|
|
The rise in anti-Asian hate crimes in the United States and Canada is despicable. In the wake of the mass killings in Atlanta, there is a renewed awareness of a problem that has been growing during the pandemic. Hate crimes are up in places like Seattle, Portland and Vancouver, BC. Now is a good time for all of us to be more conversant with our region’s deep anti-Asian history.
The 1850 Donation Land Claims Act, a forerunner of the Homestead Act, banned Blacks, Asians, Hawaiians, and Native Americans from settling in "free" land in the Oregon country. Many of the Hawaiians, then called "Kanakas," came to the region with the Hudson's Bay Company as early as the 1820s. In 1853, Washington Territory banned Chinese people from voting. When the Ku Klux Klan first appeared on the West Coast in the late 1860s, their targets in Oregon and California were people from China who came to live and work in America. The Chinese expulsion efforts in Seattle and Tacoma in the 1880s are particularly notorious. A series of laws and anti-immigration efforts targeting Asians in the late 19th and 20th century were explicitly racist and hostile, as was the grave injustice of Japanese incarceration during World War II. Harassment, official and otherwise, has continued.
There are some good resources to learn more. The Washington State Historical Society has a resource page for reading about the Chinese Exclusion efforts. Densho is an excellent resource on the Japanese incarceration. The University of Washington's Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest offers a curriculum on the history of Asians in Washington State. There are many more instances of anti-Asian behavior and policies, obviously, but we all need to be better educated about the systemic issues that underlie the present and what these communities have had — and still have — to overcome. |
|
|
|
💌 Welcome, fellow mossbacks! | |
|
|
As one of your member benefits, you’ll get this members-only newsletter every Tuesday. Thank you for your support!
P.S. Not sure what a "mossback" is? Knute Berger explains here. |
|
|
|
|
|
The Crosscut Festival is coming up May 3-8! It’s our annual showcase of brilliant minds tackling the region’s and nation’s major issues, with both local and national speakers. This year’s line-up of featured speakers is really impressive, including primate researcher Jane Goodall, PBS NewsHour’s Judy Woodruff, anti-racism professor Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, travel expert and activist Rick Steves, former Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best, journalist Soledad O’Brien, “science guy” Bill Nye, Montana Sen. Jon Tester, urbanist Richard Florida, and that’s just a small sampling.
I’ll be participating in the Fest interviewing historian Heather Cox Richardson about her work, including her most recent book How the South Won the Civil War which looks at the continuing struggle for America’s soul, democracy and a more perfect union. Her book zeros in on how the politics of the South influenced the settlement of the West. It should be a fascinating discussion.
The week-long event will be online, with some sessions also airing on KCTS 9. It is free to attend, though as they say, not free to put on. There are also VIP Fest options as well. Check here for ticketing levels and information. |
|
|
|
|
Medical staff attends to patients in an emergency hospital set up in Camp Funston, Kansas, during the influenza epidemic, circa 1918. (National Museum of Health and Medicine) |
I have been researching and writing about the so-called Spanish Flu pandemic for a year now. (It wasn’t Spanish and it lasted much longer than its most deadly year, 1918.) I’ve written a new column about some of what I’ve learned about then and now. There is a sense we might be nearing a kind of COVID finish line, what with vaccines and all. But human behavior and unknowns are still in play. My own experience of the pandemic and what I’ve learned about the last one have made me cautious, though still generally optimistic. I explain why in my Crosscut column, “What the 1918 Flu can teach us about COVID and 'returning to normal.” |
|
|
|
|
Back in the 1980s I helped launch the state’s historical quarterly, Columbia. I was then working for John M. McClelland, Jr., a historian, newspaper publisher and collector of books and maps. He was also a patron of local history and wanted to launch a magazine of popular state history. Columbia is published by the Washington State Historical Society and currently edited by Seattle historian Feliks Banel. Its current incarnation is lively, colorful and relevant. Current issues are not available online — you have to subscribe or join the WSHS, which is well worth it if you love Northwest history.
I have written a couple of pieces for them, and in the latest issue (Spring 2021) I have a piece remembering Seattle’s classic old bookstore, Shorey’s, which for more than a century fed the city’s book appetites. I did some work for them in the early 1980s writing some book jacket and catalog blurbs for their historical reprints of hard-to-find books. It was then owned by John Todd, a relation of the original owner, Sam Shorey. Mr. Todd was a bespectacled curator who believed every book had a rightful owner and that it was his job to match book to reader. |
|
|
|
Writing the piece reminded me of some of the many book haunts that used to populate downtown Seattle when I was a teenager and discovering used bookstores. Shorey’s was a mainstay, but I also remember fondly the glorious clutter of places like Beatty’s, which had among its offerings recent review copies from the local newspapers, Filippi’s Books and Records on East Olive Way, which in addition to books and recordings, sold old pulp magazines and movie stills from Seattle theaters, and Ottenberg Books on Pike, which was a touch of class on a part of Pike St. that was once a rather seamy part of the Pike-Pine corridor.
