We are incredibly honored to announce that my guest on June 7th at 10am PST on “Immigration with Tahmina” on Desi 1250am radio will be the Deputy Mayor of Seattle, Hyeok Kim! The City of Seattle has been especially progressive on immigration issues. Deputy Mayor Kim will discuss some of those initiatives.
Hyeok Kim is Deputy Mayor for the City of Seattle focused on external and community relations. She was appointed to this position by Mayor 
Ed Murray in January 2014, becoming the first Asian American woman to hold such a position in Seattle’s history. Deputy Mayor Kim is responsible for helping to develop and promote meaningful connections and relationships between the Mayor’s office and city government with the diverse neighborhoods and communities of Seattle and with state, federal, and international partners. She also leads special projects and strategic initiatives on the Mayor’s behalf.
Before joining the Murray Administration, she was Executive Director of Interim Community Development Association (Interim CDA), a nonprofit affordable housing and community development corporation based in Seattle’s Chinatown/International District. Prior to that, she was a senior policy analyst for Speaker of the House Frank Chopp and the House Democratic Caucus in the Washington State Legislature, where she staffed affordable housing, human services, foster care, welfare and workforce development, and early learning issues.
Over the past decade and a half, Deputy Mayor Kim has volunteered extensively in the community and in civic life. She is a former Commissioner on President Barack Obama’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (2010-2013), which is part of the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. She has served on the Boards of the Northwest Area Foundation, a philanthropic organization that serves an eight-state region with a mission to alleviate poverty, and the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development (National CAPACD). In 2010, she was selected as aMarshall Memorial Fellow and in 2010-2011, she was a Casey Fellow through the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Children and Family Fellowship Program.
Deputy Mayor Kim is a graduate of Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York. She was born in Seoul, South Korea, and immigrated with her family to the United States at the age of five. She grew up in the Pacific Northwest where she and her family lived in publicly-subsidized housing through much of her childhood and adolescence. She currently lives in Seattle with her husband.
Deputy Mayor Kim will be on my radio talk show “Immigration with Tahmina Watson” at 10 am on June 7th on Desi 1250 AM. You can tune into your radio at 1250 AM or listen online at www.desi1250am.com. Very much looking forward to this interview!