A rally in Seattle's Chinatown
International District, or CID,
last fall as the people who
live here fight for their land.
A protest against plans for a 500 bed
shelter the community did not w.
This isn't the first time
residents of the CID have fought
to protect their neighborhood.
It was a day where it's like,
wow. It's gone before
the county imploded,
the Kingdom in the year 2000.
People are fighting for the
preservation of the Internationl
District. CID residents galvanid
in the 1970s to stop its
construction in the 1st place.
Journalist Ron Chu worked in the
trenches at the time. I reporten
demonstrations against the
construction of the Kingdom.
That traffic impacts the closure of hotels.
This was the first era of Asian
American activism inspired
by the civil rights movement.
CIT locals were sick and
tired of what they perceived
as racist land use policies,
and they were ready to fight fo.
That was the beginning of peopl,
I think, lifting their voices. y
think that group of pan Asian
activism that was really
rallying around the Kingdom.
That was a group of community
residents really saying, no,
we live here, this is ours.
And that set the stage
for a lot of the activism.
Visual artist and historian
Tessa Hulls created this exhibit
at the Cid's Wing Roof Museum,
exploring the themes of racism d
development that threatened to
erase marginalized communities.
The pattern that I saw was timed
time again, you see people comin
and wanting to use the land in y
that's for the benefit of comme.
And it's not benefiting the peoe
who are already there and using.
But encroachment of the CID
actually began about 125 years .
Projects like the Jackson Regrae
and the 2nd Avenue EXT pushed
out and displaced Seattle's eary
Chinatown in the early 1900s. Tt
Second Avenue ext ultimately wiped out
the remnants of that original Chinatown,
Chu says. The early Asian pioneers in
Seattle moved southeast toward King Street.
Where the current CID exists to,
the new Chinatown began emerging here.
But let's go back to the 1960s.
Despite community concerns,
the stayed blazed through the aa
with an I5 overpass that sliced
to the neighborhood in half. And
then you can see what got destr,
and not only what got turned do,
but like the connections in the
community that got severed.
Closing businesses and changing
the neighborhood's landscape,
leaving residents at the
time feeling powerless.
You're talking about low income elderly,
many of whom don't speak Englis,
immigrant families who work in sewing
factories and the restaurants.
They're not going to push back.
They don't even know this is happening.
Chu wrote a memoir about his family's
roots in Seattle's Chinatown,
dating back to 1911.
He knows of the difficult realis
families endured overtime.
This neighborhood has been trampled upon,
ignored, trinketized. In many ways, you've
mentioned the word trinketized.
What does that mean?
That's very intriguing.
I think there's
a danger in how people.
View Chinatown International District
in that this is sort of a tourit
destination where you can pick up some
souvenirs and get your favorite Chinese.
Exotic food is not simply restaurants,
it's a neighborhood with people living
here who have lived here for a ,
long time and call this their h.
People like Nora Chan,
who fondly goes by Auntie Nora.
Auntie Nora moved to the US
from Hong Kong 37 years ago.
She lived in the CID for 20 yea.
It's common for her to
say hello to everyone.
I don't feel like they are stras
to me. They don't feel like they
are strangers to me either.
A widow with four children
and 13 grandchildren, Haha,
She now spends her time helping neighbors
regularly delivering food to ser
citizens who also call the CID .
But lately, members, she has
something to say to Sound Transe
can see is necessary for our Chinatown.
Currently, there's one more project that
could barrel through the neighborhood.
Light rail expansion plans include proposals
for a new stop in the CID with a decade
of construction that comes with.
And this time, the neighborhood is ready. 10
plus years of construction
would destroy this neighborhood.
Include the C ID in transit stan
placement. Don't leave us out.
Auntie Nora hopes her voice
will teach younger people to
continue advocating for the C I.
One of these days I will be gon.
Does that mean that that's the end of it?
No. You know, we want to go on,
but how do we go on is we have
to teach our younger generation.
Some in the CID know that anothr
Sound Transit stop is inevitabl,
yet another oncoming train
that cannot be stopped.
Only this time they want to be included
in the conversation for facing .
I'm Christine Pay.