Uncovering Portland’s Anti-Asian History with Remembrance, Repair, and Redemption
We are burdened by our history of injustice, but more importantly we are burdened by our history of repeating injustice.
I help communities unearth stories of injustice and engage in the necessary truth telling and repair required to reconcile instances of historical harm. I have started working with a small group from the Mt. Tabor area in Portland who want to educate their community and add a new chapter to their local history. Focused on the Asian-American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community, this group is shining a light on the racism of the past for the purpose of creating an intentional community committed to addressing that same racism in the present. Their goal is simple: Interrupt the cycle of history.
It’s a cycle that’s been spinning for far too long. On November 3, 1885, a mob of 500 men descended on Tacoma’s Chinatown. They went door-to-door to homes and businesses in the Chinese community and instructed them to board a series of wagons and trains headed for Portland. The Chinese population of Tacoma, 700 at the time, evaporated overnight. The remains of Tacoma’s Chinatown were set on fire and burned to the ground. Ashes were all that remained of Tacoma’s Chinese population. This later became known as “The Tacoma Method.” It had been created by a task force of civic leaders, including Tacoma’s mayor.
The violence was not localized. Emboldened by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which barred Chinese immigration to the United States, a wave of nativist violence had swept over many parts of the country. Here in the Northwest, the anti-Chinese violence was so rampant that Washington’s territorial governor declared martial law just to curb its spread.
The Chinese population of Tacoma arrived in Portland as refugees from violence. Unfortunately, the leader of the anti-Chinese movement in Washington followed them to Oregon and declared that “there will not be a working Chinamen in Portland” within three months. On February 22, 1886 the local anti-Chinese movement mobilized a 1,000-person torchlight parade through downtown Portland. This display of anti-Chinese sentiment spurred a series of acts of violence. That night a mob attacked 160 Chinese laborers in Oregon City, robbed them of their money, and escorted them to a steamboat headed for Portland.
That same night an encampment of Chinese woodcutters in Albina was violently expelled and forced to relocate to the Mt. Tabor area. On March 4, 1886, this same community of 100-200 Chinese laborers in Mt. Tabor would once again be attacked in the middle of the night by a group of 50 masked vigilantes, and were forced to board a ferry headed to Portland’s Chinatown. These refugees from violence were continually displaced both to and from the city of Portland.
Our failure to address the heart of the racism of our past has left us ill-prepared to address the racism of our present. Nearly a century and a half later, a new wave of anti-Asian violence has swept over the United States. Spurred on by the Covid-19 pandemic, a form of social leprosy was injected into the Asian community. Starting with the President of the United States, the sentiment behind the “China Virus” has trickled down throughout American society.
From March 19, 2020 to September 30, 2021, Stop AAPI Hate has documented 10,370 incidents of hate against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Verbal harassment, shunning, physical violence, and civil rights violations have plagued the AAPI community. It is estimated that one in five have experienced some form of hate incident in the past year. This rapid upsurge in discrimination reflects the lingering anti-Asian sentiment that has been allowed to fester just below the surface of American society for nearly the last century and a half. History doesn’t just innately repeat itself. We allow it to repeat.
Forced displacement is a place-based action. So, the Mt. Tabor group believes they need a place-based action to respond to this history. Their goal is to develop community programming alongside AAPI voices, culminating in the installation of a historical marker. One side of the marker would discuss the local anti-Chinese violence and the other side would state the community’s commitment to the ideal of historical justice.
In trying to repair the past, we can begin to heal the present. In this spirit, we find historical justice for the displaced Chinese laborers by using their memory to inspire a new community story—one in which that community is collectively aligned against modern AAPI hate. Through creating these intentional community spaces around our history, we can bring a semblance of justice to those who have been harmed by historical wrong.
We are burdened by our history of injustice, but more importantly we are burdened by our history of repeating injustice. Our failure to confront the origins of systemic injustice is what has allowed that injustice to evolve. By adding new chapters of justice to the stories of history, we can interrupt the cycle of repetitious harm.
I invite you to join this movement for truth and reconciliation. Connect with the Oregon Remembrance Project and learn more about the community projects of Coos Bay and Grants Pass.
Founder of the Oregon Remembrance Project. Seeking the truth and repair required to bring us closer to reconciliation.
Photo credit: "Tommy Watches The Sunrise, Mt Tabor" by lumachrome is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0