Last Healdsburg community meeting focuses on ‘seeing each other’ in Asian American narrative

Stories of the past, present and future of Healdsburg’s residents of Asian American and Pacific Islander heritage were folded into the conversation at the city’s last encuentro, or community meeting, held Thursday at the city’s Community Center.

Panelists purposely sat in a half-circle as conceptualized by facilitator Corrina Hui of Acosta Latino Learning Partnership, with about 40 audience members across from them, seated in folding chairs

“We're a part of one community and one person is not above or below and so I wanted to be able to see each other. That's what tonight is about is about — seeing each other,” Hui said.

Though about only 1.7% of Healdsburg’s population is Asian or Pacific Islander, organizers from Acosta Latino Learning Partnership focused this encuentro on this specific group to increase awareness about their presence in Healdsburg.

Acosta Latino Learning Partnership, which led this and previous encuentros, was contracted by the city to gather qualitative data to develop the city’s diversity, equity and inclusion plan for the next three to five years, according to staff reports.

The agency will present the plan to city staff and it is tentatively set to be considered by City Council during its June 20 meeting. The group hosted the event in partnership with Corazón Healdsburg and the city of Healdsburg.

Though Hui intended to ask more questions, the six panelists only shared their introductions — all of which included their family’s migration and lived experiences in the United States and Healdsburg — for most of the two-hour event, with the last 20 minutes devoted to audience questions.

In contrast to previous encuentros, where audience members generally aired concerns about life in Healdsburg, this was mostly centered on panelists’ narratives.

“What you're going to discover today is that the people next to me … have many stories that have been passed down to them,” Hui said.

Nozomu “Nez” Tokugawa, chef and owner of Taste of Tea, opened the discussion.

He shared a family history going back two generations that went back and forth between Japan and the U.S. before he and his family settled for in this country in 1957.

Tokugawa, after years living in different parts of California, moved to Healdsburg in 2014 in search of a warehouse that eventually led to Taste of Tea.

Next spoke Patrick Mukaida, the retired director of hospitality at Ferrari-Carano Vineyards and Winery and board member of the Healdsburg Museum and Historical Society.

His was one of “a few Japanese families” in the city as he was growing up and he reminisced about the Healdsburg he knew at that time.

“Little farm town when I was growing up. No pizza parlor. We had A&W. But you knew all the stores and who owned them. My mom would go into the stores and say, ‘Put it on my account.’ That kind of thing,” said the second-generation Healdsburg resident.

Caroline Bontia, legal director at Dropbox and board member of the Healdsburg Museum and Historical Society, shared her journey from Manila to Australia to the U.S. as the daughter of shop owners.

After she moved to Healdsburg during the pandemic, she started Shop Local, a blog that highlighted Healdsburg’s businesses.

“I felt that the way for me to find community was to really hear the stories about the store owners and how they were dealing with their sort of pandemic struggles,” she said.

Gayle Okumura Sullivan, co-owner of Dry Creek Peach, an organic orchard and farmstand, spoke about the few great “unifiers” her father said connected people regardless of class, race or origin.

The first is jazz, which the Japanese-American entrepreneur said helped connect her to others in Healdsburg as the executive director of the Board of Healdsburg Jazz.

Lise Asimont, co-founder, viticulturist and winemaker at Dot Wines, now finds power in her identity as a half-white, half-Filipina woman, though that wasn’t always the case growing up.

“Being mixed race, you’re used to being other. You’re used to being gray,” she said.

After she and her husband launched Dot Wines, they received tremendous support from the community and found success pairing their wines with Filipino foods.

The event ended with the youngest panelist, Elaine Chen, a first-generation Chinese American, who works in community outreach for Zero Foodprint, a nonprofit that supports regenerative farming practices through grants funded by restaurant partners such as Little Saint and SingleThread in Healdsburg.

In the last 20 minutes of the meeting, an audience member asked about racism they’d experienced. Panelists said they’d encountered it in varying degrees.

Asimont said she’d experienced it the week prior, whereas Mukaida said he saw it “once or twice” growing up but otherwise had experienced no significant instances of hatred toward him.

The group did, however, acknowledge widespread anti-Asian sentiment in the pandemic’s wake in Healdsburg and across the country.

Bontia thanked Healdsburg leaders for decrying anti-Asian hate, which was followed by a robust round of applause just moments before the meeting’s close.

You can reach Staff Writer Jennifer Sawhney at 707-521-5346 or jennifer.sawhney@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @sawhney_media.