Amy Chen Lozano was on the phone a lot during the holiday season. Calling volunteers. Calling organizers in the Chinatown International District (CID).
She’s been the lead coordinator for volunteer deliveries of a newly-published bilingual public safety booklet, titled With Love for Our Grandparents & Seniors, created by OCA Asian Pacific American Advocates of Greater Seattle. Chen Lozano, who is treasurer for OCA-Greater Seattle, and her volunteer team, have been delivering the booklets into the hands of elderly residents living in senior housing buildings in the neighborhood.
“International House, New Central Apartments, Jackson Apartments, and Bush Asia Hotel next week,” said Chen Lozano. “We are going to visit as many as we can.”
A grassroots effort funded through community partners, the 40-page booklet is the culmination of a year-long, multigenerational effort. It teaches how to identify and stay safe from threats that elderly Asian Americans face. “We created it to be of service for our elders,” said Lozano Chen. “For our elders where English is a second language, where they are older, and vulnerable to scams.”
The booklet contains practical advice in four chapters: situational awareness, safety while at home, scams and how to identify them, and what to do if victimized. It’s translated into Traditional Chinese by eagle-eyed volunteers who worked together to match not only the Taishanese dialect that many CID residents read and speak, but also the references and the ways of writing that this generation is familiar with.
The booklet feels hefty; OCA Greater Seattle Chapter had it printed at a relatively high cost, made possible with funding from Cathay Bank Foundation, according to Connie So, director of the Public Safety Pamphlet project. They wanted it to be “lasting and meaningful,” So said.
The booklet is mostly authored by a group of Asian American University of Washington (UW) students and by OCA Seattle volunteers. Its pages are filled with hand-illustrated graphics and cartoons with dialogue, and example scenarios. Illustrations such as Seattle’s light rail map and the listing of Chinese Information and Services Center (CISC), showcase a local focus to the project.
The illustrations were included not only to bypass language barriers, but to connect people on a more personal level with the storytelling and real-life examples, said So.
“We become like kids when we become older,” So said. “I know from my mom, thinking of the way she processed information.” The illustrations, even when depicting ‘hurtful’ concepts, will help elders remember, So said.
The same team that created the booklet under So’s direction is working on Vietnamese and Korean language translations of the booklet. They want to help other AAPI elders who have been targeted by hate crimes.
In the meantime, Chen Lozano continues to distribute the booklets in the CID. It will also debut at Lunar New Year events in January and February. Amy emphasized however, that the booklet is free and accessible to everyone online on OCA Seattle’s website: [link:https://ocaseattle.org/2025/11/18/cid-cares-effort-public-safety-pamphlet-informs-community-seniors-about-how-to-stay-safe/ ]
“Please read it,” said Chen Lozano. “Its not [about] easy topics. But I hope you can find it helpful to have that conversation [about safety and scams] with your parents. Or with your grandparents.”
Scams targeting elders are surging nationwide
The topic of scams takes up the most real estate within the With Love for Our Grandparents & Seniors booklet.
According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), there is an increasing number of older adults (ages 60 and over) falling victim to scams across the country. Older adults reported losing more than $2.4 billion in 2024, nearly a 400% increase from 2020.
The most common types of scams were investment scams, romance scams, or impersonations.
“This crime is not just financial,” said Kathy Stokes, director of fraud prevention programs at the AARP Fraud Watch Network. “Some people have everything taken from them, and they’ll still say the emotional impact is the hardest.”
And these scams are likely underreported, according to the Department of Justice Office for Victims of Crime. “Many crimes go unreported because victims are scared, embarrassed, or don’t know who to call.” [link: https://ovc.ojp.gov/program/stop-elder-fraud/providing-help-restoring-hope ]
Scams targeting older adults are happening to residents of the CID, according to So. She has heard of two examples of elders who recently became victims of “companionship” scams.
“They’re looking for a caretaker, or a companion,” said So. “I think we underestimate how lonely some grandparents or uncles might be in general.” Some have lost their partners, while others are bored….That isolation and a lack of knowing where to turn to, and lack of knowledge about identifying dangerous scam techniques, is exactly why they are the issue given most space in the booklet.
