I realized it was possible for me to become a dancer one day.
He overcame incredible odds
going from poverty to the first black principal dancer of the Pacific Northwest Ballet.
I didn't create this environment.
We created this environment.
After sixteen years as Seattle Center director and 40 years total with the city.
Robert Nellams is a retiring.
For years, her publications provided a voice to the C.I.D.
But big changes are ahead for Assunta NG.
These stories and more, next on CityStream.
Hi, I'm Enrique Cerna
and welcome to CityStream from the Pike Place Market, where we're observing
Black History Month.
The market has long been a popular stop
to find local produce, seafood, art and culture.
The vendors here are a diverse community and include 14 black owned businesses.
We'll speak to several of them just ahead.
But we begin with one of Seattle's cultural treasures.
The Pacific Northwest Ballet now celebrating its 50th anniversary.
As it moves forward, PNB will remain committed to diversity,
opening doors for people who historically haven't had opportunities in the ballet world.
As Nicole Sanchez reports, that includes the recent promotion of the ballet's
first Black principal dancer.
Jonathan Batista is passionate about dance.
He grew up in one of the poorest slums in Rio de Janeiro.
I grew up in a very humble neighborhood called City of God.
And that's where I had my first steps in dance.
With each step, his skills improved.
So did his confidence.
He credits his parents for encouraging him to stick with it.
I think my parents really wanted to keep me busy, so
I think my parents just wanted me to become very focused and disciplined.
Batista's commitment took him from the slums to a scholarship at the prestigious
English National Ballet School, where he took the stage for the first time.
That experience touched his heart and fueled his desire to dream big.
I realized it was possible for me to become a dancer.
One day when I saw a Black principal dancer on a stage of the Royal Ballet
of London, Carlos Acosta.
Batista held on to his dreams and made his way to North America.
But it was a very long road.
I felt like I was almost a pioneer in most of the companies
that that I was in because it was certainly new.
You know, there was a certain amount of resistance
toward my talent because, you know wait, you're a Black man you don't fit the mold.
Batista came to the Pacific Northwest Ballet in 2021, and in late 2022,
PNB promoted him to principal dancer, the highest level a dancer can attain.
This promotion wasn't just something for him to celebrate.
He is the first Black principal dancer at PNB.
It's been really special, such a special moment for myself, my family, our community,
Black culture and the advancement of Blacks and people of color in dance.
Batista regularly partners with fellow dancer Angelica Generosa,
who herself has had to break down stereotypes and persevere.
Love of ballet, I wanted to be with New York City Ballet on the East Coast.
And unfortunately, I was not hired just by my appearance and of looks.
And I don't think it was about talent or anything of that
it was just I didn't fit the mold.
And I had a lot of image things
ever since that moment.
Angelica is also a principal dancer at PNB.
She still tears up when she recalls a touching conversation she overheard at a performance.
We were doing Cinderella, and that was one of like my poster.
I had a poster and
I saw this little girl and she was up against the poster and she looked very similar to me.
And she was like, that's like me.
And I was like, that's that's everything.
Makes me teary eyed thinking about it.
When we see families
coming to the theater and feeling represented and seeing their own reflections on stage.
That's such a beautiful moment.
That's wonderful.
I mean, people people see the change. They see what's happening.
PNB's push toward diversity and outreach is largely due to artistic director Peter Boal.
He says he even treasures the moments that don't get much attention.
I mean, I really think the reward for me is in the smaller moments.
It's sometimes just as small as an individual's reaction to something.
So some kid on a field trip walking through the building
and looking in a studio and riveted by somebody that
and then they see that that they could achieve what that person has achieved.
PNB for many years, has provided a lot of different programs aimed at making
the company more available to everyone, especially young people.
Programs like Dance Chance,
which is a partnership with Seattle schools and offers free classes to students.
The ballet company also offers a Pay What You Can performance
for all of their regular season offerings on the Thursday night show.
And they also have an IDEA committee, which stands for Inclusion,
Diversity, Equity and Accessibility.
This group works to make sure the company is relevant, accessible and welcoming to everyone.
Something Boal recognizes wasn't always the case.
We got the history of the company.
There has not been diverse representation in a way that we would like it to be.
And I think, you know, you can look at that in all kinds of different ways.
Kiyon Ross is also a driving force for the changes at PNB and works closely with Boal.
He remembers what things were like when he came to the ballet more than 20 years ago.
When I was dancing in the company, I was one very, very few dancers of color in the company.
And now to look and to see the company with all these new diverse faces.
It's just really exciting.
PNB is not only helping current dancers
achieve their dreams, they're also inspiring future generations of dancers.
And they hope to inspire more conversations on the importance and power of diversity.
You know, we're listening to those challenges that we face as a society,
and it reflects in organizations as well.
