2009-03-05 Human Relations Advisory Committee Minutes

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RE EII/tu HUMAN RELATIONS ADVISORY COMMITTEE V MINUTES RADi1 ~3 tit ~S. March 5, 2009, 7:30PM at Police Station Upstairs Conference Room Present: Nancy Najmi, Chair, Margaret Soli, Lori Hodin, Monique Gnanaratnam, ~~IA&Z er, y j McDonald, Randall Jones, P. Kelley, members; Also present; Rev Kyung Lyul Yu, Pastor, Korean Church of the Nazarene, Sammy Kwon, and Chris Chong. Rev. Yu reported that he had lived in town for 6 years and is pastor of the church of the Nazarene on Main Street and has been a member of the clergy Association. His people have had a hard time adjusting. One young man in the eighth grade at the time claimed that the Reading people were racist. He would not listen to Rev. Yu, ignored his advice in dealing with the situation and eventually dropped out of high school without graduating. He has a first grade child who came home from school (Barrows) and said she wished she had blond hair. She said her classmates formed a club and required that one have blond hair to be a member. Because of this her teacher died her hair black. These are his concerns. Committee members sympathized and expressed hope that the schools are dealing with such problems. The library has attempted to reach out by supplying books for minority groups and on cultural issues. Paul remarked that Birch Meadow School had just completed an International dinner at which representative of the various nationalities which made up the school population made some of their national foods available and also exhibited art, dance, dress and cultural information about their nationalities. (He had mistakenly thought this was the school Rev Yu's daughter attended. However, perhaps a similar even could be developed at her school.) Chris Chong stated that he had lived in U.S. for 20years and recently had lived in Andover. He was surprised and pleased to learn that there was such a committee as this at which such issues could be aired. Sammy Kwon said he had come to this country at age 17 in 1971, had live in many different states and attended a number of schools. At one time he was the only Asian in his high school. He lived in Lexington for 10 years and now lives in Reading. He respects this country. He had been very sick at one time and this country saved his life by the medical care provided him. He loves this country. The committee members were grateful that these gentlemen had come and expressed the hope that they and their country people would feel free to come to the committee on any further issues on which the committee might be able to be of assistance. Following the discussion they left the meeting. The balance of the meeting was taken up with the discussion of preparations for the play, The Laramie Project. Nancy noted that the drama club had met and urged that people come to the play to support them. Rev. Tim Kutzmark of the Unitarian-Universalist Church will hold a unity prayer service prior to the play at 6:45 on the evening that the Westboro Baptist Church is coming to picket and the clergy as a group are planning that evening to attend as a group in the front row. Chief Cormier explained details about the preparations, where the space for the pickets would be and additional space for any counter demonstrators. Counter demonstrators are the great unknown and we must be prepared for that possibility. Lori had earlier attended a fundraiser where all were impressed with the Chief's preparation. Nancy said that a community follow up event is being planned sponsored by many interested groups such as PFLAQ the GSA to encourage participation by these groups, teachers, clergy, students and parents to have a community forum and discussion on issues raised by the play and events around it. She also plans with the committee's approval to have our next meeting consist first of an open meeting at which interested persons may have a preliminary discussion of the issues. The members agreed that this was a good idea. Finally the minutes of the meeting of February 5, 2009 were accepted and the Committee adjourned at 9:00 PM. Respectfully submitted, Paul Kelley, Secretary