"Police captain Arthur Powers had launched a drive to clean up the rotten core of corruption that was turning New York's Chinatown into an empire of vice and violence -- only to find himself in a labyrinth of criminal power that led halfway around the world. He had plunged into an affair with Carol Cone, a beautiful, ravenously ambitious TV newswoman capable of destroying both his marriage and his career to get all she wanted. He had gone too far to turn back -- and just maybe too far to come out alive. Powers was all by himself when he went after the untouchable kingpin of the Chinese Mafia, in a one-on-one war that moved from the streets of Hong Kong to the jungles of Thailand to the gambling dens of New York's Chinatown…with one cop's badge and a hundred million dollars of heroin at stake."
-- jacket blurb for the pulp crime novel Year of the Dragon by Robert Daley

The killings at the Club sparked a media frenzy that the city of Seattle had never seen before. The incident was quickly labeled "The Chinatown Massacre" by the mainstream presses -- a soundbyte that stuck with Washington State residents. Time magazine called the victims of the Club the "Unlucky Thirteen." Reporters described Chinatown as a "shadowy world of Seattle's tongs." Stories ran with accompanying photos depicting a gaming table with money, Mah Jongg tiles, and handguns. Reporters described Chinatown as filled with "young hoodlums and old men who convene in secrecy behind locked doors to gamble among themselves." And the reporters assigned to cover the story were heard to say that they were unsure they would return to Chinatown to eat. One reporter writing for the Asian-American newspaper The International Examiner relayed a story about a Caucasian reporter from another newspaper who thought he "might be served by a Chinese waiter who was a hoodlum in disguise." The same reporter for he Examiner reported that yet another mainstream-newspaper reporter "discussed the trepidation he experienced when he sat at Denny's restaurant -- now famous as the site of the robbery discussions preceding the Wah Mee -- eating breakfast, turned and saw a group of Asian kids in dark jackets in the restaurant with him."

Even newspaper descriptions of the Wah Mee differed. The diagrams of the Club's layout as printed in the Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer were so distinctly different from one another (and from the actual Club) one could have suspected that two mass slayings had occurred at two separate clubs on the same night.

And mainstream newspapers covering the slayings at the Club ran accompanying stories about "More youths doing more prison time" and "Lonely frustrated youths [finding homes] in the tong[s]." Seattle writer Rebecca Boren detailed divergent cultural perspectives on the tragedy, writing, "[T]wo strikingly different images of [Chinatown] emerge. First -- and this has gotten the most media play -- there's the tightly knit community, almost a closed society, where police are helpless, fraternal associations may embrace secret societies, and gangs run amok on the streets and behind the locked doors of high-stakes gambling clubs. In contrast, there's a neighborhood much like other city neighborhoods, except perhaps for its stronger cultural identity and high proportion of non-English speaking residents, where clubs and family associations grew up during the years when immigrants needed to unite and help one another, where gambling is the local equivalent of a Saturday-night poker game, and where tourists can safely wander at will."

Ron Chew, a reporter for The Examiner, commenting on the mainstream reporters, observed, "They asked people in storefronts about the murders. Often these people couldn't speak English well. [The reporters would say] they were being secretive."

In essence, the city's mainstream, Caucasian media quickly dismissed Chinatown's history of hardworking immigrants building lives for themselves and their families. Chinatown residents were instead slapped with a description that made most readers think that Chinatown was filled with gangs, violent tongs, illegal gambling, and thugs. Examiner reporter Chew argued that Willie Mak had helped to reinforce the aforementioned stereotypes. Chew wrote, "The tragedy conveniently labeled 'The Chinatown Massacre' was more accurately a tragedy of the Chinese community….Now we are left to build and revitalize the same community Willie Mak had calculated to destroy. It won't be easy."

