GroupThink

Profile: Karen Narasaki

Karen Narasaki speaking at the first Interethnic Caucus Leadership Forum

By Janna Chan for AsianAvenue.com

Seattle, Washington 1966. An eight-year-old Karen Narasaki accidentally overhears the pained voices of her parents discussing where their family would live next. Seattle was no longer an option. Although her father was a second generation Japanese American, World War II veteran and an engineer at Boeing, the possibility of buying his family a house in Seattle was out of the question due to racial covenants at the time. Fast-forward 38 years and this moment is still one of Karen’s earliest memories. This is the moment she realized that the American dream might always be just that—a dream.

Today, Karen Narasaki is the president and executive director of the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium (NAPALC), a non-profit, non-partisan civil rights organization. Even though racial covenants are a now a thing of the past, she continues to fight for Asian American rights and works with NAPALC to advance the rights of all minorities through public policy, education, litigation and advocacy. Boasting a long history of civil rights activism through her work with the Japanese American Citizen’s League, Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the Asian Pacific American Media Coalition, Karen has always opted for the road less traveled in order to pave a better one of her own.

After not being able to buy a house in Seattle Karen’s parents moved her, her twin brother and two sisters to Renton, a blue collar suburb. Trying to make the best out of their situation, the Narasakis regularly encouraged their children to work harder and to not let society dictate their roles. Karen and her brother eventually enrolled at Renton High School where, according to Karen, there were only 20 Asian Americans in a class of roughly 500 students. Right off the bat Karen got involved with school leadership programs. She became president of her sophomore class and became a finalist for the National Merit Scholarship along with her brother. “My father was very excited,” said Karen over the phone from her Washington D.C. office. “His dream was for one of his kids to attend an Ivy League school and this scholarship signaled a step closer to that. He told me once that he would have proved himself in America if this happened.”

Growing up, Karen’s father was fairly open about talking about race with his children. Both of her parents were sent to internment camps after the Pearl Harbor bombing during WWII yet her father still chose to join the military. He was part of the famous 442 all Japanese American battalion that fought in Europe. The struggles that both her parents endured laid the groundwork for Karen’s self-confidence and ignited a desire to make sure that her parents’ experience in the camps would never happen to anyone else. “I think he [her father] was a little bitter,” says Karen. “He, like many other Japanese Americans, was born here—he was not an immigrant and his mom was born here also. In many ways he still felt very grateful for the opportunities America presented that he felt would not be available in Japan. The message he gave to us growing up was to be a real patriot. That being an American really meant being willing to stand up and try to make America better—make it live up to its ideals.”

After high school, Karen fulfilled her father’s dream of an Ivy League child when she was accepted to Yale. A stellar 4.0 student with an impressive extra curricular résumé, Karen’s road to Yale was still not an easy one. She came from a less-than-desirable public high school and had a guidance counselor that didn’t know the first thing about Ivy League schools. When Karen was finally accepted to Yale it was mainly because of its progressive affirmative action policies. “I think that I am an example of how affirmative action is supposed to work,” says Karen. “The reality is that at a school like Yale there are thousands of students that apply that can do the work. They weren’t just looking at your grades or your test scores, but whether you showed evidence that you were going to be a leader. I felt that because I took full advantage of this opportunity that Yale did the right thing. They weren’t ‘wasting the slot’ because I proved that I could do the work.”

Karen graduated magna cum laude with an economics and political science degree at Yale and went on to attend the UCLA law school. She graduated third in her class and although her college career was superb job offers weren’t exactly flying through her door. She was later told that her applications for summer jobs were overlooked mainly because firms weren’t keen on hiring women or minorities. She eventually landed a coveted position as a corporate attorney at Seattle’s largest law firm, Perkins Coie. Karen spent six years at the firm and proved, without a doubt, her qualifications as an attorney. She remained active while at the firm moonlighting at Asian American and women’s rights groups, and was allowed to do so because she was one of the top billing associates in terms of hours logged.

