SEATTLE'S INTERNATIONAL DISTRICT |
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SEATTLE'S INTERNATIONAL DISTRICT East of Pioneer Square is the International District, Seattle's Chinatown, where Asian groceries and restaurants line the streets. The updated moniker reflects both a controversial wave of political correctness and the gradual diversification of the area. The Chinese were among the first settlers in Seattle in the late 1800s (the original Chinatown was around 2nd Ave and Washington St), followed by Japanese, Filipinos, Vietnamese, Laotians and others. Later immigrants settled just to the east of present-day Chinatown in an area known as Little Saigon. Although 'International District' seems a pretty useful term for this mix of races and cultures, it is in fact a relatively recent and controversial moniker, fashioned at the start of political correctness in the early 1970s. The Chinese grew resentful of the term when the renaming left 'Chinatown a seemingly dirty word, but other Asian groups welcomed representation. Scuffles about who the neighborhood belongs to continue as they have throughout the area's history. Many Seattleites still refer to the area as Chinatown or simply 'the ID.' Asian immigrants had an important presence in Seattle pretty much from the beginning. The muscle behind this early Asian settlement was the Wa Chong Company, labor contractors who brought in Chinese workers for timber, mining and railroad jobs in the 1860s and 1870s. After the anti-Chinese riots of 1886 , the population of Chinatown dropped from an estimated 1500 to about 500; large numbers of Chinese immigrants didn't start coming back to the area until after the Great Fire of 1889. At that point, Chinatown shifted to where it is now, around the King St and Jackson St area. Immigrants from Japan settled the area in the later 1800s and remained the largest minority group until WWII. 'Japantown' was just to the north of Chinatown; the Japanese population at one point was about 6000. From the 1920s to '40s, this was a very bustling place, thriving with Asian markets and other businesses that were built and patronized by the country's highest concentration of Japanese and Chinese Americans. African Americans and Filipinos also moved in around this time, but the area remained a veritable Japantown, with Japanese newspapers, schools, banks and restaurants. The neighborhood took another massive hit during WWII, when all inhabitants of Japanese descent were forcibly moved out and interned at labor camps in the US interior. The once-bustling shops were boarded up. When released, few of those who had been in the internment camps chose to return here to their old homes; those who did return, including the Moriguchis who founded the Uwajimaya store, made quite an impact on the future development of the neighborhood. When 1-5 pushed through the heart of the district, destroying many blocks of housing, the area became even more blighted, its identity even more divided. The arrival of Vietnamese immigrants in the 1970s and '80s, and more recently, an influx of immigrants from Hong Kong and mainland China, have breathed new life into the city's Asian community. The recent renovation of Union Station, new sports stadiums and nearby office and condo developments sprouting up like weeds around the International District have left neighborhood activists fearing homogeneity in a district already rife with boundary issues. Will the condos win out over low-income housing? Will they fill up with yuppies and open the door to more coffee shops, 24-hour gyms and the Gap? Throughout the USA, major cities boast Chinatowns, Japantowns and other neighborhoods that embody a specific ethnicity. In Seattle, it's all crowded into one small neighborhood whose boundaries are threatened every time a land-use application shows up at City Hall. Meanwhile, district activists strive to keep the area vital by stressing anti-crime measures and maintaining a strong community voice in housing and commercial development. GETTING AROUND SEATTLE'S INTERNATIONAL DISTRICT The International District has its own exit from the underground bus tunnel; take any bus southbound to this stop, the last in the tunnel. The International District is also the last (or the first) stop on the Waterfront Streetcar route. The best way to get here on foot is to walk east up S Jackson St from Occidental Square. The center of the district is between 5th and 7th Ayes S and S Weller and S Jackson Sts. While this is definitely a Chinatown, it is nowhere near as large or as authentic as those you'll find in San Francisco or Vancouver, BC. Only a few of the old markets and herbal-remedy shops remain, and if you look up, you can see a couple of Hong Kong-style balconies protruding rather oddly from the faces of old redbrick storefronts and apartment buildings. But it's still a lively area, and if you're looking for Asian cuisine, you've come to the right place. Under 1-5 along S Jackson St, the pace changes considerably as you enter the International District's Vietnamese and Laotian areas. This is a genuine lived-in neighborhood; nothing in it panders to tourists. The center of this area is a series of strip malls at 12th Ave S at S Jackson St, where you'll find all manner of Vietnamese businesses including barbershops, real-estate offices, dentists and a profusion of markets and restaurants. |
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