Wing Luke Museum: A Politician's Vision, a Community's Memorial
Near Woodinville, Washington
Wing Luke arrived in Seattle from China as a child and grew up to become, in nineteen sixty-two, the first person of color elected to the Seattle City Council and the first Asian American elected to public office in the entire Pacific Northwest. He campaigned fiercely against discriminatory housing practices and helped establish the Seattle Human Rights Commission. Three years into his council term, Luke died at forty in a small-plane crash in the Cascade Mountains.
His friends and supporters pooled donations to honor the museum he had envisioned, and the Wing Luke Memorial Museum opened in a small storefront in nineteen sixty-seven. It has since grown into the only pan-Asian Pacific American community museum in the United States and a Smithsonian Institution affiliate, dedicated to the full breadth of Asian, Pacific Islander, and Native Hawaiian experience in the Northwest.
