
PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Duwenavue Sante Johnson sat at her work station in the back left corner of the Flag Room at the Naval Support Activity base at the intersection of Oxford Avenue and Levick Streets in Northeast Philadelphia.
In between the careful, precise stitches of her current project – a battalion flag for the 224th Aviation Regiment of the U.S. Army National Guard – she took a moment to reflect, somewhat ironically, on the nature of her job.
“I’m really happy to be able to do this, this service,” she said.
Johnson is one of 13 embroidery artists who work in the Flag Room.
All but one of the embroidery artists are women, and roughly three quarters of the group emigrated to America from Vietnam, Cambodia or the Philippines. Others claim heritage from territories ranging from South Korea to South America or, like Johnson, identify as BIPOC.
The ancestry of these women is as diverse as the country they serve.

Johnson, along with seven other members of the Flag Room, specialize in hand-embroidery. A decade ago, a career in government flag-making wasn’t on her radar.
“I actually found out about [the job] because I was working in France and I learned that a lot of embroidery jobs were government sponsored,” she said.
“I really liked Ralph Lauren, and I know that Ralph Lauren had a lot to do with creating brand identity for our country through clothing and textiles, so I pretty much went through the fashion pathway to find this job.”
Johnson is from the San Francisco Bay Area. Military work has been part of her family’s history for years.
“My whole family are all aerospace programmers,” she said, before adding with a smile, “I’m in the ‘slow art’ movement.”
Johnson was always the odd one out until she discovered an opportunity in the Flag Room.
With origins dating back to the Schuylkill Arsenal that opened in the Grey’s Ferry section of Philadelphia in 1799, the Flag Room is part of the Defense Logistics Agency, which is responsible for overseeing the military’s main supply chains, including clothing and textiles – government-issued flags fall under the latter.
In a given year, the Flag Room, which moved to its Northeast Philadelphia location in 1999, produces 350 flags all by hand. It is the only place in the world authorized to make the presidential and vice presidential flags.
Think about that!
Wherever the president and vice president go – press conferences, meetings between heads of state, other functions public and private – they take a little piece of the Northeast with them.

“If a president or vice president is going to speak to an audience, we have to have the flag ready for them,” Johnson said.
The Presidential Flag specifically comes in two sizes: three feet by four feet and four feet, four inches by 5 feet, six inches. The larger size, which commands 15 different thread colors and mirror-effect imaging, can take anywhere from four to six months to finish.
The Flag Room has been creating flags and heraldic banners for more than 150 years. They also make the flags for the Air Force, Army, Marines, Navy and other government agencies.
Over the years, prominent military and government officials, including White House staff, have visited the Defense Logistics Agency Flag Room. Two big-ticket guests, however, have been elusive.
“We're still waiting for a president or vice president to come to the room,” said Johnson. “I would really hope and encourage them to do so.”

For Johnson, yes, the gig is a source of pride. But more than that, it connects the dots between her and the rest of her military family, even if the circle was closed in a somewhat unexpected way.
She said her family was speechless when she told them she landed a job putting her hand-embroidery talents to use in a government role.
“I think military families have a lot of competition to achieve a certain sort of greatness,” Johnson said. “The fact that I was able to do that in my own way, but still keep the values that they enforced or hoped that I would continue in my life is a great honor.”
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