-- Update for 2026 --

On April 16, 2025, Sakura-Con formally announced its new Accessibility webpage after community advocates presented this petition. At the time, we posted an update to this petition:

https://www.change.org/p/demand-sakura-con-resolve-accessibility-and-privacy-issues/u/33438696

Nearly 12 months later, here is a brief summary of where the demands of our petition stand but please read the full details in our update for 2026:

On Privacy

1. “Badges will not have names on them.” We demanded the removal of the legal name from badges and this demand is met.

2. “If requested, [Sakura-Con registration volunteers] can place a sticker with a wheelchair symbol on the front of the badge to denote that the member needs ADA accommodations.” 

This does NOT meet our demand for more privacy. There are many more disabilities than just mobility, and not all of them are visible. In any case, it is better to use a more discreet indicator that is only understood for those on a need-to-know basis. It is also not necessary to place the indicator on the front of the badge to be visible at all times when the back side of the membership badge has been historically unused.

On Accessibility

3. Sakura-Con published a webpage for Accessibility in 2025 and updated it recently for 2026. It has room for improvement, but this demand is met.

4. Sakura-Con addressed a few accessibility issues with their maps, but there are many more issues that remain for the 2026 event regarding both digital and physical signage. Please see the full details for a list of accessibility and usability issues. This demand is NOT met.

This petition still exists because not all of our demands have been met and Sakura-Con’s Board members proved a lack of competence and leadership at the general meeting on April 13, 2025. Read the full details for more on how 1) Sakura-Con’s Chair said they would not tone-police anyone and yet policed the tone of disabled community members; 2) how the Director of Membership stormed out of the meeting room when being asked to simply speak up into the mic so members on the remote call and a member in the room doing sign language interpretation could hear; 3) how there are no general meetings this year; and much more.

Please sign our petition to demand that Sakura-Con resolve its accessibility and privacy issues.

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-- Petition text from 2025 --

We, the members, prospective members, volunteers, artists, vendors, and outside observers of Sakura-Con demand that the Asia Northwest Cultural Education Association (ANCEA) Board of Directors take the actions listed below to address known accessibility and privacy issues ahead of their Sakura-Con event in 2025:

1. Publish a page for Accessibility on the website for Sakura-Con.
2. Redesign signage for high contrast so that they are more visible for people with blindness, visual impairments, and even those without disabilities. Currently for the 2025 event, our team has identified that the maps in the app and browser have accessibility bugs that require intervention
3. Change the design of the membership badge so that disabilities are not stigmatized, and relocate any indicator to the reverse side of the badge for privacy.
4. Remove the full legal name from the membership badge for privacy.

While there is much more that our community has asked for, the actions have been selected for their feasibility ahead of this year’s event and represent a bare minimum response that we demand. This list has been itemized into granular steps in a separate open letter to Sakura-Con to make it crystal clear that the actions needed are doable in the timeframe from the writing of this petition until Day 0 of Sakura-Con.

We, the undersigned, may be disabled ourselves, we may know someone who is disabled, or we may possibly become disabled one day. Yet our disability status should not matter to have empathy for others. We believe that designing accessible events benefits everyone when done right.

It is long overdue for ANCEA to resolve these known accessibility and privacy issues at Sakura-Con 2025.

Context
Below we summarize the main contentions that community members have raised to Sakura-Con in 2024 regarding accessibility and privacy.

1. Regarding privacy, the membership badges at Sakura-Con have included the members’ full legal name. That is a safety issue since someone’s full legal name is needed for a stalker or bad actor to doxx someone’s home address. The legal name may also be a deadname which puts a trans person at risk. Members typically obscure their legal name anyway with tape or sharpie despite staff claiming that doing so may invalidate their badge; protecting privacy is worth the risk of breaking an imaginary policy that cannot be enforced at scale anyway. It is unnecessary to have the legal name as a requirement on a badge since names are not checked by staff anyway.

2. The indicator for disability on a membership badge is designed in a stigmatizing way. It uses an icon universally recognized for disabilities and may appear on a red circular sticker. 

The icon is the outdated symbol and was updated in order to empower and embolden the capabilities of disabled people. Using the old symbol is also very offensive to the disabled community since it is basically a way of infantilizing people with disabilities instead of recognizing their capabilities. 

The icon also presents a privacy issue since it makes someone’s disability status obvious to all, but private information should instead be on a need-to-know basis only. And when the icon appears on a red sticker in particular, the color red carries a cultural and historical connotation: red stop signs, red LEDs indicating an ‘off’ state, red warning labels. Disabled people may be flagged red at Sakura-Con, but they are not ‘red flags’.

3. Sakura-Con does not have a page on the website with ADA information.

Community members have raised this concern shortly after Sakura-Con 2024 was over, yet the website still lacks a page for ADA one year later. A search for the word “accessibility” returns two results: a page for a previous guest who encourages accessibility and inclusivity in the community, and a blurb with the map of elevators.

However, accessibility is more than just where the elevators are since there are more disabilities than just mobility. People may have sight or hearing impairments so they need to know how or if the event has accommodations in panel rooms for that.

A proper page for accessibility would describe where the entrance and line for ADA registration is, if there is even a separate registration line for ADA, what accommodations are available in panel rooms (ASL interpreters, early entry, preferential seating, ramps for the stage), and more. This saves current and prospective members the time from having to email the organization with the same questions. It is not possible to comfortably or viably attend the convention without knowing that information.

4. Signage and maps are inaccessible to people who are blind and visually impaired.

The signs and maps use a low-contrast, pink-on-white color theme that is extremely difficult and even impossible for those with visual impairments to read and comprehend. The maps for 2025 use font sizes that are too small and font styles that are too narrow without much spacing between letters, making them less legible. There have been many community members who have had to rely on friends and staff to navigate the convention due to this issue. 

Having a high contrast option for signs and maps ensures everyone, including able-bodied individuals, are able to easily access the convention space. Though it is understandable to use the colors of the organization’s logo, it is completely inaccessible when there is not enough contrast between the text and the background for people with blindness, visual impairments, and even those without disabilities.

Next Steps
A disabled person should NOT have to expose their trauma in an email, petition, or at a general meeting to receive the same dignity and humanity as everyone else. 

But at the next general meeting on Sunday April 13th, 2025 at 1pm in Room 2AB of the Seattle Convention Center Arch Building, our community will be showing up with comments. We demand the Board to respond to the contents of our petition as an agenda item for the general meeting if not earlier. Tell the community, face to face, how it will or will not address the issues we have raised for Sakura-Con 2025. We are not waiting for 2026 for change. If the Board attempts to shorten the public comment section, end the meeting early, or cancel it, we will interpret that as Sakura-Con’s unwillingness to resolve its long running issues for which we have emailed clear solutions.

At this meeting, please also be prepared for us to ask a simple question that has been raised in January: will Sakura-Con create a role for an Accessibility Coordinator or Manager? With Board members present, you should be able to review and decide on the spot. And the Board is welcome to respond to that question and this petition before this weekend’s General Meeting.

We will see you this weekend.