Wing Luke Museum

Last updated
Wing Luke Museum
Wing Luke Museum Logo (2024).png
Seattle - East Kong Yick Building 01.jpg
The East Kong Yick Building, the third and current location of the museum, in 2008
Wing Luke Museum
Former name
Wing Luke Memorial Museum (1967–1987), Wing Luke Asian Museum (1987–2010)
EstablishedMay 17, 1967 (1967-05-17)
Location719 S King Street
Seattle, Washington, U.S.
Coordinates 47°35′54″N122°19′22″W / 47.59833°N 122.32278°W / 47.59833; -122.32278
TypeEthnic history museum
PresidentCasey Bui and Ellen Ferguson
Public transit access Link light rail (International District/Chinatown), King County Metro, First Hill Streetcar
Website wingluke.org
Wing Luke Asian Museum at its second location in 2007; it relocated the following year Wing Luke Museum 03.jpg
Wing Luke Asian Museum at its second location in 2007; it relocated the following year

The Wing Luke Museum is a museum in Seattle, Washington, United States, which focuses on the culture, art and history of Asian Pacific Americans. It is located in the city's Chinatown-International District. Established in 1967, the museum is a Smithsonian Institution affiliate and the only pan-Asian Pacific American community-based museum in the country. [1] [2] It has relocated twice since its founding, most recently to the East Kong Yick Building in 2008. In February 2013 it was recognized as one of two dozen affiliated areas of the U.S. National Park Service. [3]

Contents

Collections

The Wing Luke Museum's collections have over 18,000 items, including artifacts, photographs, documents, books, and oral histories. [4] Parts of the museum's collections are viewable through its online database. [5] There is an oral history lab inside the museum for staff and public use. [6]

Exhibits

The Wing houses temporary and permanent exhibitions related to Asian American history, art, and cultures. [7] The museum represents over 26 ethnic groups. [8]

The museum uses a community-based exhibition model to create exhibits. As part of the community-based process, the museum conducts outreach into communities to find individuals and organizations to partner with. The museum then forms a Community Advisory Committee (CAC) to determine the exhibit's direction. Staff at the museum conduct research, gather materials, and record relevant oral histories under the guidance of the CAC. The CAC also determines the exhibit's overall design and content. This process can take 12 to 18 months. [9] [10]

In 1995, the Wing Luke Museum received the Institute for Museum and Library Services National Award for Museum Service for its exhibit process. [9] Award-winning exhibits by the museum include Do You Know Bruce?, a 2014 exhibit on Bruce Lee. The Association of King County Historical Organizations awarded Do You Know Bruce? the 2015 Exhibit Award. [8]

History

The museum is named for Seattle City Council member Wing Luke, the first Asian American elected to public office in the Pacific Northwest. [11] Luke suggested the need for a museum in the Chinatown-International District in the early 1960s to preserve the history of the rapidly changing neighborhood. After Luke died in a small plane crash in 1965, friends and supporters donated money to start the museum he envisioned. The Wing Luke Memorial Museum, as it was first named, opened in 1967 in a small storefront on 8th Avenue.

Initially, the museum focused on Asian folk art, but soon expanded its programming to reflect the diversity of the local community. The museum exhibited the work of emerging local artists, and by the 1980s pan-Asian exhibits made by community volunteers became central to the museum.

In 1987, the Wing Luke Museum moved to a larger home on 7th Avenue and updated its name to Wing Luke Asian Museum. It achieved national recognition in the 1990s under the direction of local journalist Ron Chew, a pioneer of the community-based model of exhibit development that placed personal experiences at the center of exhibit narratives.