And now we are taking the lead in the city, in the country, and in showing that it is possible
to have the diversity, it is possible to have tough conversations
and yet move forward.
The Pacific Northwest Ballet's next performance is Boundless.
A contemporary collection of work by three choreographers. It runs from March 17th
to the 26th at McCall Hall.
Well as we mentioned earlier, we're celebrating Black History Month here at the Pike Place Market.
And we're highlighting some of the Black owned businesses.
One of them is owned by J.B. Johnson.
The BLMF Literary Saloon.
So tell me about this bookstore.
I've been here for 26 years and just a general stock of used books.
I try to get the best material I can find because I'm getting people from all over the world here.
You never know who's going to ask you for what next.
So you have to be prepared.
You have to carry a diversity of materials.
And I think, you know, fulfill that need for downtown Seattle.
Tell me about the saloon part of your name.
So when I first started, this was back in 96.
Me and my friends fellow artists, other writers, we would sit around after hours
and we would discuss books, literature,
things we're working on. It's a play on words for a literary salon, but it's a saloon.
So there was a bit of whiskey involved.
A little happy hour.
A little happy hour. Yeah, it became a little too happy.
So there was a little more drinking and a little less actual discussion.
So I sort of had to nix that.
You have so many books here and some of the great black writers.
Who would you recommend for Black History Month?
First of all, you got Toni Morrison.
If you haven't read Toni Morrison, why not?
Alice Walker.
James Baldwin. Been telling people to read Baldwin for years.
Richard Wright.
I'd also go with my favorites are
Walter Mosley.
There was a new guy on the block named S.A. Cosby.
He's written probably one of the best crime novels I've read in the last 20 years.
It's called Blacktop Wasteland.
If you haven't read it and get on it.
Well J.B., this is a great store and I hope people come and check it out.
Thank you. Thanks for your time. No problem.
He's been the longtime director of the Seattle Center.
But after 40 years with the city, Robert Nellams is calling it a career.
His story As CityStream continues.
Welcome back to City Stream from the Pike Place Market,
where we're celebrating Black History Month
by highlighting some of the black owned businesses here at the market.
And one of them is Our Fabric Stash.
The owner is Deborah Boone. Thank you very much for being here. Appreciate it.
So tell me about the name and how it coincides with the business.
Well, Our Fabric Stash is definitely a reflection of a collection,
a collection of stashes from all across the country and literally all around the world.
- So you're not just local?
- No. - Your national and global.
Exactly.
Fabric comes from all over.
It comes from Africa.
It comes from Asia.
It comes from everywhere. Turkey.
Oh, really?
- Yeah, it does.
So how people get to know you nationally, internationally?
I would say word of mouth and specifically being at the market
gives us that global presence and folks travel all over the world and they tell friends
and they said, make sure when you're in Seattle, you stop at Our Fabric Stash.
- Now, you've been here since, what, 2015? - 2015, yes.
- But you've been doing this kind of work for a long time.
I have.
I would say I came up with the idea in ‘94 and I should say that the store pays
homage to the woman who taught me how to sew. And who was that?
Her name was Cora Pinson and she was a city council woman
in Olympia, and after she passed in ‘94 is when I came up with the idea
because I viewed her stash as her legacy and I wanted it to be, to be shared.
However, it was so because nobody in her family knew how to sew.
So it was at that point I, I came up with the idea, I said this is her stash.
And then 20 years removed from that my stash looked like her stash. (laughs)
- Well, your stash is doing well.
Deborah, thank you so much, I appreciate it.
Yep, thank you.
We turn now to the Seattle Center.
It's a big job being in charge there.
Just ask Robert Nellams.
After 16 years at the helm and 40 years total working for
the city, Robert Nellams is stepping away from public service.
So what's his secret from a long and distinguished career?
As producers Randy Eng and Shannon Gee explain, it takes humility,
a strong sense of self and a lot of love for the city of Seattle.
I don’t.
I don’t talk about me. (laughs)
(piano music)
If you've ever met or worked
with Seattle Center Director Robert Nellams, you know, he rarely uses “I” statements.
And Nell’s that type of guy, Nell’s not going to, he's humble.
Robert is not a look at me, look at me kind of person.
And every opportunity that he has, he uplifts the work of his team.
I love to be out in the public realm
telling people about
what all the things our staff are doing,
all the things our partners are doing, all the things that we collectively are doing.
Even in his office, it's what you don't see that speaks to his character,
his humility, his awards and accolades sit largely out of view.
- He's happy just making it happen,
and not being
someone that wants credit for it.
I would like to see him get more praise for the stuff he's done but,
that's just me. I’m Mom (Laughs)
Robert, his mom, and his younger sister grew up in Seattle's Beacon Hill neighborhood.
His father passed away before he turned two, but he was far from being alone.
There was my grandfather,
my great aunt, two great uncles
two, two aunts
an uncle,
my great grandmother,
and us.
