Tacoma Holds Reconciliation Walk Today: Retracing the 1885 Expulsion Route of Chinese Residents, Led by a Lion Dance Team
Tacoma, Washington's annual Reconciliation Walk Against Racism will be held on Saturday, Oct. 24, in the 141st anniversary year of the expulsion of the city's Chinese residents. Hosted by the Chinese Reconciliation Project Foundation and free to the public, the event opens at 10 a.m. with a ceremony in the Tahoma Auditorium of the Washington State History Museum; the walk departs at 10:45 a.m. from near Union Station, proceeding through downtown and along Schuster Parkway to Chinese Reconciliation Park, with a closing ceremony at noon. The procession is led by city, education, business and faith leaders and by the Mak Fai Kung Fu Dragon and Lion Dance Association's lion dance team; participants who cannot or prefer not to walk may take a shuttle departing at 10:45 a.m. from 1911 Pacific Avenue directly to the park, with a return shuttle to Union Station at 1:15 p.m. The closing program features remarks by Tacoma Police Chief Patti Jackson, Pierce County Councilmember Robyn Denson and former Tacoma NAACP president Jonathan Johnson, a performance by the University of Puget Sound taiko ensemble, and free hot food in the park. The route itself carries heavy history: on Nov. 3, 1885, a group of Tacoma men rounded up the roughly 200 Chinese residents then remaining in the city, including families, and drove them out of town, in what became known as the "Tacoma Method." Today's walk retraces that expulsion route in reverse; organizers say it is meant to remember that history while reaffirming that the city belongs to people of all ethnicities and cultures.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：塔科马联合车站（资料图）。照片：Wikimedia Commons（CC BY-SA 4.0）。Tacoma Union Station (file photo). Photo: Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).