Literally months away from making partner at her firm, a case she was working on with the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA) suddenly made her rethink her career goals. The case, Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Antonio, was a class action suit brought upon by the predominantly Filipino and native Alaskan employees who had been discriminated against at an Alaskan cannery. Karen was set to speak at a press conference in support of the employees but was stopped after she found out that one of her clients at Perkins Coie, an Alaskan fish cannery, had taken out an op-ed piece in the local paper in defense of Wards Cove. “I felt that it was getting harder and harder to be a conservative corporate attorney by day and a civil rights activist by night,” says Karen. “I knew that I would have to make a decision about my career, but it was very difficult because that summer I would be up for partner…But in the end, I knew that I needed to make a decision.”

The year was 1986 and Karen said goodbye to her old life, and a hefty salary, to enter the non-profit sector as a tireless advocate for human and civil rights. A nationally recognized expert on affirmative action and immigrant, civil and voting rights Karen has appeared on “The Newshour” with Jim Lehrer, ABC and CBS News, “Hardball” with Chris Mathews and has been quoted in just about every major American newspaper. During the Clinton administration, Karen was invited to the White House on several occasions to advise the president on civil rights issues. Part of her 12-hour-work-days include leading NAPALC and serving on the boards of the Leadership Conference Educational Fund and the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Under Karen’s leadership, the 1992 Voting Rights Act extension of the language rights provision was passed which has helped thousands of Asian, Latino and American Indian citizens to register and vote in their native languages. Her latest effort is the Rights Working Group which is a coalition of civil rights, civil liberties, human and immigrant rights advocates working together to address the deterioration of civil and human rights in the aftermath of 9/11.

Karen has come a long way from Renton and even further from the racial biases that once haunted her parents and threatened her goals. Through her leadership and actions, she has pioneered a path for Asian Americans and other minorities to demand a just and equal America. “One of the things I really believe in is, if at the end of the day, NAPALC has achieved equality for Asian Americans but not for Latinos, Jews and other Americans we haven’t done our job,” says Karen. “What I’m interested in is helping people understand that their fates as human beings are linked to each other. If we really want the America we say we want then that’s going to take work and it isn’t about does affirmative action or voting rights directly benefit me. It’s about does it benefit us is the larger picture? Diversity does make a difference.”

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Missed Manners

Once again, it's popular to learn to mind your P's and Q's

By Janna Chan for Seattle Magazine, December 2004

Picture this scene: a smart restaurant, white table cloths, a menu with a lot of French words—and a table with a couple of kids clanking their silverware, jumping up and down in their chairs, screaming at the top of their lungs, and reaching for rolls, butter and whatever’s on their sibling’s plate.
The nicely dressed couple at the corner table are visibly shaking their heads. You can read their thought: whatever happened to manners?

What indeed. Blame it on the boomers whose roots in the free-love era encouraged them to reject the rules of etiquette and slack on disciplining junior because it just wasn’t “cool.” For the past three generations good manners and well-behaved kids have disappeared as quickly as beatniks, hippies and bra burning.
But enough, apparently, is enough.

Today, etiquette and manners are making a comeback, as evidenced by the classes and schools springing up, eager to teach kids more than just “please” and “thank-you.”

“I think society has hit rock bottom,” says Corinne Gregory, founder and president of the Woodinville-based PoliteChild. “The Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction incident was kind of the last straw. Society has become rude, crude and unreasonable in a way that can no longer be tolerated and something has to be done.” Since launching her “social skills development” program in 2001 Gregory has seen a boom in her class enrollment rates and attributes the popularity of her program to a national lack-of-etiquette epidemic. Prior to this Fall, Gregory has had roughly 2000 students, and their families, go through the program. For the Fall 2004 classes, she is starting nearly that many on her programs nationwide with more than 200 students in Washington state alone.

Another Seattleite looking to rein-in society’s loosing battle with decorum is Mrs. Dawn Degroot and her three-year-old Wallingford Charm school taught from her home. On a recent Sunday afternoon this stately looking 54-year-old was found advising a group of 8 to 11-year-olds (two boys and six girls) to prevent, at all costs, elbows on the dining room table. A central part to Degroot’s teaching method is seating her students around a beautifully set table, complete with a crisp white table cloth and three tiered cookie tray, for afternoon high tea. There, she instructs the students on how to sit, pass food, and avoid elbows on the table by keeping quarters tucked safely in their armpits. “Manners are just rules not laws,” says Degroot after her lesson. “But a lot of parents today never learned these rules. I think that parents are really trying their best at home but you can’t teach what you don’t know and, frankly, what kid wants to hear their parents nagging on them?”

