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Bull Session: Wards Cove arrogance can't go unchallenged.
Bob Shimabukuro
"Hey, Bob," she called out from the table next to Alice and me at the restaurant. "You gotta write an article about Wards Cove. There's going to be a demonstration July 6 about it."
I get requests like this often. People recognize me at places. They want some publicity. I usually file it somewhere in my memory as a "possible," then it slips my mind as other things come up. But this request was different. It came from an electrician, an active member of Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, and someone for whom I have developed a great respect because women in the trades really have to go through a lot of, well, to put it mildly, bull.
In addition, the "Wards Cove" she referred to was the Atonio v. Wards Cove case, a discrimination suit filed in 1974 by Northwest Labor and Employment and Law Office (LELO) on behalf of the Cannery Workers Union against the Alaskan fish canneries. Gross injustice has a way of gnawing at me, especially when the established rules of law keep changing to protect the interests of those in charge. I decided then that I'd get on it.
Still, as is sometimes the case, it slipped my mind. At least, until the International Examiner's Community Voice Awards Dinner last week. Dean Wong had prepared a brief video of 20 years...