| | Great news -- This summer's DAY Project youth were featured in the Detroit Free Press recently! Kudos to everyone! 
For the web version of the story, visit the following link:
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2006607300592
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Detroit Free Press newspaper, Page A2
Detroit
FIVE THINGS: ABOUT A DETROIT ACTIVIST
BY EMILIANA SANDOVAL
DETROIT FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Michelle Lin, 25, is one of the people working to make the city a
better place for everyone.
A LONG WAY
Lin's family came to the United States from Taiwan when she was 3.
She grew up in Atlanta and came to Michigan because she dreamed of
becoming a forest ranger, and the University of Michigan had an
excellent program.
"I had a very idyllic vision of what being a forest ranger would be
like," she said. "But like a lot of people who go to college, I
found myself. I got politicized in race and class issues."
She studied environmental science and policy at U-M and moved to
Detroit after graduation. Her two brothers also attended U-M.
LOOKING FORWARD
Lin spent three years at the Arab Community Center for Economic and
Social Services in Dearborn, working in environmental justice, "a
coming together of civil rights and environmental issues. Like,
there's more pollution where there's poverty." Now she's a
community development specialist at the Cass Corridor Neighborhood
Development Corp., and she lives in the Cass Corridor.
AN EDUCATOR
Lin is the director of the Detroit Asian Youth Project, a free
program for students ages 13 to 19. From July 6 to Aug. 12, seven
students meet three days a week to learn about Detroit and do all
sorts of stuff, such as photography, gardening and theater. There
also is an after-school program.
This summer -- the program's third -- the students, most of whom
are Hmong, are making a movie about what it means to be Asian in
Detroit. They have met with civil rights leader Grace Lee Boggs and
a Japanese woman placed in a U.S. internment camp during World War II.
EXPANDING HORIZONS
Lin says she has learned as much from the students as she hopes
they've learned about the city and themselves.
"It's reshaping how I think about race and youth, and what it means
to be Asian in a black city," she said.
She'd like to go to grad school in urban planning, then return to
Detroit.
FLYING HIGH
She kicks back by checking out local bands or by flying kites on
Belle Isle.
"A few years ago I was in D.C. during the international kite
festival, and it sounds really cheesy, but it was one of the most
beautiful things I'd ever seen," she said.
"I talked about it so much that some people came together and
bought me a kite. It's really relaxing. It's a fun way to bring
friends to the park and hang out."
--------------
Large Photo:
Michelle Lin, front, coordinates the Detroit Asian Youth Project.
Behind her, from left, are Pao Kia Yang, 15, of Detroit, Pang Thor,
13, of Detroit, Tong Lor, 14, of Warren, mentor Hugo Shi, 24, of
Ann Arbor, Steve Lee, 18, of Detroit, Dia Yang, 17, of Detroit and
Mai Ka Yeng Moua, 17, of Detroit. They are in front of a mural in
the Cass Corridor, where Lin lives and works. (Photos by AMY LEANG/
Detroit Free Press)
Side Photo: Lin and Dia Yang pick vegetables in Detroit earlier
this month. "I moved to Detroit because I was really inspired by
its potential, the community activists here and by its history,"
says Lin, who was born in Taiwan and was raised in Atlanta.
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| | Posted 8/8/2006 11:04 PM - 84 views - 2 comments
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