A look at the Tacoma Method and Washington’s History of Perpetrating Anti-Asian Attacks

This year and the last has seen almost no end to its racial violence and injustice since the pandemic began. Specifically, Asian attacks have been a much more common occurrence. While some would say this is a new and unexpected thing to happen, others know that Washington has a long history of Anti-Asian attacks dating all the way back to the 18th century.

In 1848, the California Gold Rush began and the news of this fortune traveled quickly across the seas to different countries. In China, people spoke of the Gam Saan — Gold Mountain — as many sons left their parents, wives and children to seek fortune for themselves and their families in America.

By 1855 the Gold Rush had ended, but immigrants from China were still arriving in groups to find work placing railroad tracks for the Pacific Railway. Their acceptance of low wages and long hours made them preferable workers to those who had been protesting for better conditions. Thus they took over a majority of the workforce. This didn’t sit well with the European workers of the time and soon the anti-Chinese movement was on the rise.

Labor organizations united under the anti-Chinese dog whistle “The Chinese must go”, and committees were soon meeting to plot their courses of action on how to get the Chinese out of their state. Even Taccoma’s mayor of the time, Jacob Weisbach, was a supporter of this movement as he issued a congress that would seek to expel the Chinese community by November.

The riot began on November 3, 1885 when 500 white citizens of Tacoma marched through Tacoma’s Chinatown and gave its residents only a few short hours to pack what they could before forcefully evicting them from their homes and businesses. This included their white supporters, as both were forced out of the city via wagons or on a train leaving for Portland.

Several days later the town was razed to the ground; businesses and homes were burned with no aid from Tacoma’s Fire Department at the time.

When the smoke had cleared and the ruins of the once bustling Chinatown lay vacant, only 27 culprits of the 900 were convicted; these men are known as the Tacoma 27 and the primary indicators and actors of The Tacoma Method.