By Raymond Douglas Chong

(This story is done in partnership with the URL Collective)

The Takeaways

• On November 3, 1885, a White mob, led by their city leaders, forcefully expelled the Chinese pioneers from Tacoma, Washington Territory, and destroyed their Little Canton (Chinatown).
• After the expulsion and destruction, the “Tacoma Method” became a systematic discrimination tool to purge the Chinese merchants and workers in the settlements across the American West.
• The modern Tacoma Chinese Reconciliation Park reflects upon the past, ponder the present, and dream of the future for the community to reconcile.   

The Details

On November 1, 1885, Little Canton in Tacoma was a vibrant Chinese immigrant community, which centered on the waterfront, near the Northern Pacific Railway tracks. About 700 Chinese thrived in this neighborhood, a vital economic and cultural hub among wood shacks.

Mayor Jacob Weisbach and prominent City officials, known as “Tacoma Committee of 15,” organized the violent expulsion of the Chinese residents. They coordinated with newspapers, businesses and organizations. They issued a formal demand for all Chinese residents to leave by November 1, 1885.

On November 3, 1885, a mob of 500 armed White citizens rounded up the remaining Chinese residents. They marched them in the pouring rain to a train station in Lake View where they rode train to Portland, Oregon. Afterwards, the White mob returned to the waterfront and burned down Little Canton.

The leaders were not prosecuted by the Washington Territory government. The Chinese population vanished in Tacoma. The American government indemnified the Chinese government for damages to citizens in various incidents, including Tacoma.

The “Tacoma Method” became the model for White supremacists in the American West. It was a systematic discrimination tool to lawfully and orderly expel Chinese residents in cities and towns without “violence.”

The anti-Chinese sentiment in the American West

After the American Congress enacted the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, the Anti-Chinese sentiment reached hysteria, especially from 1885 to 1887. The White workers, with the Knights of Labor, feared the Chinese, by economic competition, cultural differences, and xenophobia.

White mobs violently applied Tacoma Method on the Chinese settlements across the American West. Massacres occurred in Rocky Springs, Wyoming Territory, and Hells Canyon, Oregon in 1885. The Chinese populations declined in the states and territories.

Dr. Beth Lew-Williams, Princeton University, wrote “The Chinese Must Go– Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of the Alien in America” (2018). She highlighted the cruel impacts of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act on the Chinese immigrants, which resulted in escalating anti-Chinese violence in the American West.

In Appendix A, “Sites of Anti-Chinese Expulsions and Attempted Expulsions, 1885-1887,” Dr. Lew-Williams documented sites in states and territories of Alaska, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming. She counted a total of 84 killings.

Tacoma Chinese Reconciliation Park

The Tacoma community established the Chinese Reconciliation Project Foundation (CRPF) 1994. Their mission acknowledges and atones for the forced Chinese expulsion in November 1885. CRFP created the Tacoma Chinese Reconciliation Park near the waterfront as a  model to those who work for reconciliation .

This writer interviewed Dr. Gregory Youtz, Vice President of the Board of Directors, Chinese Reconciliation Project Foundation.

When did the Chinese community return to Tacoma?

It never did. Today there are individuals of Chinese descent living in Tacoma, there is a “Chinese Church” with a small, mostly Chinese heritage congregation, and a small Chinese language and culture school but no physical presence.

Has any “Little Canton” (Chinatown) return to Tacoma?

There is no “Chinatown,” no Chinese gate or neighborhood with Chinese signage and businesses. There are around ten “Chinese” restaurants scattered across the city but none with an enthusiastic and regular Chinese clientele. We do have such neighborhoods celebrating Korean and Vietnamese heritage communities, and several prominent East and Southeast Asian Buddhist temples with striking visual architecture. But not Chinese. One Japanese Buddhist temple survives- all that is left of Tacoma’s once thriving and sizable pre-WWII “Japantown.”

Does “Anti-Chinese Sentiment” persist in Tacoma?

No. In fact, due to active City and Port of Tacoma relations with several Chinese cities and ports, Tacoma has been known as a bit of a China Trade and Exchange hotspot in Washington. (And all of Washington State is heavily engaged in China trade and exchange.) Four major universities in Tacoma do or have taught Chinese language and engage in substantial study abroad exchanges with Chinese -speaking locations.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s there was an active South Sound China Advisory Council bringing together business, civic and educational leaders to advise organizations wanting to establish connections in China. Tacoma became the site of both a Confucius Institute and a Confucius Classroom.

