History Café: How Railroads Brought a Checkerboard Landscape to the Northwest

How did Northwest land end up in a checkerboard of land use? Grants to the Northern Pacific Railroad in the 19th century set up a pattern of public and private lands that placed homesteads, towns, tree farms, and federal forest reserves intermingled with each other, all defined by railroad tracks.

Join Charlie Raines, Director of the Sierra Club Cascade Checkerboard Project, as he shares newly created maps that show the pattern from Puget Sound to the Columbia River as it evolved over 150 years.

Program date: Wednesday, May 19, 2021

Photo: Charles Raines

History Café: Filipino American Labor Activism in the Fields and Canneries

Filipino migrant workers on the west coast of the United States have a long tradition of labor activism in the fields of California and the seafood canneries of Alaska. The harrowing stories of survival and determination are the legacy of this generation of Filipino Manongs.

Join Richard Gurtiza and Rey Pascua as they share how famed Filipino labor activists Carlos Bulosan, Larry Itliong, Phillip Veracruz, and Chris Mansalvas overcame government and social injustice to create a progressive workers movement in the fields and canneries.

Program date: Wednesday, April 21, 2021

History Café: The Important Connections Between Health and Homelessness

Learn about the history of health and homelessness in Seattle as author, nurse, and public health researcher Josephine Ensign shares information from her new book, Skid Road: On the Frontier of Health and Homelessness in an American City. Ensign uses narrative history to increase the diversity of voices heard within contemporary healthcare and public policy debates.

Pre-order your copy of Ensign’s book, Skid Road: On the Frontier of Health and Homelessness in an American City, from the MOHAI Mercantile.

Program date: Wednesday, March 17, 2021

Photo: Josephine Ensign

History Café: Hanford and the Homegrown Apocalypse

During World War II and throughout the Cold War, the Hanford Works in Eastern Washington produced plutonium for atomic weapons. The use of these weapons led to enormous loss of life in Japan, an arms race, and unprecedented levels of contamination of the landscape at home. Even today, the massive scale of the Hanford Site often overshadows the stories of the people who built it, worked there, and are cleaning it up.

Join Steve Olson, author of The Apocalypse Factory: Plutonium and the Making of the Atomic Age, and Michael Mays, director of the Hanford History Project, for a discussion of the stories of scientists, farmers, engineers, laborers, and bureaucrats they have uncovered.

Program date: Wednesday, February 17, 2021

Photo: Hanford History Project

History Café: Emerald City Hip-Hop with Dr. Daudi Abe

Though far away from the hip-hop centers of New York City and Los Angeles, in the early 1980s Seattle hip-hop artists developed a community-based culture of stylistic experimentation and multiethnic collaboration. Famous hip-hop figures including Sir Mix-A-Lot and Macklemore found mainstream success by going against the grain of their eras.

Hear Dr. Daudi Abe discuss his new book, Emerald Street: A History of Hip Hop in Seattle, to show how Seattle’s hip-hop culture goes beyond art and music to influence politics, the relationships between communities of color and law enforcement, the changing media scene, and youth outreach and educational programs.

Get your copy of Dr. Abe’s book, Emerald Street: A History of Hip Hop in Seattle, from the MOHAI Mercantile.

Program date: Wednesday, January 20, 2021

Photo: Ricardo Frazer

History Café: Writing and Remembrance with Tamiko Nimura

From Japanese American farmers on Vashon Island to the life of State Senator Rosa Franklin, writer and public historian Tamiko Nimura documents stories of people of color from around our state.

Join Nimura and HistoryLink‘s Assistant Director Jennifer Ott for an exploration of memory in history making, oral histories and writing about peoples lives.

Program date: November 18, 2020

Photo: Legislative Photo Services

History Café: Lessons in Building Multiracial Unity with El Centro de la Raza

Seattle’s Latino community successfully founded El Centro de la Raza, the Center for People of all Races, after a 3-month occupation of the old Beacon Hill School in 1972. With the support of a broad multi-racial coalition, today El Centro de la Raza provides important and comprehensive services bringing together communities to organize for lasting social change. Hear from founders and community members on lessons learned from the occupation and how these inform current struggles for racial justice.

Moderated by Enrique Cerna with panelists Enrique Gonzalez, Larry Gossett, Bruce Johansen, Estela Ortega, Sharon Tomiko Santos, and Michael Tulee.

Program date: October 21, 2020

Photo: Jonathan Vanderweit

History Café: Stories from Ron Chew’s My Unforgotten Seattle

Third-generation Seattleite, historian, journalist, and museum visionary Ron Chew spent more than five decades fighting for Asian American and social justice causes in Seattle.

In this virtual History Café, Chew is joined by PeiPei Sung, a former student intern, turned oral history interviewer, turned exhibit developer under the wings of the Wing Luke Asian Museum family. Sung is currently a designer at MOHAI. Join us in this conversation and hear stories about immigration, activism, community work, and hopes for the future through Chew’s upcoming memoir My Unforgotten Seattle.

Program date: September 16, 2020

History Café: Resilience Past and Present in the Chinatown International District

Seattle’s historic Chinatown-International District (CID) was hit early and hard hit by the COVID-19 crisis, underscoring the history of redlining, racism, and speculative development that have made this diverse community vulnerable to displacement and anti-Asian hate.

However, the CID also has a long legacy of resistance and resilience. Hear from local CID Coalition/#HumbowsNotHotels activists Cynthia Brothers (also of Vanishing Seattle) and Marlon Dylan Herrera, who share reflections on past and present organizing in the CID—including how community members are responding to the inequalities laid bare by COVID-19 through mutual aid and advocacy, to leverage this moment of crisis in support of lasting, transformative change for the neighborhood.

Program date: May 20, 2020

History Café: Puget Sound’s Maritime Highway

From canoes, to the mosquito fleet, to our modern day ferry system, boats have long been a principal means of travel around Puget Sound.

In this talk, based on research from his next book on human and natural history in Puget Sound, David B. Williams highlights how people have spent the last 13,000 years boating this extraordinary waterway.

Program date: April 21, 2020

History Café Audio Archive

Hear past History Café programs, with topics ranging from Seattle through the eyes of its first Chinese resident to the city’s classical music scene.

Syncopated Classic: Rediscovering an Early Seattle Jazz Pioneer

In 1924, Seattle Jazz pioneer Frank D. Waldron created 9 original compositions for his saxophone tutorial book Syncopated Classic. Obscured by time, these works are the earliest archived compositions by a Seattle jazz musician. Greg Ruby, a Seattle jazz musician, unearthed this rare archive and performed Waldron’s work and discussed his life, the times, and importance to Seattle Jazz history at this November 2015 History Café.

The Legacy of Seattle Hip-Hop

As a prelude to The Legacy of Seattle Hip-Hop exhibit, Dr. Daudi Abe discussed the Seattle Hip-Hop community, from Seattle’s champion break dance crew, to highly collaborative and diverse performers and DeeJays. Dr. Abe is a professor, writer and historian who has taught classes on culture, race, gender, communication, education, hip-hop and sports, and wrote Emerald Street: A History of Hip-Hop in Seattle 1979-2015.

Uncorking the Past at Seattle's Finntown