And we were all in basically a four bedroom house.
If you needed something to eat, they fed you.
If you needed some advice or whatever, they tried to counsel you.
And for me, that was the beginnings of seeing what community could and should be.
- Over time, just like anyone who's grown up in the Seattle area can attest
so many of life's memories and moments happen at the center.
- (Robert Nellams) I was five when I came to the World's Fair.
- And the rides were there.
You know, the games,
you go to your football games there,
you graduated there.
I had seen James Brown there.
I had gone to
hockey games there.
I had seen boxing there, I had gone through a whole bunch of stuff.
It’s like all these special moments took place at Seattle Center.
- Robert went on to graduate from Central Washington University with a degree in accounting.
He then started working for the City of Seattle's Business Administration Division,
feeling somewhat self-conscious about not being a certified public accountant.
He decided to take the exam.
He passed, but achieving that goal made him think more about his future
and a truer sense of purpose and identity started to emerge.
I got hit with a wave, and that wave was, Are you sure this is what you want to do?
And I couldn't
articulate it to a lot of people, but I knew deep inside of me that, that answer was no.
It just so happened that
within a few months I got a call from Virginia Anderson from Seattle Center.
- I think it was the third interview, and he was a little cranky.
And I just asked him, What's going on?
Like you seem
angry that you're still part of this process.
- I don't want this to be an affirmative action thing or anything like that.
She took it as you arrogant S.O.B..
I told Robert,
I can't afford to put someone here who cannot succeed.
Robert took the job of Seattle Center, director of Patron Services in 1996,
and it didn't take long for him to realize he was home.
So the first day Robert came to work and I said, Well, I'd like you to take the day.
And this is the last day of our Summer Arts Academy.
And I walked over to the performance and I stood in the doorway and I watched.
I couldn't believe what I was seeing.
You have kids from all over King County, but they were all together.
There were people who were in wheelchairs and people were cheering them on.
And in the front row there was a bunch of donors they're crying their eyes out.
And I'm sitting there going, This is exactly the kinds of things that I want to do.
And so, that told me I was in the right place.
And from
that point forward, I just tried to make sure that I was worthy of being in the right place.
- He became deputy director in 1998 and was promoted to Seattle Center Director in 2006.
His desire has always been to run the center as a community gathering place.
- I have tried to create that same kind of place that I was raised in.
Everybody should feel like they belong here and there's nothing
better than to be in a place where you feel comfortable
because if you can feel that, then you can let yourself out.
You can be your best self.
- You know all the black folks in the city who are in lead positions.
It was comforting.
- He wants to hear what you have to say, and that's empowering to speak your truth, right?
To have a leader that says, I want to hear what you have to say.
- He's in a leadership role, which makes a difference.
He's not on the bottom. He's on the top.
And then look what he's accomplished for this city.
- The thing I'm most proud of
is the Seattle King County Clinic
It is one of the best things that we do.
I volunteered
and I always was in the intake because I always wanted to be able to look people in the eye
and tell them that they not only deserve this, but we were grateful to give it to them.
- And now after 40 years of public service, Robert Nellams is ready
to retire.
- For me,
it's been a joyous ride
and I couldn't I couldn't be happier with how it has turned out.
One can argue his legacy will not be one specific thing,
but instead in everything and everyone that continues to work at the Seattle Center.
The best thing that I could tell people is that the environment that we created, we created.
I didn't create this environment.
We created this environment. The environment stays.
As long as that continues,
it will remain a vibrant place.
(door closes)
Nellams says he's looking forward
to spending more time with his wife Jane, and his immediate family.
He also plans to hit the golf course with his buddies.
He says he won't miss Zoom meetings or dealing with emergencies at Seattle Center.
The search for a new director is already underway.
Coming up on CityStream, she's not retiring.
But after 40 years chronicling the Chinatown International District,
change is ahead for Assunta Ng.
We're back here at Pike Place Market.
And joining me now is Wais Ali.
He is the owner of East Africa Fine Art. Tell me about your products.
Yes, so it is ah,
I paint them on canvas and then print.
Then I make a screen print on t-shirts and tote bags.
And you try to bring what you experience in your country onto your work.
So tell me about that.
Djibouti is a country from East Africa.
And they have a beautiful landscape
and a beautiful wildlife you know. -Wildlife.
Yeah.
So you try to bring that to your t shirts and to your painting.
Yeah.
So tell me, what do you like about being here at the market?
The Pike Place Market
you know is good to be on their community.
Wais Ali, thank you so much for telling me
about your business. -You're welcome. Thank you.
All right.
Another immigrant to this country took a huge risk by pursuing her passion, journalism.
For 40 years Assunta Ng has given a voice to the Chinatown International District
through her publications, the Northwest Asian Weekly and the Seattle Chinese Post.