In 2008, the museum moved to a larger building at 719 South King Street, in the renovated 1910 East Kong Yick Building. The Museum continued addressing civil rights and social justice issues, while preserving historic spaces within the building including the former Gee How Oak Tin Association room, the Freeman SRO Hotel, a Canton Alley family apartment, and the Yick Fung Mercantile. [12] [13]

In 2010, the museum changed its name to the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience, informally "The Wing". [14] [3]

Nine of the museum's windows along Canton Alley were destroyed on September 14, 2023, in a crime that was described as "racially motivated". [15] In response, the Washington State Department of Commerce and City of Seattle made financial donations to the museum, and the broken windows were replaced with a decorative mural. [16]

In May 2024, around half of the museum's employees walked out to protest a new exhibit titled "Confronting Hate Together", claiming that part of the exhibit "conflate[s] anti-Zionism with antisemitism" [17] [18] [19] and demanding in writing that "We really want the museum to take a pro-Palestinian stance". [20]

Location

Building

The East Kong Yick Building, where the Museum is located, along with the West Kong Yick Building, were funded by 170 Chinese immigrants in 1910. In addition to storefronts, the East Kong Yick Building contained the Freeman Hotel, which was used by Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino immigrants until the 1940s. [21] The museum's galleries now share the building with re-creations of the Gee How Oak Tin Association's meeting room, kitchens, and apartments that were inside the hotel. The museum also preserves the contents of a general store, Yick Fung Co., which the owner donated in its entirety. [22]

Neighborhood

The museum is in Seattle's Chinatown-International District next to Canton Alley, historically a residential, commercial, and communal area. [23] The Wing runs Chinatown Discovery Tours, a tour service founded in 1985 that takes visitors to significant sites within the neighborhood. [24]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chinatown–International District, Seattle</span> Historic district in Washington, United States

The Chinatown–International District of Seattle, Washington is the center of the city's Asian American community. Within the district are the three neighborhoods known as Chinatown, Japantown and Little Saigon, named for the concentration of businesses owned by people of Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese descent, respectively. The geographic area also once included Manilatown.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Locke, California</span> Unincorporated community in California, United States

Locke, also known as Locke Historic District, is an unincorporated community in the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta of California, United States. The 14-acre town (5.7 ha) was first developed between 1893 and 1915 approximately one mile north of the town of Walnut Grove in Sacramento County.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wing Luke</span> American lawyer

Wing Chong Luke was a Chinese-American lawyer and politician from Seattle.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Museum of Chinese in America</span> Museum in New York City

The Museum of Chinese in America is a museum in New York City which exhibits Chinese American history. It is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) education and cultural institution that presents the living history, heritage, culture, and diverse experiences of Chinese Americans through exhibitions, educational services and public programs. Much of its collection was damaged or destroyed in a fire in January 2020. After being closed for more than a year following the fire, the museum reopened to the public on July 15, 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hing Hay Park</span> Park in Seattle, Washington, U.S.

Hing Hay Park is a 0.64-acre (2,600 m2) public park in the Chinatown–International District neighborhood of downtown Seattle, Washington, United States. The park is located on the north side of South King Street between 6th and Maynard avenues, east of Union Station and the Historic Chinatown Gate. It was built in 1973 and includes a pavilion, community games, and two gateways.

This is an alphabetical index of topics related to Asian Americans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chinatown, Melbourne</span> Neighborhood in Melbourne, Australia


Chinatown is an ethnic enclave in the central business district (CBD) of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Centred at the eastern end of Little Bourke Street, it extends between the corners of Swanston and Spring streets, and consists of numerous laneways, alleys and arcades. Established in the 1850s during the Victorian gold rush, it is notable for being the longest continuous ethnic Chinese settlement in the Western World and the oldest Chinatown in the Southern Hemisphere.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">East Kong Yick Building</span>

The East Kong Yick Building is one of two buildings erected in Seattle, Washington's Chinatown-International District (ID) by the Kong Yick Investment Company. A four-story hotel in the core of the ID, with retail stores at ground level, the East Kong Yick was created by the pooled resources of 170 Chinese American pioneers. In, 2008, the building reopened as the home of the expanded Wing Luke Asian Museum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chin Gee Hee</span> Chinese businessman

Chin Gee Hee, courtesy name Chàngtíng (暢庭), Cheun Gee Yee, was a Chinese merchant, labor contractor, and railway entrepreneur, who made his fortune in Seattle, Washington before returning to his native village in Guangdong province, where he continued his successes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ron Chew</span> American museum director, oral historian, and journalist

