Wing Luke exhibit shows how Black, Asian, and Jewish Seattleites confront hate together

The exhibit is a response to rising reports of anti-Semitic and racist hate incidents in Seattle in recent years — but looks back into history.

A new exhibit opening May 22 at the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience explores how three Seattle communities – Black, Asian-American, and Jewish – have faced prejudice, both in the past and in the face of rising hate crimes today.

Called “Confronting Hate Together,” the exhibit was created as a partnership between the museum, the Washington State Jewish Historical Society, and the Black Heritage Society of Washington State.

It’s a response to rising reports of anti-Semitic and racist hate incidents in Seattle in recent years. In 2013, Seattle police tallied a little over a hundred hate crimes, bias incidents, or “crimes with bias elements.” Last year, they reported over 900, though some of that increase could be due to improved reporting systems.

“We wanted to look towards the past to see how that might inform our present and our future,” said Cassie Chinn, deputy executive director of the Wing Luke museum.

“Our three communities here in Seattle, historically, had been living side by side in neighborhoods together – that's a result of housing exclusion and segregation here in Seattle – and our three communities were neighbors, friends, schoolmates. They built community together.”

During World War II, local Jewish families held onto Japanese-Americans’ belongings or watched their businesses when they were forced into camps. In 1961, when a Seattle church wouldn’t host Martin Luther King, Jr., Temple de Hirsch Sinai welcomed him.

Last year, members of these communities brought flowers and messages of support after a white man shouting about “the Chinese” smashed Wing Luke’s windows, or two people in hoodies vandalized Temple de Hirsch Sinai, said Lisa Kranseler, executive director of the Jewish Historical Society of Washington State.

“When you're threatening both physical and psychological safety of any marginalized group, it's not just a Jewish issue. It's an issue that is for all of us,” Kranseler said.

“There's a lot of challenges within each of the communities right now, and we're not the organization to talk about international or national politics,” Kranseler said. “By building relationships from an individual level, through historical societies, ethnic groups, museums – there is relevancy.”

The physical exhibit running through June 30 is just a small hallway in Wing Luke, but the organizers hope it will be the start of a bigger conversation about how the whole community can combat hate. (There’s also a website launching Tuesday, and a podcast featuring interviews with local experts, elected officials and faith leaders.)

“I'm really excited for people to hear what the folks in our community are saying about their experiences around hate and bigotry and bias, but also ideas about what we can do about that,” said Stephanie Johnson-Toliver, president of the Black Heritage Society of Washington State. “How do we confront it together?”