RARE Welcomes Cece Chan to Film Outreach Team
Welcome to Cece Chan – RARE’s newly on-boarded Film Outreach Coordinator!
RARE is thrilled to have Cece leading the efforts to promote its documentary film “RHS: Beyond Black & White” – as well as RARE as an organization. Her relationship-centered approach to community partnerships and outreach has already connected RARE with new (and renewed) racial equity focused allies in the region.
Cece (she/her) is a community organizer, artist, and activist born and raised in Seattle, Washington. Her passions include using storytelling, digital marketing, and grassroots organizing to empower and heal people. She is a proud alumnus of Nathan Hale High School ‘19 and most recently – Pacific Lutheran University (PLU) ‘24 where she received her B.A. in Communications and a B.A. in Gender, Sexuality, and Race Studies with a minor in Psychology.
Both of her parents and their families grew up in South Seattle where they were students during Seattle’s post-segregation efforts. Her parents recall memories of taking tours to west and north-end schools during the voluntary stage of the busing program. Years later, her dad found a job in northeast Seattle, moved, and started a family with her mom.
As a 3rd/4th generation Chinese American, Cece’s activist journey started with reflections upon her cultural identity, including her racialized experiences in northeast Seattle Schools where she navigated racism from peers, educators, and the curriculum.
During her senior year Cece was offered an opportunity to join The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Youth Council (NAACP-YC or N-YC) as Nathan Hale High School’s representative to advocate for racial justice with students from across the district.
While with N-YC, she testified at Seattle School Board meetings, spoke on panels, and led workshops about the importance of ethnic studies, Black lives, and acting on student voices. Her most notable accomplishment from her Seattle Schools era is her film For the Culture: An Ethnic Studies Documentary which captured testimonies from students, teachers, community organizers, professors, school board members, and NFL star Michael Bennett about the importance of curriculum that is relevant and representative of Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) students and their stories.
Cece continued her passions for racial justice and student advocacy into college where she served as Diversity Director and President for PLU’s student government and studied abroad in Trinidad and Tobago for a semester at the University of the West Indies. There, she studied how expressions of art can be tools for resistance against oppression.
During these summers Cece also worked, and continues to work for: Friendly Hmong Farms and the Pacific Northwest (PNW) BIPOC Farmland Trust, both grassroots organizations focused on serving BIPOC farmers through re-imagining our food systems through land and holistic justice. In fact, for her capstones, she followed and filmed a Hmong flower farmer from Pike Place Market to study how labor systems impact Hmong refugee farmers who navigate the model minority myth within our agricultural systems.
She now enjoys being back at home with her family, in the community that helped raise her. Her post-graduation hobbies include weight lifting, attending Zumba classes, taking care of her 6-month-old puppy named Shumai, watching Marvel movies with her dad, and continuing to finish up her film: What It Takes: The Hmong Flower Farmers of Pike Place Market.
Welcome Cece! We are looking forward to where you will take RARE!