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ASIAMS.NET |
ASIAN AMERICAN ISSUES
Is Seattle a Haven for Asian Americans?
he Seattle-Bellevue-Everett area is only 11th largest in the size of its Asian American population (285,000, or about 11.4% of the area's 2.5 million), but it claims one of the oldest and richest slices of Asian American history. Its Chinatown was home to America's first Asian-owned manufacturing business, the Wa Chong Co. The company produced, among other things, a very fine grade of opium, some of which was probably exported to China with the U.S. government's blessings.
Best city for AA?
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Since its birth in 1910 Seattle's atmospheric International District was settled by generations of Chinese, Japanese, Filipino and Vietnamese immigrants. In the late 70s the aging District began enjoying a rebirth into its modern incarnation thanks to Asian American activism in seeking to preserve it as a historical and cultural site. More recently an influx of trendy young AA professionals, entrepreneurs and artists has helped transform it into a vibrant part of downtown Seattle's cultural and night life. The District hosts the Northwest Asian American Theater Company and the Wing Luke Asian American Museum, named after a Chinese American elected to the Seattle City Council in 1965.
On the far end of the Seattle area's cultural spectrum is lush, ultra-modern Bellevue, one of the nation's most affluent communities. Asians make up 20.3% of the students of the Bellevue School District, thrice the 7.3% concentration in the general population of Washington state. This points up the fact that Seattle hosts one of the nation's best established Asian populations. Unlike some urban areas dominated by one or two Asian nationalities, Seattle's AA population is highly diversified, comprising the nations 7th largest Japanese (31,000), the 8th largest Vietnamese (44,000), 9th largest Corean (38,000), and the 11th largest Chinese (58,000) and Filipino (53,000) communities.
The area's Asian Americans take pride in their high degree of acceptance and integration. The fact that the state's governor is a Chinese American named Gary Locke doesn't hurt, of course. Or that the city's major league baseball team is owned by Nintendo chairman Hiroshi Yamauchi and sparked by Ichiro. Even on the grassroots level, one sees signs of acceptance. The ratio of AM/WF couples is noticeably higher than in most other metro areas. A cop who was rude in issuing a jaywalking ticket to a group of Asian Americans last year was reprimanded by the police department. And the ticket was dismissed by the judge.
Is the Seattle area really a haven for Asian Americans? What are the best and worst aspects of AA life there?
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WHAT YOU SAY
[This page is closed to new input. --Ed.]
(Updated
Tuesday, Apr 1, 2008, 05:56:45 PM)
Seattle is the best city for Asian Americans to live in. The clean air, natural surroundings, etc. mountains, ocean, etc. moderate climate. Makes Seattle a magnet for Asian Americans.
Raymond Keanu Lau
localboyz@hotmail.com
Thursday, March 14, 2002 at 20:25:24 (PST)
I've lived in Seattle my whole life, so I don't really know how it compares to other cities. I just want to say that we don't have bad weather. The sky is not gray all the time- only during the winter!
andie
Thursday, March 14, 2002 at 09:04:23 (PST)
I lived in Seattle during 1997-1998 on a job assignment and found there to be mixed blessing for Asian Americans.
On the one hand, the entrenched multigenerational Asian American population and strongly visible represntation of AAs politcially (Judge Linda Lau who presided over the Mary Kay LeTourneau case, Gov. Gary Locke, etc.) means that AAs are taken seriously by most educated White folks in the Seattle Metro Area. Ruby Chow's restaurant is there, and Bruce Lee's lived there, went to U-Dubb, and has a long history there as well.
The AM/WF to WM/AF ratio is very close to equal in Seattle. This inevitably made it a lot easier on the WM/AF populace because I never once overheard any AM gripe about WMs with AFs in Seattle, whereas I heard them gripe constantly about it back in Texas.
Most of the AA populace is strongly American Acculterated--many fifth and sixth generation AAs there. Very different from Houston where much of the AA populace arrived after 1975. A lot of those AAs look down on FOBs though and I witnessed a number of AA locals cussing under their breaths every time a recent arrival was speaking broken English or having a hard time.
What was sad was that I, a White man, spoke Mandarin and Vietnamese and could assist such customers at the bank while coworkers of mine of Viet and Chinese ancestry didn't speak their native language, didn't want to and often mistreated these recent arrivals.
The other hand, the big move of Californians to the state has totally pissed off the locals, no matter what their ethnicity. This big influx of California Transplants has contributed to rising costs of real estate and increased traffic in the city. I was working for a large bank headquartered in CA when I was transferred out to Seattle, though I worked for them in Texas. (cough-cough, Wells Fargo, cough-cough) I was called a "Dirty Rotten No-Good #$!#@!@! Californian" by a ton of locals until I either said I was from Texas or I spoke intentionally in a Texas twang. After the locals realized I was from Texas, they became VERY FRIENDLY with me because they saw Texas in the same boat as Washington State--strong minded, independent, no state income tax and the polar opposite of California.
A lot of the locals complained that before the big influx of Californians, the city was highly Iconoclast--borderline socialist in fact. You could go into a bar and a longshoreman would be talking with a college professor like equals and friends before the big CA incursion. After that, all these CA people started pushing classism on the city, which has brewed a lot of resentment from the locals of all ethnic backgrounds and all walks of life. Once again, this isn't my complaint--this was something the locals went on and on and on about the whole time I was there.
I was also shocked at the fact that in such a small city the average rent for a 600 square foot 1-br/1-ba apartment was almost $1000/month. I know it would be a bargain in NY, but in Houston, San Antonio and Dallas, you could score something nicer for $500/month! The locals (a lot of them AA) told me that it was due to all these Californians who were coming in her to work for Boeing (Now gone!), Microsoft, and various California Banks (cough-cough, Wells Fargo, cough-cough) moving into the area and driving up prices.
In the Capitol Hill area, Calfornians were buying old houses, gutting the insides to redo them as 4-plexes and renting them out at over $1000/a month to other Californians. A lot of the local working class folks (including AAs) were having to go to Federal Way, Lynnwood, Tacoma and even as far as Olympia to find affordable rental property.
This same phenomenon has been seen in a city in Texas: Austin. Austin has sometimes been called the People's Republic of Texas in the past because of it's blatant liberalism, but once again, during the past decade, Californians have moved there by storm, driven up real estate prices, pushed their classism on the city and have pissed off all the locals once again.
I eventually went back to Texas because although I liked Seattle a lot, I got tired of not seeing the sun. The reason so many Seattlites drink so much coffee is because it only gets close to 80 degrees in August and the constant cloudy sky gets to be really depressing after a while. However, I remember Seattle quite fondly and always come back to visit the friends I made there.
Overall, I'd say there's more good than bad in Seattle as far as what it offers the AA population. However, if you're from California, leave your CA attitude at the Oregon State Line and DON'T TELL ANYONE YOUR FROM CALIFORNIA if you want to get along.
Texan who lived in Seattle for a while
Wednesday, March 13, 2002 at 06:45:51 (PST)
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