CLP Alumni Award

ACLF Alumni Achievement Award

The Alumni Achievement Award recognizes and honors an outstanding Community Leaders Program alumni in their achievements and contributions to the API community since graduating from the program.

Alumni Achievement Awardee:
Dale Watanabe

A headshot of 2018 CLP Alumni Achievement Awardee, Dale Watanabe

Dale H Watanabe was born and raised in Seattle and is a graduate of the University of Washington. He is Sansei, third generation Japanese American, and is a descendant of a family imprisoned in 1942 in Block 14 at the Minidoka Concentration camp in Southern Idaho.

During college Dale was staff at the Japanese American Citizens League and after college spent time overseas which helped define his career path. Dale is currently the Director of the International Student Center of Seattle University and has been staff of the Center since 2001. He took the job to help pay back the kindness he received overseas. Work there has been directly impacted by 9/11, immigration and government policy. Current events foster Dale’s passion to learn from history so a civil rights violation like EO 9066 which forced the incarceration of his family does not happen again. Executive member of the Minidoka Pilgrimage Planning Committee, he works to include the general public and youth in learning from and experiencing the Minidoka National Historic Site in Idaho.

Dale is active with his church on Beacon Hill, Blaine Memorial United Methodist Church, and has spoken there on his Queer Christian identity and the importance of connecting the Muslim experience of today with his own experience. Dale is a graduate of the ACLF cohort of 2008 and is thankful to the work of founding member Kip Tokuda and others for their vision and dedication to community. Dale is thankful to his family and friends for their loving support, and to his partner Bif Brigman for always keeping it real.