This talk will examine the built environment as an archive for illuminating the erased histories of Asian migrants in the early twentieth century Pacific Northwest. Floor plans, photographs, and oral histories reveal the interracial social worlds forged by Asian migrants and their forgotten role in building the city. Though derided as “slums” and targeted with demolition, the spaces inhabited by a diverse migrant workforce offer insight into a different kind of Seattle history and hold valuable lessons for our present moment.

Megan Asaka is an award-winning scholar, writer, and teacher of Asian American history, urban history, and public humanities. She is the author of Seattle from the Margins: Exclusion, Erasure, the Making of a Pacific Coast City (University of Washington Press, 2022), which reorients the early history of Seattle through the lens of those displaced and erased in the making of the city as a modern metropolis. Her research has been supported by numerous prizes and fellowships, including the Mellon Fellowship in Urban Landscape Studies at Dumbarton Oaks. She was born and raised in Seattle and currently works as an associate professor of history at the University of California, Riverside.

This talk will be paired with a Seminar session Wednesday April 3rd, 2024 from 12-1:30pm. Location to be announced. 

For more information, please contact Associate Professor of Architecture Ann Huppert at ahuppert@uw.edu.

Image credit: Densho and the Tamura Family Collection