Chinese Reconciliation Park Update
Many of our readers have expressed interest in the ongoing progress of the Chinese Reconciliation Park on Ruston Way. Yesterday’s City Council study session provided some updates and clarification regarding what has been accomplished and what remains to be completed.
The impetus behind the Chinse Reconciliation Park project is the troubling forcible eviction of all Chinese from Tacoma on November 3, 1885. Anti-Chinese sentiment was rampant in America at the time, as expressed in the federal government’s Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 , and similar expulsions were common all along the West Coast.
In August of 1991, Dr. and Mrs. David Murdoch sought to insure that this horrible event would not be forgotten, and made a request of the City for reconciliation. The resulting citizen’s committee then developed the concept of a memorial park at the former National Guard site along the waterfront. Tacoma’s City Council supported the committee’s findings officially in November of 1993 with Resolution #32415. A ceremonial groundbreaking for the site followed in November of 1995, although a construction groundbreaking didn’t occur until August of 2005.
The park’s design is intended to create a variety of spaces. It includes bridges, water features, meeting spaces, and pavilions across its 3.9 acres. In it’s final form, its layout will represent a journey through four thematic stages: Expulsion, Reflection, Reconciliation and Education.
Nearly five years later, Chinese Reconciliation Park is still clearly unfinished. Here is a summary of what has been accomplished to date:
Phase 1 (2007 to 2009)
Shoreline Protection
Bridge & Grotto
Interpretive Signs
Landscaping
Work currently underway at the park site includes:
Phase 2 (2009 – 2010)
Beach Restoration
Ting Foundation
Landscaping
Work to be completed in future phases will include additional structures and landscaping. Construction of the Fuzhou Pavilion (“Ting”), a gift from Tacoma’s Sister City of Fuzhou, China, will begin this summer.
The entire project is estimated to cost $12 million. Though there is currently a $7 million funding gap, commitment to the importance of the Chinese Reconciliation Park remains strong. Slowly but surely, it will all come together.
Filed under: General
26 comments
R RR Anderson June 23, 2010
As a potential candidate appointee to fill the seat by Jake Fey, I support the Chinese Park, and condemn the TEA PARTY conspiracy to delay its opening.
The Park will open and Arizona can suck eggs.
R RR Anderson June 23, 2010
I also condemn the WSHM cynical oppression of the Cthihuly Bridge of Glass.
Bridges, like iInformation need to be free.
A Altered Chords June 23, 2010
Where is this park along Ruston Way. I’ve been there many times but after 5 yrs you would think it would have a sign or something.
At lease a foodcart.
R rainlover June 23, 2010
Was the idea of allowing public access to the completed areas addressed? I was one of the people who toured it during tall ships (2008) and enjoyed the work that was done at that time. Perhaps if the general citizenry could view what work has begun, they might donate for the completion of the project. Or perhaps wedding parties could be allowed to have access for photo’s as a fund raising tool?
D DavidS June 23, 2010
The park is south of Jack Hyde Park, aka the Sundial Park, at the south end of Ruston Way. When it’s completed it will be a great addition to the southern end of Ruston Way – though a bit more contemplative than the activity to the north, befitting its more secluded location.
What still seems unclear is when a portion of it will be opened for more than a Tall Ships tour. Are they waiting for it to be fully funded and constructed? That seems like a poor way to generate support and additional funds for a project.
T Tim Smith June 24, 2010
I have been to the park more than once, while contemplating the dichotomy of the City trying to atone for the expulsion of the Chinese all the while allowing for the massive expansion of a private business engaged in a similar venture (minus the pitch forks, clubs, and flaming torches). Of course our tools now appear more humane but the Tacoma Method is just happening in a more refined, clinical, and very profitable way.
I asked the City to open up phase I when it was completed so that folks at least can begin to find the space. There is a sign -old, worn, and “tagged”. If you park along the tracks and go under the Ruston Way “swoopover” you can find the park behind the chain link fence.
Although marked as no-trespassing, some have occasionally slipped around the fence near the waters edge (technically public property) and shared in the memory.
I think in some ways the completion is being drawn out. If it was completed – then the task would be completed – and the City could drift back into ignorance. By dragging it along it keeps the non-profit profiting and the atonement process atoning.
R Republican by Default June 24, 2010
I don’t get it.
I agree that what the citizens of Tacoma did was deplorable and to have our city’s name attached to it is almost sickening.
However, I have a few concerns about how they’re going about it.
Has anyone noticed that the North end of town is mostly white while the South side has an above average Asian (including Chinese) population?
Wouldn’t it have made more sense to put this park in an area that people of Chinese descent could more readily and more easily make use of it? Instead we’re making improvements on the ‘white’ side of town? Check the statistics if you don’t believe me.