Ron Chew is an American consultant, journalist, oral historian, Asian American community leader, community organizer, and activist. Chew is a leader in the community-based model of museum exhibit development. He is the former executive director of the Wing Luke Museum, former editor and former board president of the International Examiner, and former director of the International Community Health Services (ICHS) Foundation. He serves as a trustee on the board of the Seattle Public Library (SPL). Chew lives in Seattle, Washington.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Asian Pacific Thematic Historic District</span>

The Asian Pacific Thematic Historic District (APTHD) is a historic Chinatown in San Diego, California. It is an eight-block district adjacent to and in part overlapping with the Gaslamp Quarter. The district is bounded by Market Street to the north, 2nd Ave. to the west, 6th Ave. to the east and J St. to the south. 22 structures are considered historically contributing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chinatowns in the United States</span> Ethnic Chinese enclaves in the United States

Chinatowns are enclaves of Chinese people outside of China. The first Chinatown in the United States was San Francisco's Chinatown in 1848, and many other Chinatowns were established in the 19th century by the Chinese diaspora on the West Coast. By 1875, Chinatowns had emerged in eastern cities such as New York City, Boston, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 barred Chinese immigration to the United States, but the Magnuson Act of 1943 repealed it, and the population of Chinatowns began to rise again.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chinese American Museum of Chicago</span>

The Chinese American Museum of Chicago(CAMOC) seeks to advance the appreciation of Chinese American culture through exhibitions, education, and research and to preserve the past, present, and future of Chinese Americans primarily in the American Midwest. The museum opened in 2005 in Chicago's Chinatown neighborhood. Although it suffered a damaging fire in 2008, it reopened its renovated quarters, the Raymond B. & Jean T. Lee Center, in 2010. CAMOC is governed by the Board of Directors of the Chinatown Museum Foundation (CMF), a 501(C)(3) non-profit corporation located in Chicago, Illinois.

Asian Washingtonians are residents of the state of Washington who are of Asian ancestry. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, Asian-Americans were 7.7% of the state's population. As per the 2019 it’s 9-10%.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Chinese Americans in Seattle</span>

Greater Seattle has had a Chinese American community almost since its founding in 1851. Chinese workers arriving in the 1860s were welcomed, because the Seattle area was sparsely settled and workers were needed; within a few decades, however, newly arrived white settlers resented the Chinese workers, and there were several anti-Chinese riots as the whites attempted to expel the Chinese from the area. Chinese settlement persisted, with the immigrants settling in a well-defined Chinatown where they maintained their culture through family groups, associations, and churches. In the mid-20th century Chinese Americans joined with other immigrant groups to oppose racial discrimination. In 1962 a Chinese American became the first person of Asian ancestry to hold elective office in the state of Washington.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Midori Kono Thiel</span>

Midori Kono Thiel is a Japanese American calligrapher based in Seattle. She grew up on Maui. She received her bachelor of arts and master of fine arts from the University of California, Berkeley. She has exhibited at the De Young Museum, San Francisco; Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum; Seattle Art Museum; Portland Art Museum; Henry Art Gallery, Seattle; Cheney Cowles Art Museum, Spokane; and the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience, Seattle.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oakland Asian Cultural Center</span>

The Oakland Asian Cultural Center, also referred to as the OACC, is an Oakland-based nonprofit cultural center that carries out Asian and Pacific Islander American arts and culture programs. It is located in the Pacific Renaissance Plaza in Oakland Chinatown, residing three blocks away from the 12th Street Civic Center BART station on Broadway.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tai Tung (restaurant)</span> Chinese restaurant in Seattle, Washington, U.S.

Tai Tung is the oldest surviving Chinese restaurant in the International District of Seattle. It was opened in 1935 by an immigrant from Hong Kong. The restaurant is the subject of a 2015 documentary, A Taste of Home, and was a location for the 2020 film The Paper Tigers. The restaurant's cellar is said to be haunted by kuei (ghosts). It is known for being busy on Christmas Day, when most Seattle restaurants are closed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canton Alley</span> Historic alley in Seattle, Washington, U.S.

