Bruce Lee Community Peace Garden Proposal

Bruce Lee Community Peace Garden Proposal

“The University of Washington is committed to promoting respect for the rights and privileges of others, the understanding and appreciation of human differences, and the constructive expression of ideas.”

To the Administration of the University of Washington & Greater Community,

This proposal is addressed to the current UW Administration on behalf of a community advocacy group consisting of UW alumni, current students and community members. In the fall of 2007, a class titled CHID 496 L: Bruce Lee Dedication was organized in order to plan and support this proposal for a dedication to our most famous alumnus, Bruce Jun Fan Lee. This proposal is the product of a years worth of grassroots organizing, open discussion, and dialogue around Bruce’s legacy at the UW and beyond, as well as our belief of the necessity for more representation of our diverse experiences at the UW, past and present.

Considering the current strides to recognize the various perspectives of our community, we believe that this dedication, along with the dialogue that will accompany it, is a natural progression of the University’s promise for inclusion and equal representation and respect. What follows is a brief history of Bruce’s influence in our community, a showcase of the vast support we have accumulated over the past twelve months, and our explanation of our proposed requests as well as the reasoning behind them.

“Under the sky…under the heavens, there is but one family.
It just so happens that people are different.” – Bruce Lee

The University of Washington & Bruce Lee:

Bruce Lee (born Lee Jun Fan in San Francisco, CA on November 27, 1940) attended the University of Washington from 1961-1964. During his stay at the UW, Bruce studied philosophy and drama as a way to better understand the world around him and the potential impact he could make. While at the UW, he learned that he could make quite an impressive one. Though he never graduated, Bruce’s experience at the UW would help him prepare to take on the world as an international superstar. As taken from the official Bruce Lee Foundation website;

“Bruce Lee believed in education. He pursued a Bachelors degree in Philosophy at the University of Washington while at the same time teaching Gung Fu and lecturing on Eastern Philosophy at the local High School.”

While at the UW, Bruce began to teach students, one of whom who would later become his wife, Linda Emery. From teaching his philosophies on Martial Arts on the lawns of the UW campus, to opening up one of his schools on University Avenue, it is apparent that the UW experience helped to mold Bruce to become the legend he would grow to be.

Now, some 35 years after his untimely death at the age of 32, Bruce’s impact can still be felt around the world. TIME Magazine named Bruce one of the “100 Most Important People of the 20th Century”, a list that comprises of the likes of Gandhi, Stalin and Einstein. After the three year war in the mid-1990’s in Bosnia-Herzegovina, a statue of Bruce Lee was erected in Mostar as a symbol of “Peace & Unity”, a direct reflection of Bruce’s dedication to humanity and peace. Never one to discriminate on whom his students could and could not be, Bruce went on to break into the mainstream as the first Asian American actor to headline his own films internationally, breaking years of stereotypes of Asian Americans.

However, being an Asian American, Bruce had to overcome tremendous amounts of adversity as an underrepresented person. As we continue to strive for complete equality and opportunities for all people regardless of how societal conditioning places them, we cannot forget the individuals (like Bruce) who made the strides necessary for us to continue to promote civil rights and social justice.

This was the main purpose of our class.

Community Support:

Knowing and recognizing the continual progress for equality that has most recently been a focus at the UW, we believe that as a community our respects are due to Bruce, his legacy and the impact he continues to make.

As part of our grassroots campaign for support, we held a press conference on November 26, 2007 (a day before Bruce’s birthday), concerning our class purpose and hopes for the future. Word spread fast to an international level, with individual’s posting blogs from Seattle to China. The support we have gained has been amazing:

1) Unanimous Passing of ASUW Resolution, R-14-8;
‘A Resolution in Support of Diverse Representation of the UW Student Body through the Alumnus Jun Fan “Bruce” Lee’

2) Columns, the official UW Alumni Magazine, named Bruce as one of the 100 Alumni of the century and stated,

“Lee was the first Asian-American superstar when he died in 1973. Since then, his life has been the subject of more than 25 biographies and one Hollywood film. Of all the former UW students we considered, Bruce Lee is probably the most famous.”

3) Several businesses in the University area (predominately the “Ave”) have dedicated their support to the project. As we continue our grassroots campaign, we continue to gain more support from local community businesses.

4) Through our online Facebook Petition Group,
“Support the Bruce Lee UW Community Peace Garden”,
we have over 1,300 supporters worldwide as of October 20, 2008 and counting.

5) We have the official support and endorsement of the Bruce Lee Family and the Bruce Lee Foundation.
Our Proposed Requests:

“Knowing is not enough, we must apply… Willing is not enough, we must do”
– Bruce Lee

Now, we are asking for the support of the UW Administration, faculty, staff, students and community to make our requests a reality:

(1) A Bruce Lee UW Community Peace Garden, to be placed on the main campus of the UW. This public space, open to whole community, will be a place for rest, relaxation and reflection to gather oneself. This will truly be a place that is in the spirit of Bruce’s dedication to peace, harmony and unity. In respect to the family and Bruce’s legacy, once approved, we will ask the family what they would like to see in the Garden to reflect Bruce’s true character and contributions to the world.

Our proposed site is the current HUB Yard. We believe this will be a perfect location and act as a wonderful gesture of making “diversity and inclusion the center of our campus”. Our intention is to maintain the landscape without disrespectfully altering it or taking away from its usefulness and history.

(2) An organized Quarterly Forum or gathering of current UW students, faculty, administration, staff and community members that will focus on the importance of understanding our history and contributions to equality. This will act as a liberated zone for our community to openly discuss representation, history, and how we can work together truthfully and honestly to promote peace amongst all people.

(3) A more openly distributed and transparent form of information reporting to the community on what the UW is currently doing to promote social justice, and how we will together face the issues that currently keep certain groups of people unequal. Knowing that many strides have been made recently, we believe we can get more students, staff, and community members to have an equal hand in promoting these advancements while sharing and building our common goals.

As part of this growing community at the UW and as a gesture of community solidarity of our shared goals, we are committed to working hand-in-hand with the UW on this project. We understand that this is a long-term project, with many logistical and bureaucratic needs that must be met through the various committees that will help to oversee this project. This brief proposal is simply our entry into understanding how we can work together to make manifest our hopes and dreams of celebrating Bruce, and how we can promote his philosophies of peace and justice for all of humanity.
Due to the fact that we are aware of the demanding schedules that you all have, we are requesting a day for you to respond to our proposal that will not necessarily be a formal response, but will allow for you to set a date when we can expect an official response regarding the acceptance or rejection of the project.

That day is November 27, 2008, which would have been Bruce’s 68th Birthday and a year and one day since we officially kicked off this community campaign…

Thank you for your involvement and we look forward to hearing from you soon.
*Peace *
The Bruce Lee Project |Contact: UW4BruceLee@gmail.com|

“Real living is living for others…” – Bruce Lee