And who designed this thing? What does Stonehenge have to do with Chinese culture? And the sidewalk that spirals outward? The signs that explain the horrible event are small compared to these features.
I’ve taken to calling it ‘The Wizard of Stonehenge Park’.
And why the delays. Isn’t it a little insulting to say that we’re going to make this memorial but then not fund it? By doing so aren’t we saying that it really isn’t important?
And lastly, I will say that neither I nor my ancestors were part of that atrocious act. The people who did this are long since deceased. If my ancestors had been part of it I would feel it’s my duty to contribute to some form of reconciliation. But why am I paying for this through my taxes? Should I be paying for something that I had no part in? Shouldn’t this be completely voluntary?
Bottom line: Finish it or take the signs down and build something more appropriate in a place that’s more appropriate.
T Tim Smith June 24, 2010
@7 City Council approved an ordinance Aug. 16, 2005, that allowed the City to accept two state grants worth approximately $1.03 million for the construction of the park. The ordinance also allowed the City to accept $20,000 in cash or in-kind equivalents from the Chinese Reconciliation Foundation and the City will match the grant funds with approximately $1.02 million from the Economic Development Special Revenue Fund.
The Washington National Guard used to own the property and spent $1 million or so on environmental cleanup before donating the land to the City and some of the art pieces are from Tacoma’s Chinese sister city, Fuzhou, and friendship city, Mianyang.
Here is a specific breakdown of where the money came from:
Washington Wildlife and Recreation Program grant: $554,221
State Aquatic Lands Enhancement grant: $478,099
State heritage grant: $343,000
Community Trade and Economic Development allocation through the Legislature: $540,375
Chinese Reconciliation Project Foundation: $20,000
Chinese Reconciliation Project Foundation donation of artifacts: $3,480
City of Tacoma: $479,304 (to match grants)
City of Tacoma: $463,403 (for design work)
Washington National Guard, environmental cleanup: $1 million
Land donation: Washington National Guard
Total: $3,881,882
There was another $1 million or so from private donations.
Phase I was to be permanently open in 2008. In these times, I would expect this to continue to be drawn out for many more years.
The location is actually quite relevent. At the time almost all of the Chinese lived along the waterfront. The biggest concentration was in the “Moon Yard” near Dock street landing, and then along the shore and over the water (think homes on stilts) to Old Town.
After the Chinese were removed, mysterious fires broke out the very next day burning almost all of the structures. The location by the water memorializes their former “place” and ties in with a the bay/ocean link to the homeland China.
J joe-nate June 24, 2010
The Chinese Reconciliation Park, by its full name, is meant to complete the story of a jagged ending (and civic failure to protect a value held dear in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal): the Tacoma Method to get rid of many of the people who did the dangerous work to build the trancontinental railroad to the city that made it into a major Pacific seaport. The Tacoma Method was one of the worst examples of government-sanctioned bigotry toward immigrants from Asia in the nineteenth century but other cities in the West, such as San Francisco and Seattle, also had ordinances and laws that disparaged the worth of people of Chinese heritage. Thus, Tacoma is not inherently a narrow-minded redneck city next to so-called enlightened Seattle. History does matter—and the park, as planned, is set to become the public place where masses can learn of such experiences in the West. The Dr. Sun Yatsen Classical Garden in Vancouver, Canada (named for the man who founded the Republic of China who also raised funds there for that cause) and the Suzhou Chinese Classical Garden in Portland both showcase the brilliance of thought and visual taste of China. The Tacoma garden, which is extra special because it tells the story of immigrants who left their homeland for America (a place known in imperial China among the peasants as Gold Mountain), should be completed, even in these tough economic times because its theme is a story about this nation’s intellectual transformation on race issues through one city’s example of struggling with a civic memory of wrongdoing. Economic difficulties in the 1880s, when jobs were hard to find, fueled the fury behind the racist Tacoma Method to get rid of industrious Chinese immigrants who some believed were a detriment rather than a resource to the community. They did not have any due process to fight Mayor Jacob Weisbach’s decree they leave—or else. In later years, whatever power remained available in a China weakened by the West’s colonial interests there meant that Chinese business interests were focused on Seattle’s seaport—and its subsequent prosperity. Tacoma must complete the park—when finished, there might not be a greater monument in the West to the drama and resilience of the Chinese and their American descendants who worked to build this nation. Efforts should be made to open portions of the partly-completed garden on occasion for receptions and gathering to raise funds for its full development. It is more than ironic that the park overlooks one of the West’s greatest seaports served by ships from a world economic superpower, China. The jagged ending of the Tacoma Method must be mended: complete the Chinese Reconciliation Park or the story will remain unfinished and ugly.
