I have BIG love for the International District (ID).

Most recently, Boohi (@boohi_bronson) and I went to shoot the Dragon Festival before we had to start on the gallery for the upcoming fundraiser.  I had the opportunity to roam the streets that Sunday afternoon and soak up the neighborhood that I know so well thru love and thru hate.  There are many memories and learned lessons that come from being integrated into that community.  I learned on so many aspects of my life; career, community organizing, arts, personal relationships, political…the gamut!

After I had graduated college, my first “real” job was in the ID.  It was like one of my “dream jobs” actually.  Once I decided to get my psych and comparative american cultures degrees, I told my self, “Self, one of the things you will have to do once you get out is work where you can utilize both these degrees.”  Self then said to me, “Self, then you best brush up on your language.

You see, I wanted to provide social services to my community.  A community that is typically underserved and forgotten until its time for a cultural performance or a specific dish at a party.  So Self was right.  I had to work real hard at brushing up my native tongue. Well, as native as it can get considering I was born in the states and learned from my parents.

Enter the “dream job.”  I worked there for 12 years providing mental health, domestic violence, and youth services.  I bounced between those 3 programs but there was LOTS of overlap.  I remember my first appointment after I had completed “training.”  It was an elder woman and her daughter.  Her daugther was probably 2-3 years older than me at the time and she was enrolled in the mental health program.  She suffered from a few diagnosis but paranoid schizophrenia was her main issue.  At least the other diagnosis, were treatable and controllable.  Unfortunately for the schizophrenia it wasn’t (I know I’m rambling again…trust me, theres a point in there).  She was a pretty Filipina woman and if I didn’t have her chart and studied her history, I’d never have thought that these were issues she would suffer from the rest of her life.  It was a hard first session.  Actually, it was a hard first 6 months.  My idealism definitely was brought to earth.  After that meeting, I went straight home and balled my eyes out.  Called my mom, talked to the girlfriend, called the boys…I tried everything to get it out of my head.  I got to say though, it lead me to the love of the neighborhood. 

I wrote a caption for my Liam’s Pet Shop Kite shot a few months ago for one of my IG photos:

Chinatown is like that.  For me it wasn’t about the food or the boba tea.  It was really about the people.  The elders doing Tai Chi in the morning.  The school kids on firld trips during the day.  The addicts and pimps at night.  The spoken word and art on Seventh and Jackson.  The “just kickin it’s” crowd coming to eat after a night of clubbin’ and alcohol consumption, going to either Seagarden or Honey Court; ordering Honey Walnut Prawns, Special Fried Rice, Salt and Pepper Porkchops, and whatever else your table of 30 wanted to eat.  Chinatown is the owner at Liem’s who took some time to warm up to you, but once he did, it became meaningful and lasting.

I’ve only missed a handful of ID Street Fairs aka Dragon Festivals.  It’s pretty much the same thing every year, but it’s real nice to head back to the neighborhood and see the same folks there running the same but newly named festival.  It was nice to see the security for the neighborhood, or as I dubbed them, the “Cherubs of Justice.”  They were always in the know.  Who’s the new crack addict posted at the Key Bank parking lot? Mrs. Hsu leaves work at XXYYZZ and we have to have someone there to watch her and walk her to her car.  Those guys are great!

I loved and hated coming into the ID for work.  It smelled of trash and garbage in the morning and by 11 Am, the aroma changes to the food smells atypical of any chinatown in the country. I always ran into past clients which is both good and bad, all depending on which client of course.  I hated missing out on watching the elders Tai Chi at sunrise on a nice spring day with a tad bit of fog.  I loved Kau Kau’s BBQ pork, boy.  I hated watching riff raff running the corners of the street, some drugs, some prostitution, sometimes both.  I loved talking story with the elder who fought in the 70’s and 80’s against the Marcos Regime.  I hated hearing the police present to the community that they were going to help the ID, and toothpaste as analogy, “We will squeeze out these derelicts and scourge of society and squeeze them out of this neighborhood and into other neighborhoods so that we won’t have to deal with it.”  I LOVED that the ID is one (if not the only one) neighborhood in the city where they’ve refused to open up a Mcdonald’s or a Starbucks. NOW thats strength right, keeping out arguably two of the LARGEST corporations in the world.  I loved when at lunch I played ping pong against Cambodians, Vietnamese, Samoans, Caucasian, Africans, African Americans, Japanese…men and women…and we kept tally…and that they called me and my boy the Filipino Nightmares. I play a mean ping pong!  I loved the arts kollective (the K is meant to be there).  I loved the history/herstory that we carved into that world.  I loved that everyone in the arts and hip hop community knew about this kollective.  I hated watching it fall apart.

So…I wanted to tell you all that I have BIG love for this particualr neighborhood of Seattle.  I want to tell you that my son will also love this neighborhood as I do.  He was amazed last year by the amount of craziness and diversity.  So much so that to this day, he still asks me about the ID and the people.

I was excited again to shoot the neighborhood as it is one of my go to places to shoot these days.  It’s full of characters and culture and story. I hope these shots does the neighborhood justice. Peace.

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Brad Puet

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