The Wing Luke Museum announced recently a $50,000 donation from the Seattle FIFA World Cup 26 local organizing committee to the museum’s Chinese American Legacy Artwork Project, a public art installation that commemorates and acknowledges the expulsion of Chinese immigrants and laborers from this area in the late 19th century.
CALAP organizers hope to place a 14-foot-tall bronze statue, by Seattle artist Stewart Wong, in Pioneer Square sometime next year.
On the heels of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which banned Chinese laborers from immigrating to the United States for 10 years and prevented Chinese immigrants already in the U.S. from becoming citizens, anti-Chinese sentiment brewed on the West Coast as white laborers felt threatened by Chinese workers.
On Feb. 7, 1886, 350 Chinese immigrants living in Seattle were rounded up by a local labor union bolstered by mob rioters and taken to the waterfront in an attempt to deport them on a steamship from the city they called home. A court order delayed the deportation, but a multiday riot ensued. Fearing for their safety, virtually every Chinese person living in Seattle left the city permanently.
Over a decade ago, Bettie Luke, community organizer and sister of the late Wing Luke; Doug Chin, Seattle historian and activist; and others formed CALAP as a way to remember this violent and underacknowledged chapter in Seattle’s history and honor the Chinese immigrants who helped build the city and their continued legacy here.
“This incident, the riot, has to be known,” Chin said. “Our goal is to make people aware of it and learn from it. That would mean something to the Chinese community. It’s part of the recognition of the sacrifice and hardships we went through and struggles we have to go through to this day.”
CALAP commissioned Wong, who is of Hawaiian and Chinese heritage and has lived in the city since 1982, to make the sculpture, titled “Exclusion, Expulsion, Expunge.” It depicts six life-size figures: three Chinese laborers and three mob members. Made of bronze, the figures are separated from each other by a giant stainless steel “X” as the scales of justice, composed of firearms, hang above them. The scale is tipped toward the mob figures, reflecting the inequality of the time and situation.
The Chinese figures are made of a brown-colored bronze with their hair braided into long queues. Two of the figures are wearing field worker hats and the other is wearing a more Western-style hat, which Wong says is a nod to the forced assimilation of Chinese people in the United States.
The mob figures are made of black-colored bronze with brown Western-style cowboy hats. For Wong, it was important to also keep a level of abstraction to the piece so that its enduring meaning could also translate to the politics and struggles of immigrant communities today.
“When somebody sees this, I want them to think about what’s going on today,” said Wong. “I pared down the details to streamline it so that it can become more universal.”
The $50,000 donation from SeattleFWC26 to CALAP marks a huge step in fundraising for the project, which is close to 60% of its approximately $500,000 goal. (Most of the funds for the project have come from the city of Seattle and members of the local Chinese American community, according to a news release from the museum and SeattleFWC26.) Both organizations are pushing for the community to donate what they can to the project to push it over the finish line.
“I hope that this is an invitation for folks across Seattle, not just in any one particular neighborhood, to see an opportunity to band together to make something happen that’s important to residents,” said Leo Flor, chief legacy officer of SeattleFWC26, who added that the organization chose CALAP because of its local support and longevity.
“I’m really hoping that we get people across the world paying attention to this. We’re going to have six matches here next year, 750,000 visitors coming. I think a lot of people want to enjoy soccer and do it in a way that can benefit the communities that host the games.”
Originally, the statue was slated to be installed on the waterfront on Alaskan Way between South Washington Street and South Main Street, where the rioters rounded up the Chinese immigrants, intending to deport them. After some reconsideration and thoughts on foot traffic, CALAP is now pushing for the statue’s placement a few streets over in Occidental Square, pending city and neighborhood approval. That location is where the Chinese immigrants were rounded up with their belongings after being taken from their homes in Chinatown.
CALAP hopes that this infusion of donation and energy into the project will push the project to completion sometime next year.
“All this history needs to be recognized so we feel we Chinese belong in Washington state, in Seattle,” said Chin. “That’s how important this art piece is.”