 Walter Liang (center), a Seattle Seafair Commodore, stands with a crowd of Black performers and attendees (Photo by George Liu/NWAW) |
If you missed the Seafair Chinatown parade last week, you missed the culmination of 60 years of community history. Organized by the Seattle Chinese Chamber of Commerce, the parade actually began two years before Seafair’s formation in 1950, said Jimmy Mar, 96, former Chamber president.
In the 50s, some white people refused to join when they learned that Black drill teams were coming, according to Mar. Attitudes changed for the better in the 1960s.
This year, whites were the minority at the parade. Forty percent of the audience was made up of African Americans. The rest were Asians.
The quiet, reserved Asian audience was overshadowed by the exciting crowds of African Americans who cheered for their 11-plus drill teams. Some teams brought kids and young teens with them. The Black audience waved at the girls. Sometimes, they even called out the names of the parading politicians they knew. “Hi, Jim (McDermott)!” ♦
I will never go to the Chinatown parade again. I was born and raised in Seattle and have been attending for years. Because of the crowd it has attracted, and the lack of officials it had to keep the parade under control, my newphews and family had to listed to Asian Racial Slurs from the crowd because they just wanted to see their drill team acts. No respect at all of the location they were in or the meaning of the parade. I am a Fillipino-American, and expected more from the viewers. However it seems as though this is the direction the CHINAtown parade wants to go. If by “Quite Reserved” Asian audience, you mean respectful, than yes…That was me and my family. I will not even go into depth about what happened around us, however I will never return.