But major changes are ahead for Assunta,
she explained during a recent episode of my podcast, Chino y Chicano.
You know, newspapers are going through a decline
there's no question about it. It doesn't matter what people say.
But the truth is, everything is on this thing.
Yeah, right. -Right.
One reader that I met 40 years ago, we become friends,
and I don't want her to read it in our newspaper, and I call her. I said, we're going to shut down.
You know what she said, You're giving me a heart attack.
You're ceasing
publication of a print publication of the Seattle Chinese Post.
-Yes. And the Northwest Asian Weekly. -Yes.
But you are continuing online.
Online in the Asian Weekly only.
Several years ago, Assunta was honored for her many contributions to the community.
A retrospective by producers Matt Chan and Althea Chow
reveal more about Assunta Ng.
(emotional music)
I told my husband that I wanted to start
the first Chinese newspaper in the Pacific Northwest.
And my husband was really worried because
if I can't make it,
we will lose a lot of money.
So I told my friends, this is what I want to do.
And they were very surprised.
In fact, they were saying that, Well, what if you fail?
And it was interesting when they mentioned the word failure.
It didn't affect me.
In fact, it made me more determined to do it because no one else had done it.
And I thought, I will have a chance.
(emotional music)
- Taking that chance was a blessing.
For the past 35 years, the Seattle Chinese Post,
the Northwest Asian Weekly and Assunta Ng have chronicled the lives and events
that shaped the API communities of the Pacific Northwest.
The newspapers have become a powerful force in the pursuit
of social justice and a place for our stories to be told.
As an international student who graduated from the University of Washington,
Assunta became a teacher but was drawn back to her community
Assunta recognized that Seattle's International District was suffering
from a dearth of Chinese language news and information.
In 1982, news in Seattle's Chinatown
was a bulletin board on the corner of Seventh and King Street.
When we started, it was just a Chinese immigrant community.
So we evolve and expand to American born Chinese,
and then later other groups of Asians.
And, you know, just week after week when people approach us, can you do this?
Can you cover this?
And we wanted to show, especially the elected officials,
mainstream elected officials.
We have the media presence.
So they would not
dare to do anything
against the community or not working with the community
because in black and white, you cover our event.
Our meeting with them.
So we become not so much a weapon,
but a tool for the Asian community.
It was clear from the beginning
that the Northwest Asian Weekly was much more than a newspaper.
It was an instrument that held up and honored
all of our API communities
to be celebrated as one with real political power.
It showed the world who we are and gave us a voice.
When you think about a traditional role that a newspaper might play, it's a forum
and it's an outlet for opinions, views, ideas.
We're all shaped by the news that we read every single day, and the fact that
there would be an outlet that just focuses on the news in our community
I think is a conscious way to empower and to build connections between people.
So you might read the Northwest Asian Weekly and live in Bellevue,
or you might live in the inner city in Seattle.
But it becomes the common forum where you can exchange ideas and you know
what's going on.
So many of our mainstream media outlets actually look to the Northwest
Asian Weekly to find out what is going on in our community.
You know, the role that it played was to report the news from our perspective.
It covered news that no mainstream corporate media would cover.
That's why newspapers such as Northwest Asian Weekly is very much needed.
Typically, culturally, we're very
not out there.
You know, naturally we're shy
and we often, our people are often scared
and think that they don't have a place out there.
But people like Assunta brings that, brings us out
and then lets other people know who we are.
(emotional music)
Every week for 35 years, Assunta and her crew
have put out the news of record for the Asian community, a truly incredible feat.
They've been through good times and bad and never missed a beat
during all those years and all those issues.
You'd think there might have been a time Assunta wanted to give up.
There isn't.
Isn't that amazing?
In the past 35 years, I would use,
there were few occasions that I was very discouraged.
For instance, after the first year,
I realized that I'm not meeting the revenue goal.
I'm not able, I wasn't able to raise
the subscription goal
that I wanted because Seattle Chinese Post is a paid subscription
and I wasn't
able to hire the person I want to hire.
And I was constantly sick, I mean, physically sick.
And so one day I broke down and I cried.
I just cry so bad.
But I remember I didn't say the word quit.
I didn’t, I remember I said,
why does it have to be so hard?
I was crying,
but I didn't say the word quit.
(emotional music)
I'm very grateful.
Thank you for making our dreams fulfilled.
We are very blessed
for giving us
this opportunity and, and gift.
So I'm just
immensely grateful.
If you'd like to view an in-depth discussion with Assunta Ng,
check out episode 77 of my podcast,
Chino y Chicano. You can download it now on all the popular podcast providers.
We'll be right back.
That wraps up this episode of CityStream
from Pike Place Market, a community that values diversity and inclusion.
Plus, it's a great place to honor Black History Month
by visiting one of the 14 Black owned businesses here.
I'm Enrique Cerna. Thank you for watching.