Social Justice

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A public art installation commemorating the 1886 expulsion of Chinese Seattleites is a step closer to reality after more than 20 years in the making. About 50 community leaders, historians and members of the public gathered on April 28 at the Wing Luke Museum for an educational open house about the Chinese American Legacy Artwork Project. Connie So, teaching professor of American ethnic studies at the UW, is mentioned.

Humanities 103, part of the Humanities First program for first-year students, emphasizes place-based learning through thoughtfully designed field trips. 

A 14-foot bronze sculpture commemorating the violent expulsion of Seattles Chinese community in 1886 moved closer to reality on April 28 when civic leaders, community historians and media professionals gathered at the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience to announce the project had reached its fabrication funding thresholdmore than two decades after the idea was first conceived.Connie So, teaching professor of American ethnic studies at the UW, is quoted.

There is a surging fixation on tracing mixed-race celebrities white-Asian heritage and famous Wasians are embracing the label.LeiLani Nishime, professor of communication at the UW, is quoted.

Briana Abrahms, associate professor of biology at the University of Washington, studies how climate change affects human-wildlife interactions and increases conflict around the world. In January, she gave the keynote speech at the International Parliamentary Roundtable on Human-Wildlife Coexistence held in Botswana.

When she was working as the social impact and marketing director at Molly Moon’s, UW communication alum Emily Kim, ’08, saw an opportunity: a free pastry education program to help people facing barriers to employment. Thus the Pastry Project, complete with a Pioneer Square storefront, was born. 

UW Magazine’s Aleenah Ansari checks in with Kim about the origins of the Pastry Project, what it means to run a social impact business and how she developed the curriculum for their free pastry education program.

The first comprehensive national study on fatal police violence in and around American Indian/Alaska Native (AIAN) reservations, from researchers at the UW and Drexel University, found that roughly 73% of AIAN people killed by police violence were on or within 10 miles of a reservation. Theresa Rocha Beardall, co-author and UW associate professor of sociology, is quoted.

Pulitzer-winning reporter Evelyn Iritani uncovers the diplomatic exchange of American and Japanese civilians while the two countries were at war.

Undergrad Francesca Espey receives a Mary Gates Scholarship for disability rights research, inspired by observations of society's attitude toward her father's disease. Meet Francesca

Upper Skagit elder Vi Hilbert's legacy in language and culture preservation lives on through archival records collected in the Vi Hilbert Collection, first curated and digitized by retired longtime UW Ethnomusicologist Laurel Sercombe and now housed through UW LIbraries, and through a documentary film and symphony she commissioned, Healing Heart of the First People of This Land," staged at the UW in February 2026 by the UW Symphony and soloist (and School of Music alumna) Adia S. Bowen.  

Emma Teal Laukitis, ’18, and her sister Claire not only catch and sell Alaska’s most famous fish, they help feed hundreds of thousands Alaskans through their donations.

“This Is Native Land” is a permanent, 3,000-square-foot exhibition at the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma that weaves the stories of Indigenous peoples into the fabric of the 30-year-old institution. Co-curated by Associate Professor Danica Sterud Miller (Puyallup) and Todd Clark (Wailaki), tribal liaison for the Washington State Historical Society, the project engaged more than 100 Native contributors from more than 60 tribes. 

Key collaborators include elder Philip H. Red Eagle, ’83, ’87 (Dakota and Puget Sound Salish); artist Joe Feddersen, ’83, (Colville); Owen Oliver, ’21 (Quinault); current UW museology student Markus Teuton, ’24 (Cherokee); and museum staff, including head of collections Maggie Wetherbee, ’00, and director of audience engagement Mary Mikel Stump, a former UW student. Viewpoint spoke with Miller, who is on faculty at UW Tacoma, for a look at the making of “This Is Native Land.”

A bilingual educator with 18 years of experience at both the college level and in K–12 public schools, Whitemarsh hopes to give back to her hometown of Pasco.

"Survivor accounts of the lasting effects of their prostitution at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein and his wealthy friends repeat the story of every trafficked girl and woman on Aurora Avenue in Seattle," writes Debra Boyer, affiliate faculty in the Department of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies at the UW.