Honoring Bobby Balcena, the first Filipino baseball player in the Major Leagues
By Emily Hawks
One of the great things about Major League Baseball (MLB) is its international reach. On Opening Day in 2025, MLB team rosters had 265 international members spanning 18 different countries and territories. Two years prior, MLB reported that over 40% of rosters were composed of people from diverse backgrounds. However, this was not always the case. MLB was racially segregated for nearly 60 years until Jackie Robinson debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. While MLB celebrates Robinson every year on the anniversary of his debut, another barrier-breaker with Pacific Northwest connections also deserves acclaim.
Bobby Balcena made his MLB debut with the Cincinnati Redlegs on September 16, 1956. He was the first Asian American, and first player of Filipino descent, to play in MLB. Balcena was born on August 1, 1925 in San Pedro, CA, and died in 1990. This August marks.
Prior to his baseball career, Balcena served three years with the Navy in the South Pacific during World War II. In addition to his seven MLB games, Balcena played 15 seasons with several Minor League clubs, including four with the Seattle Rainiers of the Pacific Coast League, between 1955 and 1958. Standing at 5’7”, he was a fan favorite at Sick’s Stadium, then located in the Rainier Valley neighborhood of Seattle. He posted a .291 batting average with seven home runs and nine stolen bases in their championship turn in 1955. After his playing career was over, he remained in Seattle and worked as a longshoreman.
Disabled US veteran released from solitary confinement after detainment at citizenship interview
By Hong Ta
On August 21, Muhammad Zahid Chaudhry was taken into custody by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during a citizenship interview at the Citizen and Immigration Services office in Tukwila, Washington. The practice has become increasingly common under the current presidential administration.
He was then placed in solitary confinement for five nights and six days under 24/7 bright lights, according to Melissa Chaudhry, his wife and a former candidate for Washington State’s House of Representatives. He was released on August 26 and is currently in the general population with other detainees.
“He was getting light sick and very disoriented and having trouble talking to me on the phone under the conditions they were keeping him in,” Melissa Chaudhry said, “We see substantial irregularities in how ICE conducted his detention. It looks to us like they weaponized the immigration process to facilitate this detention. They never intended that nationalization interview to be the real thing.”
The family is working with CAIR to call for federal authorities to release Chaudhry and organized an emergency protest at the Northwest Detention Center on August 24, where he is currently being held.
“I took the kids in to see them on Sunday—behind glass and over the phones, like he’s some kind of criminal,” Melissa Chaudhry said. “Our toddler couldn’t understand why she couldn’t go crawling on her Baba’s lap and cuddle with him.”
“We have seen that under this administration, Muslims are being targeted for unusually harsh immigration enforcement,” said Hannah Vickner Hough, Legal Director at CAIR-WA, the local branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
On August 29 at his bond hearing, he will remain in immigration detention after Judge Theresa Scala decided she needed more time to determine if the court has jurisdiction over his case.
Chaudhry is originally from Pakistan and joined the US Army. He got injured during a training to go to Iraq in 2003 and was later discharged in 2005. According to the organization, he is a member of Veterans for Peace. He had been living in the US legally for approximately 25 years and holds a green card.
As of September 1, the ICE Office of Public Affairs has not responded to a request for a comment on the arrest.
Sadako Renewal Project works to create a new space after the memorial was stolen
By Hong Ta
Over a year ago, at the Seattle Peace Park, the statue of Sadako Sasaki was cut off at the ankles and stolen, alongside other bronze public art pieces in the area. Today, the Sadako Renewal Project is fundraising to build and maintain a new sculpture at the park.
The statue was a commemoration of a survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bomb, dropped in 1945. Sasaki survived the bomb when she was two-years-old, but developed leukemia and later died at 12 due to radiation. While she was hospitalized, she folded paper cranes, after being inspired by the Japanese legend that folding one thousand paper cranes could grant her wish.
The project will be completed within two years, according to Tara Tamaribuchi, a local arts leader and a board member at the organization. She is also a board member at the Seattle Betsuin Buddhist Temple, which is part of the coalition started by activist and writer Stan Shikuma that includes Japanese American, Quaker, and community members working to restore the space.
In May 2025, the group commissioned local artist Saya Moriyasu to create an interactive design space and a new aluminum cast of Sadako wearing a kimono surrounded
by large gingko leaf structures.
Currently, the fundraising environment has been challenging, with the group’s maximum goal being $500,000.
“We’re thinking $300,000 at the minimum, but we just don’t know with tariffs, and with aluminum and these materials, and the costs of engineering and fabrication, if things will change,” Tamaribuchi says.
To learn more about the campaign efforts, visit the Sadako Renewal Project site at https://www.sadakorenewalproject.com/the-campaign.
