An Extraordinary Time

According to author Doug Chin who wrote “Seattle’s International District: the Making of a Pan-Asian American Community” and other books, the Chinese initially settled in Pioneer Square in the 1870’s.  Most were transients from Portland and San Francisco who worked in the lumber, mining, railroads, canneries, and farming industries in Alaska and eastern Washington and who also worked grading roads for the city.

 

Years later, after the Jackson Street regrade was completed in 1910, the Chinese moved up into the King St core. Over the next 25 years, they developed it into Chinatown.

 

Henry Mar Hing was one of these men.  Running an import export store, cab company, baggage handling company, a hotel, and agent for a steamship company, in 1910 he and his seven sons, provided for the needs of the shifting Chinese populations at that time.

 

His son, Jimmy Mar, now 91, still runs the store.  Next year, it will become part of the new Wing Luke Asian Museum which will relocate into the remainder of the building which once housed transient workers and Henry Mar’s Hings many businesses.

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James Mar, 91

My Dad, Henry Mar Hing, started this store in 1910.  We’re the first Chinese store in Chinatown.  The only one left now.  Most of them retired. 

This corporation called the Kong Yick Investment Company (which had) 200 shareholders put in $200 to start the company.

Our primary purpose was to service all the restaurants in the areas and out of the area.  We had about 280 customers all total during those years.  …  We sell bamboo shoots, water chestnuts and all the equipment and stuff they need.  A lot of spices and all that.  Soy sauce. Everything.

In 1945 there was still mostly Chinese here.  Later, it got to be very diversified which was good for the area.  Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, you know whatever,  It made the economy a lot better because everybody would patronize each other.

(We also owned the) Freeman Hotel (above the store).  Three stories.  They were all just transient workers mostly.  They worked in the canneries, railroads, stuff like that.

When we had the Blue Funnel Line we used to have about 90 some odd customers come in here every month to go back to China…. The Blue Funnel is a steamship company…. The whole transportation would be covered.  The whole thing.  Its amazing I can’t believe it. You just have to remember now when you reached 60 in those days they figured that’s the end of the rope.  So they all go back home, visit their families, and they never come back.  They die.

They come here by train.  They all had at least 1 or 2 bags. ….So they pick up all these guys , always on time the trains you know, and we would pick them up, the China Cab Express company, and their baggage, the Nick Fung Express Company, and take then to our store. They gotta eat. We had 30 people living upstairs on cots.  They stayed normally about 2 to 3 days.   Then they had to get transportation to the ship.  Our taxi cab company, our express company.  Dad kept the business all in one unit. 

1928 exclusion act forbid females to come here, to come to the United States.  Even though your married they can’t come.  That’s why we have nothing but males here.  The canneries the farms, they’re all men.  So when they make their money, reach the age of 60, they get on our steamship and go home.

In 1945 when I was discharged I also was the commander for the American Legion., café post 186 – consists of all Chinese veterans at that time. During the time that I was commander of the post they were bringing in Orientals, people that died and no one took care of them.  So that’s how I got into the business as a funeral director.  And I’ve been there ever since. Butterworths Funeral Home.  They’re located on Queen Anne now.

Sara Jacobs, 16, has been on the Rainier District Little League All Star Team since she was ten. She is also the youngest player in the Washington Women’s Baseball League and is a starting pitcher with the Washington Stars which placed fifth in national competition in 2005. In addition she also plays on Garfield softball team and has won the Paul Robeson Scholar-Athlete award seven times.

WOMEN IN BASEBALL
While the Washington Women’s Baseball Association is part of a new grass-roots era of women’s baseball, women have been playing the game for over 125 years…

In 1931, a 17-year-old girl named Jackie Mitchell signed a contract to pitch for the Chattanooga Lookouts and drew a crowd of 4,000 when she pitched in an exhibition game against the New York Yankees. Mitchell entered the game in the first inning and fanned Babe Ruth on four pitches before whiffing Lou Gehrig on just three tosses. If Mitchell’s appearance was merely a publicity stunt, the joke was lost on Ruth, who kicked the dirt, cursed the home plate and heaved his bat before storming back to the Yanks dugout. The crowd loved it, however, and gave Mitchell a standing ovation that lasted several minutes. She was pulled after walking another Hall of Famer, Tony Lazzeri, and never pitched in a pro game again….

While the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League was still going in 1952, a shortstop named Eleanor Engle signed a contract with the Harrisburg Senators of Pennsylvania. Minor league president George Trautmann voided the contract two days after Engle signed it, calling the transaction a “travesty.” Later that same year, organized baseball formally banned women, a ban that remains in place over 50 years later.
- Excerpt from “A History of Women’s Baseball” by Bruce Baskin, taken from the website of the Washington Women’s Baseball Association (www.wwbabaseball.com)

Coach Morris Byrd, 47
I remember Sara played on my oldest son’s first baseball team when they were all 4 and 5 year olds, and she’s been a baseball player all her life. She’s always been a die-hard, plays with the boys, gets down and dirty with the boys, cuts, scratches, bruises with the boys and she’s always performed well. She’s a really good kid. She’s a smart kid. She’s about as humble as you can get considering she’s been playing with the guys. I mean the whole guy attitude, the boy’s locker room that kind crap – Sara, she’s fit in.”

