In 1967 above, Kato and the Green Hornet appeared on TV with Batman and Robin, and they even faced off ready to fight. That was 55 years before Asian Americans finally won Oscars for Everything… All At Once. While the park service affiliated Wing Luke Museum is named for a popular local man who became the Civil Rights AG for Washington state and City Council member for Seattle, at a time when Asian Americans were segregated from white society, the museum celebrates the experiences of all Asian American immigrants and the next generations. So, Bruce Lee, the son of a Cantonese opera performer, who became a superhero, movie star, martial artist and philosopher admired around the world for generations, and who changed the world through determination, is very much at the heart of the story here.

Bruce went to school in Seattle, worked as a busboy, began teaching and opened his first martial arts school here. He also met his wife and is buried here. His favorite restaurant, Tai Tong is down the street from the museum, so feel free to sit in his booth and order his favorite oyster beef dish. But the museum is about more than Bruce Lee or even Seattle’s Chinatown, as it includes specific, community and art exhibits on many different Asian cultures in Seattle and the US. The staff will also recommend Vietnamese, Cambodian, Japanese and other restaurants in the diverse neighborhood. Be sure to take the excellent guided tour of the shop, hotel, mahjong and family association rooms while you’re at the museum.

While I was visiting, there was a special exhibit on the Japanese Internment, which included video testimony of US citizens of Japanese descent who were incarcerated, robbed, lied to and dehumanized by the US government, while their brothers and sons served in Europe in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the most decorated unit of its size and service in US history. One man made the point that although his family opposed reparations, hearing the testimony and sharing his own family history was a necessary catharsis for all of them and for the nation. Another woman, a clinical social worker, explained that her own behavior and those she observed among her friends and family were most similar to battered children, who desperately wanted to love their country, no matter how much damage was done to them, because the US was the only country they knew. Well worth learning from this important history.