District of Columbia
‘Casa Ruby should be dissolved’: report
Court filing by Wanda Alston Foundation paints grim picture
The Wanda Alston Foundation, which a D.C. Superior Court judge named last month as the city’s receiver for the LGBTQ community services center Casa Ruby, issued a preliminary finding in an interim report filed in court on Tuesday, Sept. 13, declaring that “Casa Ruby should be dissolved in an orderly manner pursuant to D.C. Code.”
The seven-page Receiver’s First Interim Report says an ongoing examination of Casa Ruby’s financial records, which it says were in disarray, indicates outstanding liabilities exceeding $2 million.
“Other than an assortment of donated furnishings at the two leased properties, there are no other meaningful assets,” the report says.
It says the Alston Foundation took immediate steps to secure financial records and sensitive documents pertaining to Casa Ruby’s clients and employees that were abandoned in two leased offices in the Dupont Circle area.
“Casa Ruby’s landlords and employees had gone unpaid for some time and both sites were abandoned and appeared to have been ransacked,” the report says. “The documents which remained were in complete disarray and would require time to collect, organize, and analyze,” it says.
“Eighty percent of the critical records and files at 1635 Connecticut Avenue [N.W.] have been secured and removed,” the report says, enabling the receiver to vacate the property prior to an eviction underway by the landlord.
“However, additional time may be required to go through the records and files at 2033 Connecticut Avenue,” according to the report, which says may require the court to order a temporary stop on the pending eviction at that property.
Superior Court Judge Danya A. Dayson issued an order on Aug. 12 naming the Alston Foundation as the Casa Ruby receiver at the recommendation of the Office of the D.C. Attorney General. The AG’s office stated in court filings that Casa Ruby and its founder and longtime executive director, Ruby Corado, had violated the city’s Nonprofit Corporations Act by failing to account for the expenditure funds provided by D.C. government grants and private donors.
The judge’s order came one day after she approved the AG office’s request that Casa Ruby be placed under receivership and two weeks after the judge approved the AG’s request that all of Casa Ruby’s bank and credit card accounts be frozen.
D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine said his office’s action put forward in a civil lawsuit against Casa Ruby came after he opened an investigation that found the LGBTQ community services center had failed to pay landlords more than $1 million in back rent and could no longer pay the salaries of its employees, forcing the organization to cease most of its operations before a full shutdown in late July.
The receiver’s report filed in court on Monday says in its capacity as receiver, the Alston Foundation attempted to contact Ruby Corado for any additional documents or information related to Casa Ruby’s finances, but Corado did not respond to an email message requesting the information.
“The Receiver did reach out to the D.C. Attorney General’s Office to advise them of potential criminal misconduct that it had uncovered and to make arrangements for the transfer of items deemed to have a significant potential evidentiary value,” the report says. “The details of those discussions and arrangements are omitted from this report in the interest of protecting anticipated ongoing criminal investigations,” it says.
The Alston Foundation, a longstanding LGBTQ organization, has provided housing and support services for D.C. homeless and at-risk LGBTQ youth since its founding in 2008.
In her Aug. 12 order naming the Alston Foundation as the Casa Ruby receiver, Judge Dayson directed the Alston Foundation to submit a preliminary status report by Sept. 13 on its findings on whether Casa Ruby had or could obtain the financial resources to resume operating as an organization supporting LGBTQ people in need, such as emergency housing and immigrant related services, or whether it should be dissolved in an orderly manner.
The judge also asked that the report assess whether the Casa Ruby board of directors “should be reconstituted” following allegations by the D.C. Attorney General’s office that the board for years failed to provide legally required oversight of Casa Ruby’s finances and actions by Ruby Corado.
“Casa Ruby’s Board of Directors failed to provide any meaningful oversight and Casa Ruby should be dissolved in an orderly manner pursuant to D.C. Code 29-412.23,” the Alston Foundation interim report states.