R RR Anderson June 24, 2010
GO Tim Smith!
Wow Republican by Default, welcome back from oblivion … I find the views in your new ‘whites area’ comment just as sickening as the day you stopped updating your 5views.com blog
I am moved to draw a pointed political cartoon. Thanks!
R RR Anderson June 24, 2010
Dude, it’s a good place! It needs to go in the spot that will annoy people like bydefault the most. Not putting it on the spot where stilted house thingies were burned down would be like putting the 911 memorial somewhere other than ground zero. right? Help me out here.
T Tim Smith June 24, 2010
The gulch upstream from the Park was part of what was called “Little Canton”. As the only west coast port city without a Chinatown, I think it is the correct spot. I mean its there now. Its not like they are going to take a trackhoe and move it on a flatbed. Like RR stated, no other place would be as fitting or is currently occupied by some whiteman’s property.
R RR Anderson June 24, 2010
also I appreciate inacoma’s commenting tenacity. not easy from within the superman II general zod ip proxy prison.
R RR Anderson June 25, 2010
then there is the whole ironic angle…
Perhaps 100 years from now we’ll be giving away a sliver of port land for the North West Detention Center Reconciliation Park
R RR Anderson June 25, 2010
whoa dang! Maybe I should save this cartoon for ‘freedom fair’ week… that way could have giant ghost of Chinese laborer trapped behind a flimsy chain-link fence round his feet, out side the chain link fence you’ve got a bunch of non-profits kicking back on lounge chairs sipping suds watching the airshow (potential for easter eggs in crowd: falcore, Republican’s landscaping critiques/naked-racism-in-guise-of-non-political-correctness ala tea-party-express, coolie hats…etc). meanwhile the dark tower with eye of Sauron is growing out of the NWDC… the lidless eye locked on the trapped phantom laborer… an evil voice “I SEEEEEEEEEEEEEE YOU”
pass the lord and praise the ammunition.
A aznintacoma June 25, 2010
@7
To address the concerns of who is designing the park or who has say in the construction/location/etc, let me point out that both the President of the Chinese Reconciliation Project Foundation and the Project Manager of the park from the City of Tacoma are of Chinese descent.
RR I am looking forward to your cartoon!
M Mofo from the Hood June 26, 2010
I’m nearly awestruck by the #9 posting.
Shame on this current generation. We must repent. We WILL repent. By the authority of the groups listed at #9, we will sacrifice multiple generations of workingman’s income on the Eternal Altar of Choose Your Reparation.
And to think, TO THINK, there are people who flatly reject tithing 10% of their income to the Church for its various social support programs for abused and confused people in the here and now.
#9, #9, #9, #9, #9…
D dolly varden June 26, 2010
Right Mofo, and the Holocaust memorials in Washington, D.C. and Berlin are wastes of (partially) public money too, right? So are efforts, like this one, that in addition to having social/historical purposes, open public access to waterfront and improve shoreline habitat. Give me a break.
That said, I would have liked to have seen the TNT article detail why it costs so much to complete the park — from walking down there, it seems pretty far along.
J Jesse June 26, 2010
I personally think this is money well spent considering Tacoma is known for the “Tacoma Method”.
Mofo is right that almost all races in the USA have experienced prejudice (yes, even some white races) and reparations aren’t really an option as those sins are those of history and not necessarily those of personal individualism. I view this park as a bit of an apology of sorts from the city from a historical standpoint. Not a generational or personal one.
T Tacoma Joe June 26, 2010
For $3,881,882 (three MILLION eight HUNDRED eighty-one THOUSAND eight HUNDRED eighty-two) plus another MILLION in private donations, it’s taken years and years and years to scrape around a lot-size parcel of property with a few small strange installations so far… and now they’re asking for more time and money.
If I gathered a few fellas hangin’ around Home Depot, we’d knock that thing out in less than a week. Face it, this non-profit organization does not want to get it finished… they’re in the business of fundraising which they can only do as long as the project remains incomplete.
Maybe the majority of the $$ went toward the property (but seriously, someone needs to look into where all that dough went), but if they really cared about the purpose of the place they’d have simply laid down some native turf, placed a few simple benches and posted a historical placard dedicating the site to the memory of the atrocity. Done. Open to the public and open for contemplation. Any other landscaping and installations could come later, but as I said, they really only want more and more money (for as long as they can draw this out), not reconciliation.