“A vivid story”
The With Love for Our Grandparents & Seniors booklet debuted at the fifth annual CID Cares: Care for Community, Care for Self community event at the International District Community Center on November 15, 2025. About a hundred elderly, mostly Chinese-speaking residents of the CID and Beacon Hill attended. Instead of running a simple powerpoint or lecture, the organizers decided to incorporate as much role-play and participation as possible, explained So.
“If you tell a vivid story about people that you know who experienced some of these issues, or if they share it themselves, it sticks a lot more in our memory,” she said.
Volunteers led skits and demonstrations about dealing with unsafe situations and how to identify scams; what to do when followed, what to do if you’re home alone and someone is banging on the front door. The crowd laughed and nodded along, and some interrupted others by turning to their friends and neighbors to share stories.
Later during the event, volunteers asked the crowd to speak up if they had ever experienced scams and fraud. At first, no one spoke,but then some bravely came forth with stories. “We knew that once someone began talking [about their stories experiencing fraud], a lot of the elderly were going to go ahead and share their stories, too,” said So. “They really did.”
During the event, volunteers ducked between the rows of folding chairs to pass Kleenex boxes for attendees to wipe away tears.
“I know that for people who tell me about it, they’re ashamed of it,” said So. “They don’t want people to know, and this is why, especially for elderly who are lonely and isolated. Being victimized can be emotionally devastating.”
A community effort to keep residents in the CID safe
Dicky Mar, a board member of the International District Emergency Center (IDEC), tabled at the CID Cares event at which the safety booklet debuted, speaking with the attendees and volunteers.
“The pamphlet reinforces what they currently know,” said Mar. He believes the elderly attendees already came to the event with a strong grasp of techniques to promote their personal safety. “But it does introduce them to new threats they may not have considered, like financial scams targeting the elderly.”
CID residents, business owners, and community members have been voicing public safety fears for years. In the Seattle Police Department Seattle Public Safety 2024 survey, C-ID residents reported the highest level of fear of crime of all neighborhoods in the West Precinct.
“Having been in operations for over fifty years, we have seen the best of times and the worst of times,” said Mar. “Currently, crime is directly related to the rise of low cost drugs and persistent homelessness. This attracts an inherent threat to the community’s elderly population. But I think the specific targeting of the Asian elderly, whether for robbery or as a hate crime, has a more direct impact on our community. These types of crimes are not random.”
IDEC’s recent focus has been on programs to train the trainer, including “resilience, education, and community resources”. Providing training on emergency preparedness, first aid classes, grants to support community non-profits to train their clients in the area of public safety.
In OCA Seattle’s efforts with the With Love for Our Grandparents & Seniors booklet, Chen Lozano sees passion in the young volunteers who staffed the CID Cares event. “More than half of the volunteers are in high school,” she said. “We want our elderly to know we care and want to be of service to them.”
“It was truly a labor of love,” said So. “Thank you to grants, writers, illustrators. We recognize them and we remember them, that we don’t take it for granted. We are very grateful to rely on our sponsors UW American Ethnic Studies, Cathay Bank, City of Seattle Department of Neighborhoods, and Historic South Downtown.”
To read the safety pamphlet in full, visit: https://ocaseattle.org/2025/11/18/cid-cares-effort-public-safety-pamphlet-informs-community-seniors-about-how-to-stay-safe/
Theodore Kenzo Dante Bickel is a Seattle-based photographer who has contributed to the International Examiner since 2024. He uses visual storytelling to showcase the vitality of the Chinatown-International District and contemporary Asian American communities in Seattle. He is Shin-Nikkei Japanese American. Born in Portland, Oregon, he grew up in the wilds of southwest Washington state. Theo, or “Tay-o” as his friends call him, found himself putting down roots in the C-ID shortly after arriving in Seattle in 2013. He has spent over a decade working in C-ID community non-profits in development, community engagement, civil rights advocacy, and communications. Theo was one of seven Seattle-based Asian American photographers that published the photography exhibit “Through the Eyes of a Tiger” in May 2023. The photo exhibit blended holistic, not homogenous, views of the C-ID in a critical time of regrowth and development.
