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December 29, 2020
To our supporters,
There is not much that I can say about this year. We all know the impact this pandemic has made, both globally and locally. And I sincerely hope that I am greeting you in a moment of calm and hopefulness for our coming year. I remain hopeful as we turn the corner into 2021 with a theoretical reset button and with the imminent arrival of multiple vaccines. Though 2020 did not play out exactly as planned, I feel that we navigated our way as a team and adjusted our goals as best as we could. We cancelled our annual fundraising dinner and are grateful to those who responded to our letters with financial donations. Your generous support enables us to continue our operation and look into our future goals. We also redirected some of your financial donations to support the Pierce County Emergency Network and school district Food Service to help with the shortage of PPE. In addition, we were able to deliver diapers and Baby wipes to YWCA and provide some nourishment to our frontline medical workers. One of the biggest changes we made for this year allowed us to reconstruct the plan for our Annual Tacoma Moon Festival to engage the community virtually instead of in-person. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to use our resources and support our local needs. We are very aware of how difficult this year has been, and we cannot express how grateful we are to have your continued support. Please click here to view the 2020 List of Donors.
2020 has provided me the opportunity to appreciate the power of community. I admired communities across our country that did not have to be physically close, similar in age or background to speak out for the same cause. I saw teachers learn to create a classroom community through a screen and parents creating communities to support their children through this confusing year. I could list so many examples of the amazing ways this year created chances for us to come together and make heroes among us. I take pride in knowing that our Chinese Reconciliation Park Foundation is a community that comes together to celebrate, knowing that we can overcome differences and create a safe space that enables growth. We stand for change that acknowledges our history and finds the path to a better future. As difficult as it is to acknowledge the amount of pain and suffering our communities endured this year, I am grateful to be a part of a team that strives to rise from the difficulties and come together to mend.
As the year comes to an end, the Foundation is busy laying out the framework for 2021. Our goals include:
- We plan to update the foundation’s website in order to provide a better user experience on all platforms, including languages and assistive technologies.
- We will begin to reimagine our Annual Fundraising Dinner to enable our continued operation and growth.
- We would like to republish “Straw Hats, Sandals and Steel”. This book was written by Lorraine Hildebrand a former long-time board member who gifted the publishing rights to the foundation. The Foundation hopes to provide this book to local schools as an historical resource and make it accessible to the public.
- We will continue seeking collaboration with other community organizations.
- And finally, we will continue to enhance the Tacoma Moon Festival website. I am so grateful we had everyone’s support while we went online with our Moon Festival this year. I hope you were able to enjoy the performances and content as much as I did. I look forward to being able to see you all in person as soon as it is safe to do so.
I hope that you all can stay safe and healthy through this holiday season. I encourage you all to do whatever it is that makes you feel safe, healthy, supported and connected. I am wishing you and yours a peaceful holiday and look forward to moving forward in our new year.
In Gratitude,
Theresa Pan Hosley, CRPF President
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June 29, 2020
Chinese Reconciliation Project Foundation Board Statement of Solidarity with the Black Lives Matter Movement, the Families of Those Lost to Police Violence, and Protesters Demonstrating for Systemic Change.
The undersigned members of the Board of the Chinese Reconciliation Project Foundation (CRPF) wishes to voice its solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and with our Black and Brown fellow citizens who, currently and in the past, have suffered from the effects of intentional and systemic racism.
Like the Chinese who were driven out of early Tacoma in 1885 by a mob of White Supremacists, Black Americans in Tacoma, arriving as early as the 1860’s, suffered violent personal attacks and indignities, and were denied basic human rights such as the ability to own property, or to own it because of “red-lined” districts. Black and Brown Tacoma citizens have experienced the structural discrimination and daily assaults, macro and micro, that have led to heroic protests over the decades, and again this spring. The death of Manuel Ellis while in the hands of Tacoma Police in March is only the latest in a long history of violence and abuse suffered by the Black community in Tacoma.
The Members of the Board commit themselves to advocacy of specific, deep, structural changes in City policies and police procedures as well as other emerging commitments to promoting and uplifting our Black fellow citizens. We also commit to being part of city-wide conversations about “Whiteness” and the deep, pernicious effects it has on our Black and Brown friends and neighbors.
