SCCGDT continues to serve the girls and the Community. The all-volunteer, non-profit organization provides and supports opportunities to develop friendships, self-confidence, cultural pride, teamwork and leadership skills.  The team consists of 40 girls, ages 11-19 years old. The uniforms are replicas of the Chinese Opera Imperial Warriors, handmade of silk and satin with 7000 Beads, each weighing over 8lbs. The feathers are pheasant and are approximately 5-6 ft long worn by the officers of the team. 2018-2019 Officers:  Captain: Sage Choi, 1st Lieutenant: Karina Lee, 2nd Lieutenant: Campbell McKisson, Instructor: Sue May Eng, Director: Isabelle Gonn