Alston Foundation Executive Director June Crenshaw and its Board of Directors chairperson, Darrin Glymph, couldn’t immediately be reached to determine whether they might reconsider the recommendation of dissolving Casa Ruby as an organization if new members could be recruited to serve on the Casa Ruby board.
The judge, who is expected to make the final decision on the fate of Casa Ruby, called all parties in the case, including Ruby Corado, to appear in court or appear virtually through a phone or video hookup on Sept. 29 for a status hearing.
District of Columbia
Hands Off the Arts to form ‘human chain’ around Kennedy Center
Drag performer Tara Hoot among event organizers
An organization called Hands Off the Arts has announced it is holding a protest on Friday, Sept. 18, in which between 400 and 800 participants are expected to create a “human chain” around the Kennedy Center to voice their strong objection to President Donald Trump’s call for possibly demolishing the Kennedy Center.
“Hands Off the Arts is organizing a rally Sept. 18 against the president’s defacing of JFK’s memorial, his removal and censorship of art, and the threat to demolish the center if he can’t remake the site in his image,” a statement released by the group says.
The statement says the event will start with a rally at 6:30 p.m. on the Kennedy Center steps and culminate with a “human chain” around the building. “There will be musical performances, testimonials from current and former employees, along with other special guest speakers,” it says
A separate announcement by the group says longtime D.C. drag performer Tara Hoot, who has performed at the Kennedy Center in past years, was among the organizers of the Sept. 18 protest.
The planned protest follows Trump’s decision last year to use his authority to replace the existing members of the Kennedy Center’s board of directors with new members loyal to him. Over the objection of longtime Kennedy Center supporters, the Trump-appointed board changed the name of the center, at Trump’s request, from the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts to the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
But following the threat of legal action by opponents who pointed out that the name change could not be legally made unless approved by Congress, the name change was cancelled, with Trump saying he would take steps to restore it later.
The Washington Post, meanwhile, reports in a Sept. 13 news story that because of negative publicity related to Trump’s actions, the Kennedy Center was facing “fiscal collapse” and possible bankruptcy and could be forced to shut down as early as this week.
According to the Post report, a 57-page document presented to the Kennedy Center’s board of trustees says the center was facing a financial and structural building crisis, with the recent collapse of part of the building’s inside ceiling, indicating the building was unsafe for employees and the public. Among other things, the document says the Kennedy Center may not be able to make payroll or pay for routine maintenance “within a matter of weeks,” the Post reports.
Some LGBTQ advocates were among those who joined others in boycotting the Kennedy Center to express their objections to Trump’s actions, including a statement by Trump that he objected to the Kennedy Center’s practice of hosting drag performances.
The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington has been among the LGBTQ performing arts groups and artists that have performed at the Kennedy Center.
“With the future still very much uncertain, now more than ever, the Center needs you to stand up for freedom of expression and against authoritarian overreach into arts and culture institutions,” the Hands Off the Arts group says in its announcement of the Hands Around the Kennedy Center protest.
“You have the opportunity to make a difference — show up with Hands Off the Arts and show your power as part of Hands Around the Kennedy Center,” it says.
A spokesperson for the Kennedy Center couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
District of Columbia
Blade welcomes fall intern
Alexis McLean is student at University of North Florida
The Washington Blade this week welcomed Alexis McLean as its fall intern.
Alexis is studying political science at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, Fla. She is interning with the Blade as part of a continued partnership with the Washington Center.
“I am looking forward to spending my time in the fall with the Washington Blade, as this is a new experience for me,” said Alexis. “I have not experienced any journalist jobs in the past so this would be my first time, and I am excited to better my writing and communications skills with this internship.”
Alexis’s internship with the Blade ends in early December.
District of Columbia
‘People don’t see me. They see a trend’
New popularity of all things Asian warps view of multiple cultures
As I was growing up, my parents often shared stories about how they were bullied when they were my age, just for being Asian. My mom is Cambodian and my dad is “Wasian,” Chinese and white. Students teased them for their looks, their homemade lunches, and treated their traditional holidays as jokes.