“You need a lot of energy to raise kids with manners,” says Gina Oldham who was picking up her 10-year-old daughter Bree from her first day of charm class. “Charm school just seems to be more effective than when we [Gina and her husband Michael] tell her what to do because it’s a different setting and the kids just soak up the lessons more.” Bree agreed with her mom and was especially attentive during the two-hour-long class. “I tend not to listen when my parents tell me to behave,” says a bright-eyed, blonde-hair Bree Oldham. “I like having a teacher because it makes it seem more important than when I hear it at home.”

Today, etiquette classes can be found at dozens of public and private schools, such as the Alcuin School and Lake Forest Park Montessori in Seattle, at the local YWCA, churches, Girl and Boy Scout meetings and everywhere else a young person may be lurking. The classes are comprehensive and teach everything from how to set a table and dine at it to how to be a gracious guest at a birthday party and even prom dos and don’ts (i.e. make sure your date’s flowers match her dress!). The cost of an etiquette class can range anywhere between $35 (for a one-day seminar) to $2000 (for an overnight etiquette camp) and parents are not flinching at the price.

Deborah King, founder of the Seattle-based Final Touch Finishing School, has seen a steady climb in her enrolment rates since the school was founded in 1989. Her program focuses on developing the four pillars of a polished image: grace, elegance, strength & confidence and is offered throughout Washington and nationally. In the past decade, King’s school has grown from teaching just five to eight students over the course of several months to now offering five to eight classes every month with often more than a hundred students on her roster. “Parents are hungry to get their children now into these programs,” says King. “We are seeing a decline in decorum in our school systems, on T.V. and in our families. Parents are at a lost so they are going back to the basics and saying let’s get our children this information.”

And while parents are reawakening to the need for proper etiquette, convincing a child that a four-hour-long class on how to sip your soup can be fun is a whole other story. “There are a lot of rules and things you need to remember to have good manners,” says Bree Oldham after spending an afternoon with Mrs. Degroot. “I learned you don’t pick up things you drop, never put your elbows on the table and if you can keep the quarters in your armpits then you get to keep them.” Truly, a lesson we could all remember.

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Sidebar:

For more information on etiquette schools in your area and for a schedule of upcoming classes check out Final Touch Finishing School (206.510.5357, 877.808.2078; finaltouchschool.com), The PoliteChild (425.485.4089, 866.485.4089; politechild.com) and Wallingford Charm (206.354.9933; wallingfordcharm.com).

Asian Flush: The Silent Killer

Sure, it's a party now but wait until the Flush strikes.

By Janna Chan for AsianAvenue.com

Kathy is a 25-year-old, 5-foot-3-inch Korean-American female. At first glance she looks and acts like any other robust young woman except for the fact that she suffers from a genetic mutation leaving her defunct of aldehyde dehydrogenase 2. To be concise, Kathy is plagued with an inactive enzyme which is normally responsible for breaking down acetaldehyde, a byproduct of the metabolism of alcohol. Kathy is a victim of the Asian Flush.

Although the name of this genetic defect sounds more like a tasty alcoholic beverage, the Asian Flush is certainly nothing to toast. Experts agree that nearly 50 percent of Asians around the world are left red in the face and queasy in the stomach because of the flush and many are familiar with its modus operandi: Night out with friends; Cocktails aplenty; Dancing in the dark; Red splotchy Asian aftermath. Take young Kathy for instance. It’s Friday night and she’s feeling pretty fly with her hair done, teeth brushed and boasting an evenly tanned complexion. She shimmies into some swank night club and makes a bee line for the bar. Kathy orders a cosmopolitan—the pink swooshing liquid an ominous foreshadowing of the events to come. While sipping her drink slowly and scanning the dance floor Kathy locks eyes with Kevin, a strapping young non-Asian lad ready to get his drink on. The two hit it off immediately and throw back a couple of drinks to get rid of any inhibitions. Kathy begins feeling quite warm in the already humid club and is dizzy from the loud music. Kevin escorts Kathy outside for some air and in the spotlight-like glow of the 1000 watt street lamps Kevin witnesses Kathy’s red and splotchy complexion and can hardly suppress the horrified look on his face. The Asian Flush has struck again.