J joe-nate June 27, 2010
Community history arising out of controversy always makes people uncomfortable but also promotes worthwhile debate, like here. Memphis remembers the late Martin Luther King, Jr. with the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel. Go twenty-five miles south of Olympia and shop for antiques while visiting McMenamin’s Olympic Club and ask folks about the legacy of the 1919 Centralia Massacre. That matter is still mired in local controversy in perhaps the most conservative county west of the Cascades but a mural celebrating the political values of Wesley Everest,one of the protagonists of the losing end of that battle, overlooks the town square.
As with the Museum of Glass and the LeMay Museum, if the Chinese Reconciliation Park is to reach its full and deserved potential, donors from around the nation and even the world probably will have to come together to help Tacoma finish what will be an extraordinary civic asset. Visit the Suzhou Chinese Classical Garden in downtown Portland and the worth of the Tacoma project, just for the beauty alone, will be obvious. The vision should not be thwarted—make the dream reality.
It is good to debate the Tacoma Method—to see how the lessons of history apply today. Centralia has centainly not forgotten its notorious 1919 event—nor is the subject swept under the carpet. For better or worse, it is part of the richness of that town and why people still go there, in addition to visiting McMenamin’s Olympic Club.
S Slim Jim June 27, 2010
But, joe-nate, wouldn’t it have been much better to have spent $100.00 on a sign memorializing that horrific past, and spending the rest of the nearly FIVE MILLION dollars on actually helping prevent the same action which is happening in other places around the world right now… and ironically right here in Tacoma again?
M Mofo from the Hood June 30, 2010
“The entire project is estimated to cost $12 million.”—-from the introduction.
If I could even imagine what $12 million looked like piled on a tabletop I would still have a hard time reconciling that price for a somber memorial park.
But no one will ever have to reconcile that expenditure. In the first place, a somber memorial park is not in the plans. The plans actually lay out a 4 acre theme park.
Why? “In August of 1991, Dr. and Mrs. David Murdoch sought to insure that this horrible event would not be forgotten, and made a request of the City for reconciliation.”
The Sacrament of Reconciliation is a concept from Catholicism. The key concept which applies to this whole matter is the Christian concept of forgiveness.
Did you know that China has the fastest growing Christian population in history? Besides the new converts within China, the neighboring countries, through Chinese missionaries, are also learning about the Christian concept of forgiveness.
We Tacoman’s don’t really need to beg unknown Chinese for forgiveness. We can’t reconcile a mean-spirited act by offering the Chinese a material sacrifice in the form of a $12 million theme park. That’s a meaningless act.
We can celebrate the fact that many Chinese are converting to Christianity and learning the significance of Christian forgiveness. At the same time, we still must face the reality that many other people only conduct their lives in material terms—-Only things which can be measured, such as expelled Chinese, the parameters of a park, and its construction costs are things worth considering.
I imagine that some materialist has worked out a reconciliation formula that calculates the number of Chinese expelled from Tacoma, and for each Chinese an assigned dollar amount and square inch per acre of land corresponds to the Tacoma park site.
Only in material terms could one reconcile sacrificing $12 million to build a theme park commemorating a mean-spirited act.
“Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.“–Ec.1:2
J Jesse June 30, 2010
“where have the hundreds of thousands gone that used to march on DC? the generation crapped out, and the following generation just rode their coat tails into the 80\‘s because it is a generational problem.” —- inacoma
That’s what I mean when I say it’s not a generational problem inacoma. In the above scenario, one generation passed the torch to another and they didn’t do anything with it. They quit pushing and pushing like the baby-boomers did before them. Sure, the problems proceeded through time and are passed down to the next generation but maybe aren’t as severe or something and morph into something else.
Where I would be marching along side of people for civil rights in the 1960’s, I probably wouldn’t today as times have changed and I don’t view it as a severe problem of my generation or of mine. Racism is still a problem but it isn’t the priority of this generation nor am I racist and it isn’t much of a problem of mine when compared to history. Things fade away with time.
But when talking about the Reconciliation Park and the “Tacoma Method” we’re not talking 40 years ago like with civil rights marches, we’re talking 125 years ago. So where civil rights are still a bit of an issue to this generation, The Tacoma Method and ideals that caused it to happen have faded into history and that’s why I say history owes that park to the expelled but my generation and I do not.
M MASTERblaster July 1, 2010
Ugh. When did the 133 start getting a case of the Trolls?
Anyway, I saw the park about a week ago. It looks really nice.
M Mofo from the Hood July 7, 2010
For heavens sake, I’m sure the whole event was some sort of cultural misunderstanding. You know, a language barrier or something.
Besides, are there any living witnesses who can confirm that the banishment to Portland, Oregon really happened?
If not, then no big thing…
Most of what I know about Western history I learned from deciphering art works in memorial parks.