Canton Alley is a historic alley between 7th and 8th Avenues South in Seattle's Chinatown–International District, in the United States.

Vishavjit Singh is an American cartoonist, author, and activist. Singh garnered international attention for his persona Sikh Captain America, which he used to not only combat hate speech and discrimination but to also raise awareness around the Sikh community.

References

  1. Smithsonian Affiliates list, Smithsonian Affiliations. Accessed 2015-09-08.
  2. Cao, Lan; Novas, Himilee (1996). Everything You Need to Know About Asian American History . New York: Penguin Books. p. xvii. ISBN   978-0-452-27315-3.
  3. 1 2 Jack Broom, National Parks to recognize Wing Luke Museum , Seattle Times, 2013-02-06. Accessed online 2013-02-09.
  4. "Research > Wing Luke Museum". Wing Luke Museum. Archived from the original on 2015-09-19. Retrieved 2015-10-01.
  5. Wing Luke Museum Governor Gary Locke Library and Community Heritage Center, Wing Luke Museum, 2015
  6. "Oral History Program > Wing Luke Museum". Wing Luke Museum. Archived from the original on 2015-10-03. Retrieved 2015-10-02.
  7. "About Us > Wing Luke Museum". Wing Luke Museum. Retrieved 2015-10-01.
  8. 1 2 "Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience". Seattle Foundation. Retrieved 2015-10-01.
  9. 1 2 "Exhibit Process > Wing Luke Museum". Wing Luke Museum. Archived from the original on 2015-10-03. Retrieved 2015-10-01.
  10. "Community Advisory Committees > Wing Luke Museum". Wing Luke Museum. Archived from the original on 2015-10-03. Retrieved 2015-10-01.
  11. David Takami, Luke, Wing (1925-1965), HistoryLink.org Essay 2047, January 25, 1999. Accessed 2015-09-08.
  12. Broom, Jack (May 19, 2008). "Visitors to walk through time at new Wing Luke Asian Museum". The Seattle Times .
  13. Pearson, Clifford A. (June 2009). "Wing Luke Asian Museum". Architectural Record . McGraw Hill. Archived from the original on July 23, 2012. Retrieved November 21, 2010.
  14. "Wing Luke Asian Museum expands name to Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience, with 'The Wing' as its nickname" (PDF) (Press release). Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience. April 22, 2010. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 30, 2012. Retrieved November 21, 2010.
  15. Yoon-Hendricks, Alexandra (September 15, 2023). "Wing Luke Museum vandalized; man arrested for alleged hate crime". The Seattle Times. Retrieved September 17, 2023.
  16. Cruz, Jason (January 31, 2024). "'Healing Mural' replaces hate crime vandalism". Northwest Asian Weekly .
  17. Murphy, Mary; Gaitán, Catalina (2024-05-25). "Wing Luke Museum closes after staff walkout over exhibit". The Seattle Times. Archived from the original on 2024-05-28. Retrieved 2024-05-28.
  18. Staff, KOMO News (2024-05-27). "Seattle's Wing Luke Museum closes after staff walkout protesting exhibit". KOMO. Retrieved 2024-05-28.
  19. Greenberger, Alex (May 28, 2024). "Workers at Seattle Museum Protest Show, Accusing It of 'Platforming Zionist Ideology'". ART News.
  20. Ahmad, Nimra (May 29, 2024). "Wing Luke Museum Closed After Exhibit on 'Confronting Hate Together' Sparks Staff Walkout". South Seattle Emerald. Retrieved 2024-08-22.
  21. "Building and Architecture > Wing Luke Museum". Wing Luke Museum. Archived from the original on 2015-10-03. Retrieved 2015-10-02.
  22. "Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage". Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary. National Park Service . Retrieved 2015-10-01.
  23. Nielsen, Peg (2014-06-26). "Alley Activation Creates New Pedestrian Friendly Venues". Seattle Department of Transportation Blog. Seattle Department of Transportation. Retrieved 2015-10-02.
  24. "Chinatown Discovery Tours". Chinatown Discovery Tours. Retrieved 2015-10-01.