The “hypothetical” incident you just read is a reality for most people of Asian decent. Many are still in denial about their defective genes but calling yourself a “light weight” doesn’t change the fact that your body just doesn’t want to party. In a nutshell, the Flush happens because the body processes alcohol using two important enzymes, alcohol dehydrogenase and aldehyde dehydrogenase, the presence of which are controlled by a person's genes. The lack of these enzymes makes it more difficult to metabolize alcohol causing it to accumulate faster in a person's system and does not allow the alcohol to break down as quickly. Long story short, acetaldehyde is a toxin and if your body can't break it down, it accumulates and causes flushing. Other symptoms you might experience include dizziness, nausea, headaches, an increased pulse and extreme self-consciousness.

Scientists don't know why the enzyme is inactive primarily in people of Asian descent, but it is genetic and can be passed on by either or both parents. Some researchers find that the presence of the mutation can help account for the lower levels of alcoholism in Asian communities. Yeah, right, as if that’s some kind of consolation prize. Researchers have only begun to look into solutions for this socially crippling affliction and most recommend simply staying away from booze. To be frank, not drinking is not an option. So, let’s try out a few suggestions from Dr. Bruce Ames, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of California, Berkeley. The good doctor co-authored a review of the possible use of megavitamin therapy in a number of inherited conditions including the Asian Flush. Ames suggests that taking high doses of niacin (aka, vitamin B-3 found in eggs, milk and poultry) could increase the binding between enzyme and cofactor and thus increase the efficiency of the mutant enzyme. In another study done by the Department of Gastroenterology, Westmead Hospital, New South Wales, Australia, researchers found that supplementation of diets with fructose or glucose (most commonly found in sweet fruits) increased the elimination of alcohol, but without affecting the alcohol dehydrogenase activity. In other words, eat more fruit salads and fried chicken before hitting the bottle. As for the things you’re not supposed to do…

Urban legend, rumor and hearsay suggest that those afflicted with the dreaded Flush consider taking Aspirin as a means to de-flushify your face. Aspirin has been found to increase blood alcohol levels in some individuals therefore inhibiting the activity of gastric alcohol dehydrogenase. BUT, common sense dictates that combining aspirin and alcohol is not a good idea. Aspirin irritates the stomach, and so does alcohol, and a combination of the two is thought to increase the risk of stomach ulcers and reduces your body’s ability to clot blood. While you’re at it, stay away from over-the-counter antihistamines and acetaminophen (Tylenol). Both are reported to decrease the activity of the defunct Asian enzyme, but most of the time they just make you sleepy. Pair that up with the drowsing effect of alcohol and you’ve got a slurring, drooling zombie on your hands.

Now, back to Kathy. In an attempt to give her genetic mutation the big “up yours,” Kathy decided to conduct a scientific experiment of her own with the drug RU-21, aka the KGB’s secret hangover cure. RU-21 was developed by the Russian Academy of Sciences in the course of a 25-year-long research studying alcohol metabolism and has been available in Russia since 1999 and in the U.S. since 2003. According to the Website RU-21.com, the drug eliminates acetaldehyde, helps maintain a balanced central nervous system, supports healthy DNA cells and increases oxygen absorption by cells. The Website also states that the drug has been clinically proven to regulate alcohol metabolism and, for Asian Flushers, this should be a good thing. In pursuit of science, Kathy ordered a 20-pack of the drug and used herself as a guinea pig. Popping the recommended dosage of one pill per drink, Kathy starting throwing back cocktails like an Irishman on Boxing Day. By drink number six, the Flush had taken its full effect turning Kathy’s face as red as a baboon’s butt and her stomach a veritable whirlpool of gin and juice. According to Kathy, she felt empowered by the pills and drank four times more than usual. She finished the night sans head-in-bucket and concluded that RU-21 is most successful as a psychological enzyme ego boost rather than an Asian Flush cure all.

The moral of Kathy’s many misadventures is that you can’t fight science. The Asian Flush is genetic and until the Governator, aka Arnold Schwarzenegger, finds some kind of cure via stem cell research Asian’s will just have to hide out in dark bars or steer clear of all fire water. Of course, we can always go the route of assertive Asian-Americans like Kathy and give science and stupid genetic mutations the big, “up yours!” Let’s drink!

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