The CRPF is a nonprofit organization that advances civic harmony by way of the Tacoma Chinese Garden and Reconciliation Park on Ruston Way in Old Town along Commencement Bay. The park is an act of reconciliation and inclusivity toward appreciation of the people of diverse legacies and interests who are part of the city as a dynamic community. In order for this park and this organization to demonstrate our commitment to this ideal, the ethnically diverse Members of the CRPF Board must today, in 2020, commit also to the process of addressing the historical legacies of slavery, Jim Crow and white supremacy in the United States, the State of Washington and the City of Tacoma.
Theresa Pan Hosley (President)
George Lim (Vice President)
Bill Evans (Treasurer)
Larry Hosley (Corresponding Secretary)
Lotus Perry (Recording Secretary)
Anne Tsuneishi
Calvin Pearson
Clarita Grant
Erling Kuester
Greg Youtz
Jill Magnuson
Lucy Zhou
Minh-Anh Hodge
Myrna Loy-Zolyomi
Patrick Pow
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May 5, 2020
Statement from CRPF Board Member George Lim
In response to the recent surge in anti-Asian statements and actions from people in our local community right on up to officials of our federal government, the Board of the Chinese Reconciliation Project Foundation in Tacoma, Washington wishes to endorse and share the following statement from Board member George Lim. His remarks are grounded in the deepest values of our non-profit organization and of our country- those of inclusion, respect and social harmony.
Theresa Pan Hosley
President
Board Members:
Anne Tsuneishi
Bill Evans
Calvin Pearson
Clarita Grant
David Morse
Erling Kuester
George Lim
Greg Youtz
Jill Magnuson
Larry Hosley
Linda C J Lee
Lotus Perry
Lucy Zhou
Minh-Anh Hodge
Myrna Loy-Zolyomi
Patrick Pow
Suzanne Barnett, Board Member Emerita
To our members and followers:
As I observe the people in my community trying to cope with the challenges the COVID-19 Pandemic has imposed into all our lives, I see how it has taken a toll on everyone’s spirit and dispositions. With the implementation of government mandated social distancing, stay at home orders and the shutdown of businesses, underlying tension and struggles in everyone’s daily life have become more visible. I am reading online, more and more reported incidents of violence towards members of our Asian communities across the country. As I read of escalating reported incidents of crime and violence directed at Asians in our community, I cannot help but to remember the history of acts of violence towards targeted ethnic minorities for the purpose of spuriously assigning blame for whatever political strife is happening at that particular time.
“Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.” – Made popular by Winston Churchill, but originally written by George Santayana in 1905 – “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
In either version, the words are pointedly relevant to what we are experiencing during these trying times, and more so for all of my friends and family living in the State of Washington and especially in Tacoma. The city of Tacoma has already endured a terrible act of racism that was named The Tacoma Method.
During the depression of the 1880s, the country was enduring a period of unrest and uncertainty; jobs were disappearing and food and the necessities becoming more scarce. As jobs became more scarce, the Chinese were blamed for taking work from ‘Americans’, even though the jobs the Chinese held were not jobs that other members of the community even wanted, like doing laundry, working at the canneries, and laying railroads. When people started becoming ill in the community, the Chinese were blamed for bringing illnesses into their community just because they were different.
In the City of Tacoma in 1885, prominent members of the community in cooperation with the local government were working to perpetuate political strife and forcibly remove the remaining Chinese from the city. What was even more appalling about this attack on the Chinese community was that the violence was led by local leaders, including the mayor and the police chief. This act of racist violence, directed at the Tacoma Chinese in 1885, was termed the Tacoma Method.
In 1882, the United States Government had passed the Chinese Exclusion Act. Because the climate of the country was in such unrest and uncertainty, this gave local governments across America the approval to freely remove Chinese from their communities. In 1885, as tensions got higher and unrest increased across the country, local government leaders began to champion the removal of Chinese under the guise of the Chinese Exclusion Act. The Chinese Exclusion Act, initiated by the highest levels of the United States Government, made it very easy for local governments to carry out the expulsion of Chinese from within their communities. This enabled and led to the Tacoma Method, and resulted in a dark stain on the history of the City of Tacoma.
