World Affairs Council’s Illuminate winners making Pittsburgh a more equitable place
Even if the community work that Marian Lien does is more of a side gig than a full-time pursuit, she has still managed to accomplish a lot during her decade-plus in Pittsburgh.
By day, Ms. Lien, 53, of Squirrel Hill, works as St. Edmund’s Academy’s first director of education for equity, inclusion and global awareness. In her spare time, the Taiwan native who grew up in Southern California has jumped head first into making her adopted city a better place to live. She once served as executive director of the Squirrel Hill Urban Coalition and is still the president of Pittsburgh’s Organization for Chinese Americans chapter.
In addition, she was instrumental in establishing Squirrel Hill’s Lunar New Year Parade and, just last month, convincing the state to officially recognize Pittsburgh’s Chinatown as a Pennsylvania historical landmark.
“I am very lucky,” Ms. Lien told the Post-Gazette. “I have always either been in the right place at the right time or have been able to find individuals who have seen I can apply my skill set to things. I am always happy when I’m able to help in ways to create a greater whole.”
After everything she’s done for Pittsburgh — especially its Asian American and Pacific Islander community— Ms. Lien was among the five Pittsburghers who earlier in May received the World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh’s Illuminate Award. She was “absolutely chopped to bits” when she found out she had won this award from an organization as prestigious as the World Affairs Council.
This is the first year the council has given out Illuminate Awards, which are meant to honor “leaders who have made a difference in advancing global mindedness and connection in the Pittsburgh region,” according to its website.
The Illuminate Award winners were sorted into four categories: community leader, business leader, educator and youth. The World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh selected Ms. Lien as its community leader, The Equity | Impact Center president and CEO Leigh Solomon Pugliano as its business leader, Manchester Bidwell Corporation founder and executive chairman Bill Strickland as its educator, and Sharifa Mkomwa and Rahwa Angesom as youth recipients.
Both Ms. Mkomwa and Ms. Angesom are co-facilitators of the Alliance for Refugee Youth Support and Education’s Youth Steering Committee. Ms. Mkomwa is a 20year-old Kenya native studying social work at the Community College of Allegheny County, while Ms. Angesom hails from Eritrea and is an 18-year-old Brashear High
School senior. Both of them moved to Pittsburgh in 2017 via the refugee resettlementprocess.
They both came here knowing almost no one and very little English. To be recognized by the World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh after how much they both struggled just to carve out relatively normal lives in Pittsburgh blew both their minds. Ms. Mkomwa and Ms. Angesom both credit ARYSE for helping them feel as if there was a place for themin Pittsburgh.
“It was my first time seeing people who are the same as me, even if they don’t speak the language,” Ms. Angesom said. “It was really great people that I met there. That’s the time that I felt very welcomed in Pittsburgh.”
Pittsburgh wasn’t always a hospitable place for them. Ms. Angesom
said that she would sometimes get bullied in middle school for being different, and Ms. Mkomwa mentioned a conflict with former neighbors that she was afraid might escalatebut happily never did.
“I felt like these people don’t like me,” Ms. Mkomwa said. “It’s like, this is not your country. That’s how I felt, maybe that this place isn’t welcoming for everyone. If these people hateus, what is the point?”
At least they always had ARYSE, which both of them have taken on greater responsibilities with as camp counselors, Youth Steering Committee co-facilitators and, in Ms. Mkomwa’s case, as a current intern.
All they want is for Pittsburghers to be kind to refugees and make even the smallest effort to make them feel included in all the
Steel City has to offer.
“They should treat people equally instead of unequally,” Ms. Mkomwa said. “Even if they see refugee immigrant children, they should be treating them the way they are treating others and keep making Pittsburgh a beautiful and welcoming place for everyone.”
Ms. Lien also is familiar with being made to feel lesser than in Pittsburgh. She described herself as a “1.5-gener” because she was born in Taiwan but spent most of her formative years in the United States. It’s been disheartening for her to see how most equity conversations in this city focus on whiteBlack relations and leave out other marginalized communities, including the Asian American and Pacific Islander population.
“It really has otherized my community,” she said. “Having to watch not being included has been very hard for me. I want to tell you that I actually love this city, and I do the things I do because I see so much possibility. But there are days I feel the city doesn’t love me back.”
There have been moments that made Ms. Lien feel like “maybe we’re ready to turn the corner,” though, such as getting the Lunar New Year Parade going and earning that historical landmark designation for Chinatown. Then there’s her work at St. Edmund’s, where she gets to “plant these seeds of compassion” in her students and make sure they know that “just because you’re little physically, it doesn’t mean you don’t have something to contribute.”
She hopes Pittsburgh’s “small but mighty” Asian American and Pacific Islander community remembers that they are wanted in Pittsburgh and absolutely belong here.
“[W]e have to be part of that solution of creating belonging too,” Ms. Lien said. “We have to be creating that space that we can call home here, one that’s a permanent one.”