Suzanne Ahn Civic Engagement & Social Justice Award: Assunta Ng
Since 1982, Assunta Ng is founder/publisher of the Seattle Chinese Post SCP and Northwest Asian Weekly NWAW. SCP was the first Chinese newspaper in the Pacific Northwest since 1927. NWAW was the only English-language weekly for the Asian community. Assunta and her publications have received over 200 awards including journalism, leadership, business, diversity and community services. To give back, she has established six scholarship endowments for people of color at the University of Washington and Seattle Colleges. She has fundraised scholarships for foster children, diverse high school students, and charitable organizations for abused women. She has also founded Women of Color Empowered for diverse women to network, learn, build bridges and support one another. For 20 years, NWAW had trained over 800 Asian American youth in leadership, diversity and community-building skills through a summer youth leadership program with all-expense-paid and three-week program.
ABOUT THE WINNER: This award is named for Suzanne Insook Ahn, a Korean American activist in Dallas who fought for rights of Asian Americans and women. Before her death in 2003, she made a donation to AAJA to amplify the voices of her community.
Assunta Ng has done just that. Forty years ago, she started the Seattle Chinese Post because she said there was no other place for immigrant Chinese readers to get information about their city and state outside of rumors and gossip. A year later, she started the English version Northwest Asian Weekly.
“NW Asian Weekly was where I turned to read about Asian American community organizers who would go on to serve in public office. It’s where I learned about the history of Chinatown, Little Saigon and Japantown, and the leaders of the past. Her coverage made me aware of the crime in those neighborhoods and the lack of police resources,” said one of several nominators.
Assunta came to Seattle from Hong Kong to attend the University of Washington and stayed in Seattle to teach public school in a neighborhood with many Asian immigrants. She saw them struggling to make their way so she created a newsletter for them. She said she started the publications to empower immigrants and Asian Americans.
Raised in Hong Kong and working odd jobs to earn her master's degree, Assunta believed only in America could she follow her dream of owning her own business. From selling ads to news gathering to running a Chinese printing business, Ng became a publisher no one dared overlook because she held people to account. Politicians and policy makers returned her calls and sought her endorsements. As Seattle’s pan-Asian community grew, Assunta reported on programs that supported businesses, education and services for seniors. She was a tireless advocate for people of color in leadership, especially Asian Americans, so their voices would be heard.
She founded the non-profit Northwest Asian Weekly Foundation to award scholarships and teach leadership to high schoolers. She welcomed Asian American interns into her newsroom and hired Asian American journalists seeking or between reporting jobs. For 20 years, she spotlighted women of all ethnicities through her Women of Color Empowered networking luncheons. And each year, she recognized leaders in the Asian American community through the Northwest Asian Weekly Awards. When asked why she works so hard, Ng says simply, “If we don’t make a big deal about what we do, nobody else will!”
The Seattle Chinese Post published its last issue in January 2021. Assunta continues to run the Northwest Asian Weekly online.