Sara Jacobs, 16
After awhile I don’t think about being the only girl or anything, its just sort of playing.

The team is all boys. I’m the only girl on it. Sometimes it’s hard when there are no other girls but I get along well enough with them.

I’m playing (softball) this year at school and I like it because I like the people and I’m like friends with them and everything but I like the game of baseball more so that’s why I’m sticking with it.

I definitely do a lot of girl things. I still spend a lot of time with my friends. During baseball season I don’t spend as much time because I’ve got so much going on. But whenever I have free time, I’m still a female.”

Sara’s advice to young girls who want to play baseball:
Even if it seems hard they should still go for it because it’s definitely worth it. For girls it’s sometimes harder, because especially at this age the guys are starting to get so much bigger and stronger. But as long as you’re consistent then you’ll do fine.”

Hip hop began as an inner-city cultural movement by Latino and African American youth in New York City in the early 1970s. “Yes,Yes Y’All: The Birth of Hip Hop” is currently on exhibit through this summer at the Experience Music Project. According to senior curator Jacob McMurray “People didn’t have a lot of money for instruments but every kid’s Mom and Dad had a record player. They would manipulate the record player to become an instrument.”

 

New Futures, a non-profit organization, works within low-income apartment complexes in South King County.  For more information on New Futures check out www.projectlook.org/

 

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Shundra King, 18

I enjoy dancing.  I’ve been dancing for a long time.  Its more like my culture, just dancing.  So anything that has too do with dancing like hip hop and stomp I’m there. I really enjoy it. 

Its gives me confidence and makes me express myself.  A lot.  Like if I’m down or something, if I just get a good beat, it makes me feel so much better. Or maybe like I had a bad day or something and I just started dancing.  It really brings my spirits high. 

Its more like a dream to be here. I work here.  I was actually involved in a New Futures program when I was younger and I was like really, really bad.  And New Futures really changed my life. 

I’m a (high school) senior….. I think I’m a role model to all of the kids.  I have  (girls) kindergarten through 3^rd grade.

I think I’m teaching them to be confident in themselves because when we first started they were like really, really shy …  they know that they can do it. That’s something that makes me excited.

I’ll be going to Highline Community College to become a paralegal.  I’m going to major in family law, cuz I still want to be involved with kids, families, and stuff like that. 

I like my life. I’m just ready for college and to start working on my career …And I have like maybe 6 more weeks of school left.  I’m ready to graduate.

The kids encourage me too.  Because its just exciting being around all of them.  

May Day / Woodland Park, Seattle / May 1, 2006

 

Dancing around a May Pole is an ancient Celtic tradition going back thousands of years. Signifying fertility and the beginning of spring, participants dress in white and adorn themselves with fresh flowers. Colorful ribbons attached to its top, representing the female, wind down into hundreds of hands. As they dance, the ribbons become twisted and the circle becomes smaller bringing the community together.  A rising pitched chant emerges as participants touch the pole, in a grande energizing finale. By the Middle Ages all English villages had a Maypole.

 

Put on by the Fremont Arts Council, this event has been celebrated in Seattle for over 15 years. For more information visit www.fremontartscouncil.org

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Julia Wharton, 41, Seattle (right)

It’s the May Day celebration.  A celebration of love and happiness, springtime and we all get together as a community of Seattle and we weave beautiful ribbons on the May pole. 

People are lying down, like it was a psychedelic experience. (laugh)  Its just fun to see all the ribbons around you.  We’re just resting from our labors.  We’re being silly elves.

It’s a very beautiful thing to celebrate the season changing.

The green man, Josh Rosenstein, 30, (back, center) lives in his truck. (“I sold my house on Friday”).  

The sweetest moment of the ritual was when we stopped participating in the dance around the May pole weaving together the colorful ribbons of this phallic object and instead sprawled on our backs right underneath the growing canopy of multi-hued ribbons with sun filtering down through it.  And she lay on my arms.  She was indeed a sweet, sweet maiden.  Very adorable and young.  She lay against my arm with her hair soft on my shoulder and we watched the Maypole weave in front of our eyes. And other people came and lay with us.  Then the ritual concluded.

I work with ritual both in my personal life and somewhat…  That’s the direction I’m heading in next to learn more about religion ….. It’s a lovely launching ceremony on the eve of my freedom from responsibilities of property ownership to I have 3 more weeks before I’m done with my job as a journalist.

I’m kind of setting off into the yonder to live kind of a less mainstream, urban, office-oriented existence and so this May Day ritual coming on the dawn of that transition is yet another beautiful transitioning ritual that adds meaning to this point in my life.