In the early 2000s the Port of Tacoma formed a development project with the City of Fuzhou to enhance trade and other exchanges. In 2015, Chinese President Xi Jinping choose Tacoma as the only site in Washington outside of Seattle to visit- because of its status as Sister City to the Chinese City of Fuzhou. Tacoma also has a Sister City, Taichung, in Taiwan. Nearly 250 students from Tacoma high schools have visited China in the last 3 years. Last year, Tacoma was the site of the 6^th US-China Summit hosted by Sister Cities International which received 160 delegates from China, mostly retired foreign service officers.

How is the public informed about the Tacoma Chinese Expulsion?

The Chinese Reconciliation Project Foundation has as its mission education about the expulsion as well as working towards a more inclusive city today. The Chinese Reconciliation Park is the primary educational thrust for the City and the CRPF.

But other activities include the creation of an hour-long documentary Of Race and Reconciliation which aired on public television, public talks in schools, libraries and civic organizations, publication of several fiction and non-fiction books on the subject, the creation of an opera about the events of 1885, and participation in many videos, podcasts and other media produced by others in the city or elsewhere in the Western US. Faculty and students at The University of Puget Sound produced an excellent website TacomaMethod.com which is the primary site identified by search engines for information on “The Tacoma Method.”

What are the successes and lessons of your Foundation in reconciliation?

We think about the word “reconciliation” a lot and accept that it is a process, not a quickly achieved goal. It has been a major success that a park now exists along Tacoma’s waterfront not far from the site of one of the original Chinese settlements.

The Park has become a well-known and beloved site with Tacoma residents, and they appreciate it for its Chinese pavilion, bridge and other features, as well as its location along Commencement Bay. It is a popular site for weddings, photos and other ritual events, and is associated now in the minds of Tacomans as the site of the much-loved annual Tacoma Moon Festival- now in its 13^th year. This festival, along with the Music at the Park Festival, the Walk for Reconciliation Against Racism and a film series Our Communities, Our Neighbors are ways that CRPF brings heritage communities together, celebrates diversity and “advances civic harmony” as directed by our mission statement.  We wish we had the funds to complete the full vision of the park, with its indoor multicultural pavilion, reflecting pond, small pavilions, and other Chinese-themed features.

But in the meantime, we continue our educational and cultural work and, anecdotally, it seems that more and more people in Tacoma have now heard of the Chinese Expulsion and recognize the damage done to the legacy of the city.

What are the major features of the park?

The three main sections of the park are devoted to the arrival and life of the Chinese in Tacoma, the expulsion events of 1885, and the modern-day city of Tacoma seeking reconciliation and “civic harmony.”   

What is the future for the park?

We hope to attract the funding to finish the full vision of the park which would further demonstrate the commitment of the city and the residents of Tacoma to acknowledgement of and reconciliation with the dark events of 1885. In the meantime, it serves as a beautiful and contemplative space as well as the site for positive events such as the Tacoma Moon Festival.

How will your Foundation commemorate the 140^th anniversary on November 3, 2025?

We will be producing (produced) our annual Walk for Reconciliation Against Racism event on Saturday, October 25, 2025, led by Chinese Lion Dancers and supported by Japanese Taiko Drummers. Several hundred people will reverse the route of the 1885 expulsion and reclaim Tacoma for its diverse communities of immigrants, refugees, heritage communities and communities of color.

Narrative Poem

Little Canton, 1885

The Tacoma mayor led the mob down Railroad Street, 

Past the shops and homes of Little Canton. 

“The Chinese must go!” was their hateful decree. 

No laws were upheld, just the mob’s wild plea. 

They broke down doors; windows were smashed, 

Herding families on that November Tuesday in 1885. 

Two hundred souls marched down a muddy track 

To a train in the rain, with no turning back. 

Little Canton became a pile of ash. 

The “Tacoma Method” emerged as a violent phrase. 

Not a riot, they claimed, but an orderly flight, 

Leaving only silence in the cold night.

© 2025 Raymond Douglas Chong

Close

The expulsion of Tacoma’s Chinese pioneers and the destruction of Little Canton in November 1885, was a crude act of ethnic cleansing.  During the zenith of the Anti-Chinese Sentiment (1885 to 1887) in the American West, the “Tacoma Method” was the systematic discrimination tool to purge the Chinese merchants and workers in their Chinatowns. The Tacoma Chinese Reconciliation Park poignantly fosters dialogue, acknowledges the historical injustice, and remembers the racist xenophobia.