By Asian Pacific Americans for Civic Engagement (APACE) PAC
The Chinatown/International District is hurting. The recent vandalism of the Wing Luke Museum showed that anti-Asian hate is alive and well. The cancellation of the CID Night Market was a blow to our small businesses, still struggling after the pandemic.
Yet many in the media and positions of power (or seeking power) have been using the CID—which spans Chinatown, Filipino Town, Japantown, and Little Saigon— to advance their personal agendas and platforms while conveniently forgetting to advocate for resources and care the neighborhood so desperately needs.
To those who wish to effectively lead or to media personalities who want to cover the challenges our home is experiencing, we call on you to do better by embracing the difficult work and truly advocate with us: not press conferences, not media stunts, not using the neighborhood as a wedge issue.
To many, the neglect of the neighborhood or its use as a talking point to justify systems that often oppress and marginalize poor, non-white, or limited English proficient people might seem like a new dynamic, but the history of the CID shows otherwise.
Our beloved neighborhood, a cultural home to many, has also been a home for other groups, including Seattle’s Black community and tribal communities. Throughout the neighborhood’s history of being one of the few areas where non-white communities could reside, it has been serially overlooked, under-resourced, and neglected. At the same time, the CID has routinely been treated as a “convenient site for services” that would never land in a wealthy, white neighborhood.
Decades and generations of failed pro-carceral, pro-police state, pro-NIMBY political ideology—working to protect wealthy (and white) neighborhoods from disruptions to “neighborhood character”—have worked to produce safety and economic opportunity that centers some and fails many others—especially neighborhoods like the CID, because of who lives there or calls it home. Ignore the non-stop local media and conservative politician talking points about “public safety.” The CID is much more than what these individuals and institutions would want you to believe to support their agenda.
Our predecessors were resilient in the face of intense legal and de facto discrimination, as well violence from the state and from xenophobic homesteaders, and it shows in the richness of the neighborhood.
It is home for many of us across the broad Asian and Asian-American diaspora, who have memories of walking up and down Jackson Street or King Street or Weller Street with our family and friends, eating the foods that evoke powerful, cherished memories.
It is where we can hear our home languages, where our elders and younger generations have found community despite being unwelcome, treated as perpetual foreigners, and targeted with violence.
We’ve had enough of leaders using the CID when it’s convenient—to prove their community credentials, as a sad story to be gawked at, or when it serves a political agenda.
In July, the National Trust for Historic Preservation named the CID one of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places, citing the history of displacement and gentrification in the neighborhood. Across the country, other Chinatowns have disappeared or are disappearing. To prevent that from happening here in Seattle we must put progressive, community-centric values into policy and program interventions that start upstream. It is essential to pair that long-term work with an immediate urgency to stand up and increase the availability of services that truly meet the needs of the neighborhood.
To meet the public safety needs in a way that can genuinely move the needle, we cannot and must not replicate the pro-carceral positions of the past (and current day). Insisting that “more police is the answer” has not been effective at reducing harm or safely de-escalating people in crisis safely. Policies of the past merely shifted the visibility of people in crisis while ignoring the causes of abject poverty in our communities or ignoring people suffering from substance use disorder or mental illness. Community trust in policing is critical to public safety, and in light of recent headlines, this trust is delicate at best.
One example of what collaboration can look like? After the 2021 Atlanta Spa shooting that targeted Asian women and businesses caused a national wave of concern and anxiety of being further targeted for violence by AANHPI communities, Seattle City Hall directed resources to enhance public safety via community-led resiliency and safety initiatives in partnership with the CID. This shows a different way is possible.
We’ve had enough of leaders using the CID when it’s convenient—to prove their community credentials, as a sad story to be gawked at, or when it serves a political agenda. It’s time for leaders to commit to working with nonprofits and community members supporting the neighborhood to address systemic inequities, co-design strategies and solutions, and move the neighborhood to long-term vibrancy and prosperity. This is love for the CID in action.
The CID is a treasure in so many ways.
It’s worth asking, how many community members in the CID use language like “pro-carceral, pro-police state”?
Despite the name of this org, these hyper-progressive groups do not represent the community. They represent their unknown donors and funders, likely many of the same people who fund other progressive organizations. The point of these organizations is to echo progressive talking points and effect ideological political change, *not* represent community interests.
> One example of what collaboration can look like? After the 2021 Atlanta Spa shooting that targeted Asian women and businesses caused a national wave of concern and anxiety of being further targeted for violence by AANHPI communities, Seattle City Hall directed resources to enhance public safety via community-led resiliency and safety initiatives in partnership with the CID. This shows a different way is possible.
Remarkable that the reality of 2021 and 2022 is elided in this paragraph. Did these resources actually address anything? If you don’t know what “community-led resiliency and safety initiatives” means specifically, and whether that was effective, you’re not alone.
In the copy & paste world of these progressive groups, the same meaningless words and symbols are repeatedly deployed to make it sound like there is a magic alternative to enforcing laws when people break them. There isn’t. People know it. But their funders demand a different message so that all of the progressive groups they fund say the same thing & get along. It’s a manufactured consensus.
Talk to people in the community, not PACs.
I heard plenty of blame in the column but not much in the way of solutions. What would you have this white person do?
When I drive through CID I see a place that is unwelcoming. Not because of the businesses and the ‘homed’ residents, but because of the drug-addicted and mental health challenged. Two weeks ago on my way through traffic was stopped by a fight in the middle of the road between three males, two white & one black, who clearly weren’t in their best mental states.
There was indeed a time I enjoyed a walk through CID, stopping for food or ambience. I didn’t expect people or shop owners to cater to my white tastes – in fact I enjoyed the difference and dropped my money there. We exchanged pleasantries and goods/cash.
No more. The place isn’t safe. Do you want me coming into CID and enjoying/spending, or do you just want me to feel bad for being white and having a good job & home elsewhere? Tell me the solutions to street addiction, homelessness & violence, and how I can help.
Having lived @ 10th & Jackson and now in Japantown, it is quickly obvious that the CID is often forgotten. We have no streets that have been turned into pedestrian malls (unlike white Ballard) although there are several streets that cry out for it. Restaurants often open only on game days. We have no Farmer’s market and yet there is a vibrant garden at Danny Woo that makes it clear people are interested. Where is our Safe Street?
Time after time politicians come here to talk and then play games with the CID’s future. Time after time pols come to the CID to wring their hands, while making deals to move stations (benefitting other areas nearby) away after making us live for a decade with torn up streets and disregard. Where was the call to action when the National Trust placed the CID on the most Endangered list?
And of all the places I have lived. In all the neighborhoods, none has impressed me as much as the CID for resiliency. They needed a place for retirees…so they built it. One of our oldest restaurants is the CID & many Seattleites are completely unaware of its existence. As someone who has lived in other cities, perhaps I better recognize the jewel that is the CID. Perhaps it is time for others to pay more attention and give more love to this truly unique neighborhood.
The CID is plenty safe as it is though. There is no need to make the unnecessary Safe Streets Program any worse.
The CID is suffering, yes. But to demonize the homeless as crazy druggies as this PAC’s editorial does will not help it. Neither will objecting to homeless shelters that aren’t even in the CID. I agree with the initial premise. Seattle has sorely used a state treasure. But the moment that devolves into hand wringing or giving public space over to private enterprise (the “Night Market”), you lose me. That’s not the solution. That only makes the problem worse, not better.
I agree. That was a misnaming on my part. I meant where is our Stay Healthy Street. CID is noticeably short of grass and flat places to walk or learn to ride a bike.