Sadly, I am seeing an eerie resemblance to the past as the quarantine for the COVID-19 Pandemic stretches into more days and businesses are closed even longer. More and more people are losing their jobs and the fear of food and supply shortages is resulting in the increase of irrational behavior, and is starting to show itself on the television, social media and our physical environment.
Despite my adolescent efforts, I remember, every now and then in my childhood, how I was reminded by someone or some incident, that I was different. I remember playing baseball in a little league game, and when I was at bat, hearing the father of the pitcher yell out, “Strike that Chink Out!” I remember the coach and his wife comforting me after the game, asking me if I was ok. I recall that I was not even upset or emotional about what this man had said. They explained to me, a young child at the time, what this racist word meant. I have heard this word many more times as I grew into adulthood – as I got older the meaning became more hurtful and painful.
I wish I could say the attacks ended, that as an adult I have never experienced any racism or personal attacks purely because I was Chinese, but I cannot. I have experienced racist attacks at the violent level of having bottles thrown at me as I stood at a public bus stop. The attackers were in the back of an open truck bed, yelling at me to “go back where you came from,” while they pitched the glass missiles at my body. More passive but much more painful attacks have included people approaching me to tell me to, “stay with your own kind” as I walked down the street holding hands with a blond, blue-eyed young lady.
And now the attacks have a new catalyst, and during this COVID-19 Pandemic I have found myself the target of virus related racial attacks. Standing at a local market (wearing my mask) I heard a very loud and deliberate coughing coming from behind me. When it persisted and became louder, I turned to see a man standing about twenty feet from me coughing directly towards me to get my attention. When he saw that I acknowledged his coughing, he angrily and aggressively tells me, “I’m just giving it back to you since you brought it to this country!”
As much as I have tried to belong, to be an American, these incidents remind me that my desire to be part of the social fabric of America is always going to be conditional on the acceptance of others.
As a board member of the Chinese Reconciliation Project Foundation I share my story to plead with all who may read this to help stop the senseless violence directed toward the Asian members of our community. If we do not stand up and voice our protest regarding this violence and overt racism, and instead listen to the uneducated and incendiary remarks made by some leaders of our country, we may see a repeat of The Chinese Exclusion Act, something we at the Chinese Reconciliation Project Foundation work hard to make sure never happens again.
When one is scared and fears the unknown, it becomes easy to target and blame a specific ethnicity or culture for what is happening. I challenge everyone to work harder for truth, to stand up for what is right, to call out and voice concern, and to stand in solidarity with all members of your community, no matter their ethnicity, background, or station in life. Racism, violence, and fear are not core values we want to build, support, or see in our community – as a people we stand for reconciliation, equality, understanding, and empathy.
“History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, however, if faced with courage, need not be lived again.” – Maya Angelou
George Lim
Board Member
Chinese Reconciliation Project Foundation
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Due to the increased concerned of the current COVID-19 situation, at our board meeting last Tuesday, we collectively decided to take a different approach for our annual fundraising.
In order to reach our budget goals for the year, the planning committee needs your support to find sponsors, to procure auction items and donations. Last year, we raised about $30,000 at the annual dinner. We will soon be sharing more information from our planning committee. Click here to learn more!
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The Chinese Reconciliation Project Foundation (CRPF) is a nonprofit organization that advances civic harmony by way of the Tacoma Chinese Reconciliation Park along the Commencement Bay waterfront close to Old Town.
The Chinese garden motif allows the park to stand both as an acknowledgment of the forceful expulsion of the Chinese population of the City of Tacoma by municipal leaders and a large crowd on November 3, 1885, and as a celebration of the city’s multicultural past, present, and future. The expulsion was an act of exclusion in response to complex conditions of the time, among them economic decline and anti-Chinese sentiment. The park is an act of reconciliation and inclusivity toward appreciation of the people of diverse legacies and interests who are part of the city as a dynamic community.
Working with the city and the state, CRPF aims to inform and also to inspire. Through pathways and structures, as well as posted signage, visitors to the park can find out about Chinese sojourners who made their way to live and work in Tacoma and later encountered civic injustice. The park thus provides a place for contemplation but also renewal. Children can run and play, family and friends can exchange ideas, and all can be mindful of the interconnectedness of peoples.