Not all the great used bookstores were downtown. I used to go to Horizon Books on Capitol Hill and Comstock’s in South Seattle where I once found a first edition of one of Kurt Vonnegut’s novels for 50 cents. The University District also had many. Writing about Shorey’s — surely the largest of all with an inventory in the millions — reminded me how book hunting was so much a part of my introduction to urban Seattle. I’d be interested in any used bookshop memories you’d like to share. |
|
|
|
This week, some letters from Den subscribers that offer story ideas. For example, Joanne Lord from Alderwood Manor suggests the following: "I volunteer for the Alderwood Manor Heritage Association and we celebrate our history with exhibits and photos. I talk to people about how in the late 1800s logging companies had logged off most of the trees and had all these stump lands to unload. They formed real estate companies, set up demonstration farms to promote it, people would pay a little money down and make payments of say $10 dollars a month and you were a stump farmer. They tried everything to get rid of the stumps, burning or blowing them up (that didn't go well) and some old stumps are still there today. I see them in yards all over. Some people stayed, some didn't stay long and some only bought on speculation. My grandparents came from Montana in 1928, their home is still there just up from the Alderwood Mall. I live just two miles away. I can help with any information you need, I am also on the board of the Association. Love your show, you are a true NW treasure."
Thank you, Joanne. You can't do Northwest history without talking about stumps. I'm interested to know if Alderwood had any stump houses back in the day. In fact, I am interested in the whole phenomenon of stump houses anywhere in the Northwest, so readers of the Den, so if you have any info, please send it along by replying to this email or emailing me at knute.berger@crosscut.com.
And speaking of exploding stumps, here's a tidbit. Dexter Horton, Seattle pioneer and well-known banker, almost had is career cut short when, shortly after the Battle of Seattle in 1856, he stopped by a burning stump to warm his backside when an unexploded shell from the U.S. ship Decatur exploded and nearly ended his career (or ca-rear).
John Simpkins has another suggestion: "Come and visit Fort Nisqually in Tacoma. I have been a volunteer blacksmith for 40 years. There’s a lot of history here."
Cool idea! I've been down for the nighttime holiday reenactments. And maybe someone can answer a question for me: I seem to remember a TV series about Ft. Nisqually back in the 1950s or early '60s. Does anyone else remember that?
And speaking of Ft. Nisqually, that brings to mind the Hudson's Bay Company which played such a key role in the settlement of the Northwest on both sides of the border.
Reader Bill Day writes about the connections between British Columbia and Washington State due to the HBC: "You might want to consider writing about the impact and influence of the Hudson's Bay Company (still thriving in Canada) on the history of your 'Pacific North West.' Vancouver, WA and Vancouver, BC of course are named for Captain George Vancouver of the British Royal Navy. The Hudson's Bay Company itself opened up the BC and Washington State coasts and the interior valleys as part of its fur trade empire…. George Simpson and members of the governing committee of the HBC created the Puget Sound Agricultural Company (PSAC) to promote settlement of territories around Cowlitz Farm and Fort Nisqually. Both stations are now located within modern Washington. So, our histories are closely intertwined."
Indeed. the HBC is an endlessly fascinating part of our region's past — and present. In the winter, I sleep under some of their wonderful wool blankets. |
|
|
|
|
» On March 30, Mossback will be speaking to the Mercer Island Rotary Club on the subject of resilience and how Seattle has overcome past crises.
» On April 14, Mossback will be part of a panel of historians looking at the history and social impact of the Eastside’s transportation choices through history. The panel includes Knute Berger, Warren KingGeorge of the Muckleshoot Tribe, and MOHAI public historian and author Lorraine McConaghy. It is part of the Complete Streets Series sponsored by the Greater Redmond Transportation Management Association. You can register for the Zoom event here. It takes place at 11:30 a.m. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
©2024 Cascade Public Media. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy.
Donations made to Cascade Public Media are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. Cascade Public Media, which includes KCTS 9 and Crosscut, is registered under RCW 19.09. You may contact the Washington Secretary of State at 800.332.4483 or visit sos.wa.gov/charities for more information.
Cascade Public Media federal tax id number is #91-1221895.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|