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Last Chance Shelter--Downtown Tacoma, Mike Snider, center, and Ed Quarrles, on right, talk with an unidentified man at the overnight shelter Monday night. Many of the other guests were already asleep.
Bruce Kellman - Photo

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Peter Garcia enjoys a bowl of turkey noodle soup Friday during the lunch time meal at the Nativity House at 1517 Commerce in Tacoma. Two meals a day are served free of charge to the needy. City officials are concerned with possible drug activity in the neighborhood.
Bruce Kellman with Mike Gilbert/story

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Serving food in this photo: On left are patrons of the free lunch. On right is Anna Maria Garcia. Next to her is Arturo Garcia, holding another plate of food. Men at the table are not identified.
A Mexican style lunch was served at the Nativity House in downtown Tacoma Wednesday. The rice, beans and meat for large burritos were supplied by Arturo Garcia, owner of Moctezuma restaurant. The meal was the idea of Anna Maria Garcia, a social worker with the Health Department's AIDs Outreach program. She asked Mr. Garcia, (who is no relation) to provide the food. Father Gary Smith, S. J., is director of the Nativity House. His establishment provided the setting. Anna Maria Garcia said that a table with literature used in the fight against AIDS was placed where the guests would have access to the information. She said many of the people she meets in her work are Latinos. The idea was to give them a Latino meal during Christmas week.
Note: McDonald's on 6th Avenue provided the orange drinks.
Bruce Kellman/Photo

"Staff member Kevin Coley hugged a drop-in at Nativity House, a Commerce Street haven for the homeless." The Liberty Project revitalizing downtown Tacoma's Lower Pacific will most likely scatter the homeless population. However, according to people and organizations who work with rehabilitating people, it will not end the homelessness issue. It was suggested that the plan involve housing and training for the disadvantaged.

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Nativity House Worker & "Drop-In"
Larson

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Norwegian Festival

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Asian Day

A child throws a frisbee while at Camp Murray. Vietnamese refugees moved to the Tacoma area in search of new jobs and with them came their families.

Son Deth, a Cambodian refugee, with two of her nine children. Son Deth moved with her family to Pierce County in 1975 and was sponsored by the Christ Lutheran Church of Lakewood.

Chef Leonard Travka dishes out food to Vietnamese refugees at Camp Murray.

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Kiem Van Dao
Photograph by Bob Rudsit

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--Statue of Love and Gratitude--
Sai Dinh Nguyen works on a statue of love and gratitude that he and Khuyen Van Hoang molded from 1,200 pounds of concrete. It isn't known yet where the statue will be placed, though some consideration has been given to moving it to a community center at Bayview, WA.

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--New Life--
A plastic bathtub is something new to Vietnamese refugees Long Vo and his wife, Lahn, both 21, who arrived in Wenatchee last month. They are starting a new life with their 2-year-old daughter, Tien, and infant son.

A child sleeps at Sea-Tac Airport after an 11-hour flight from Hong Kong. They were among 300 refugees who had arrived in early June 1979 at Sea-Tac Airport.

A Vietnamese refugee holds her belongings following an 11-hour flight from Hong Kong

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Ramona Bennett

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Ramona Bennett

Staff photo by Jerry Buck

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Ramona Bennett shown with her daughter, Ee-Nuck-A-Mee, 7, is best known for her years of activism as Chairwomen of the Puyallup Tribe in Tacoma, Wash. Today, Ms. Bennett is Director of Family Services at the Seattle Indian Center where her job involves finding Indian foster homes for homeless Indian children.

Staff photo by Bruce Kellman

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Tom Dixon
Staff photo by Jerry Buck

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Tom Dixon, president of the Tacoma Urban League speaks to the media. The Rev. J.A. Boles sits beyond. These men delivered a statement to the press after conferring with other Black community leaders at St. John Baptist Church. The subject is police procedures and the shooting of a Black purse snatching suspect.
Staff photo by Peter Haley

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Gabriel Landry (Puyallup Indian)

TACOMA., Washington -- A WINNER -- Bill Smitherman, left, won his race for a seat in the Washington House of Representatives, to become the only Black in that legislative body. His father, Willy Joel Smitherman, right, also ran for a House seat, but lost.
Associated Press Photo

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Bill Smitherman

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Rep. Bill Smitherman, center

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DEAD AT 66--Yakima Indian fishing rights activist David Sohappy Senior stands on the bank of the Columbia River in front of an old fishing platform at Cooks Landing, Washington, in this November 1990 file photo. Sohappy died Monday at Hood River Care Center in Oregon. Sohappy had been in ill health since suffering a stroke in 1988.
Associated Press File Photo, 1990

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WHITE SWAN, WASHINGTON -- SOHAPPY BURIED -- Mourners circle the grave of David Sohappy Sr. during his funeral service Thursday on the Yakima Indian Reservation. Sohappy, a well-known fishing rights activist, died on Monday.
Associated Press Photo

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The Rev. George Stallings conducts services at the Allen African Methodist Episcopal Church/ Stallings has broke away from the Roman Catholic Church and has founded his own Imani Temple in Washington D.C.
NEWS/MAYNARD; Staff Photo by Bill Hunter

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Bill Sterud

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Photo by Bruce A. Kellman

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"Damon Herd, the Tacoma Fire Dept's 1st black Fire Marshal, stands before a fire truck at the station that also is home to his office (901 Fawcett)."

Herd is 36 years old in the photo and became a firefighter in 1971. According to Herd, he was a part of the first group of minority applicants that the Tacoma Fire Department recruited in the early 1970s.