In a few weeks, Salem City Council will decide whether to change its current city seal. Local Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community members have repeatedly called for replacing
In a few weeks, Salem City Council will vote whether to change the current city seal. It is LONG overdue for city leaders to recognize that the current seal—adopted
Throughout the debate surrounding Salem's city seal, local members of the AAPI community have been repeatedly belittled, gaslit, and ignored. Advocates for keeping the seal have fixated on
At the heart of the debate regarding Salem's city seal is the question of about how we want to portray ourselves in the present day. Because a seal
Ardent supporters of Salem's current seal maintain that its design was an expression of benevolence toward the city's Acehnese trading partners. Because its creators had good
As I have written in a previous article, I believe the intentions of the aldermen who approved Salem's seal nearly 200 years ago have no bearing on the
In the first article in this series about Salem's maritime trade with Asia, I examined issues with Dr. R. Michael Feener and Vijay Joyce's use of
Proponents of Salem's current city seal claim that local leaders have rushed the review process and have not given the public enough time to express their views. The