I once asked my mom when I was little if she could pack me dumpling leftovers for lunch. “Yes,” she said with a surprised look, adding, “I would have never wanted to bring dumplings to school when I was your age because I would always get bullied for them. I’m glad times have changed.”
At the time, I was confused. Whenever I brought a homemade Asian dish to school for lunch, I was happy to hear intriguing and curious questions from the other kids. It felt good to have my meal be popular and different from the Lunchables everyone else had.
Though times have changed, racism still continues. It just has a new face. Today, social media pretends to flatter our cultures in an insincere way trying to gain popularity just for clicks. Think anything from K-pop to Japan’s surge in international tourism. Even Starbucks has added drinks with the flavor of ube yam, native to the Philippines, onto its menu.
I feel that now when people see me, they don’t see me, they see a trend.
For years, Asian people have been portrayed as foreign or exotic. The new embrace of foods and fashion at first felt good. Asians have never been represented as much as they’ve deserved.
But this new popularity warps what non-Asians see. Instead of the blunt and direct racism my parents faced, everything now is a gray area, more discreetly hidden behind some TikTok video. It actually normalizes racism and stereotypes.
Whitewashing my culture
As a 15-year-old Asian American who lives in D.C., I’ve always been one of the few Asian kids in school; my high school today counts less than 2 percent of students as being of Asian descent. I remember always being called “that one Asian girl” or some slur a kid learned from their parents. Every time I search for something related to Asian culture, such as a recipe or maybe a holiday, it’s always the same thing: some white person whitewashing my culture.
Social media is the main culprit, of course. I realized this when I entered high school and got a phone and was introduced to the internet. That is when I realized how messed up the new stereotypes around Asians are.
One pattern I started to notice was people wanting to be Asian just because it was popular. It was hurtful, patronizing, and annoying. They made assumptions about our race and then only found us “cool” because we were trending. How can people go from hating us or finding us weird, to then only liking us because we’re popular?
There was a trend going around on TikTok called “race change to another” or RCTA. It is this trend of people manifesting certain physical traits to change their appearance in order to change races. According to journalist Emi Tran, writing then as an intern for NBC Digital, the trend started when a white woman wanted to be Japanese. The woman began posting TikTok videos of herself wishing for different features such as monolids. Tran wrote in that 2023 article that “the overwhelming majority of the RCTA community wants to be East Asian.”
People also look up to K-pop culture, idolizing the pop groups pulled together by big entertainment companies. Most people expect all Koreans to be K-pop fans. Korean friends are asked about K-pop all the time even though they are not into the South Korean music genre.
Although I am not South Korean — I am half Cambodian and Chinese — I still get asked, almost like I’m expected, “You’re really into this group, right?” or “Can you tell me how to pronounce this member’s name?”
I was asked even worse questions during COVID-19. Suddenly, discrimination and violence were increasing specifically toward Asians everywhere. Suddenly, almost everyone was blaming Chinese people for spreading and causing COVID-19.
I remember going to school for one of the last times before quarantine had started and hearing kids whisper, “Oh, she’s going to give us the Coronavirus.” President Donald Trump had publicly posted his opinions about the situation on social media, blaming China for the pandemic, even calling it the “Chinese Virus” or the “Wuhan Virus.” According to NPR, anti-Asian hate crimes in U.S. cities surged 149 percent that year.
The topic of Asians in the media has always been complicated. One moment people can hate us for being weird and different and the next we’re suddenly popular and cool for the same reasons.
I feel conflicted on whether I should feel happy that we’re being represented or angry that it’s all for the wrong reason and has the wrong effects.
Lily Brugman is a sophomore at Benjamin Banneker Academic High School, one of Youthcast Media Group’s journalism class partners. She worked with YMG volunteer and Professor Emerita in journalism at American University Amy Eisman on this piece.
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