References to the massacre surfaced seemingly everywhere. Seattle painter Charles Krafft displayed his "Disasterware" series at the Kirkland Arts Center; one item on exhibit included renderings of the Wah Mee Massacre on cups and plates. Local stand-up comedians Michael Larson and Gene Openshaw released The Seattle Joke Book several months later -- which included jokes about the massacre. Even Seattle rock band Queensryche released a song called "Empire Builder" with lyrics referring to the mass slaying.

Along with the stereotypes came the conspiracy theories. A theory quickly surfaced in the mainstream media: The massacre resulted from a tong rivalry. The theory was easy to dismiss, considering that the mainstream presses had turned the massacre into a fiasco. The Seattle Times ran a front-page photo of a card table littered with Mah Jongg tiles and a handgun -- a photo that was clearly the result of creative imaginations. Later, during Benjamin Ng's trial, the Seattle P-I put its inept journalistic prowess on display and ran a front-page photo of the hog-tied bodies, lying on the floor, blood leaking from their heads, shortly after the murders.

Even if the mainstream media had wanted to fairly investigate a connection between the killings and a tong rivalry, it simply could not because it had so firmly established itself as being a "tabloid" media; even any half-effort of investigation into such a rivalry would have been perceived as a joke. In essence, the media couldn't be taken seriously because the media wasn't taking what had happened seriously.

But the "tong war theory" floated around for months. Victor Yee, the English secretary for the Hop Sing tong in 1983 (the tong that Willie Mak and Benjamin Ng joined shortly before the murders), commented, "Tongs were set up in this country a hundred years ago to protect Chinese. A tong member is loyal to his tong and his fellow members are committed to keeping peace and harmony in the community." Indeed, tongs in the late-1970s and early-1980s weren't embattled in turf wars and struggles over gambling territories, as described in pop-culture books and movies. In the 1920s and 1950s, some of the bloodiest tong wars on the West Coast were fought in Seattle's Chinatown. In 1922 three Hop Sing tong members were killed. In 1959 a severed head was discovered in a Chinatown alley -- the result of a tong war.

But that was decades ago. In 1983 tongs were simply struggling to eke out an existence. For example, at the time of the killings, the Hip Sing tong consisted of 25 members who paid a monthly due of $5 per person. "Hip Sing in Seattle is a thing of the past," said Joe Locke, once a national leader of the Hip Sing tong. Locke, 71 years old in 1983, told a reporter, "Those still alive are all my age."

Willie Mak and Benjamin Ng joined the Hop Sing tong shortly before the killings. In the late-1970s and early-1980s, the Hop Sing tong had earned a reputation as being a tough tong. "They have always been known as kind of the bullies," commented Locke, then-national leader of the Hip Sing tong. The Hop Sing's gambling club was located across the alley from the Wah Mee. Mak, whom, along with Benjamin Ng, had only recently joined the Hop Sing tong, had a key to the club -- despite the fact it was closed for construction. Using the key, the three men convened moments before and moments after the killings at the Wah Mee.

Closing down a gambling club during the Chinese New Year is the equivalent of, say, a Sears department store keeping its doors closed the day after Thanksgiving. Chinatown denizens believed that Willie Mak, as a new member of the Hop Sing tong, felt he had to prove himself. As a result, many believed, he presented his plan of robbery and killings to the leaders of his tong -- a plan he had envisioned since 1980. Closing the Hop Sing gambling club -- which was open to both Hop Sing and non-Hop Sing members -- would encourage gamblers to patronize the Wah Mee. More gamblers at the Wah Mee meant more money at the Wah Mee. In fact, no Wah Mee victims were Hop Sing members; many were members of the Bing Kung Association -- a rival tong that bankrolled the Wah Mee. Hop Sing members were suspicious, some thought, and this explained their absence from the Wah Mee.

So Chinatown was quickly labeled "dangerous" and filled with "hoodlums." Tourists stayed away, replaced by reporters and curiosity-seekers scanning the alley for Wai Chin's dried bloodstains.

The stereotypes were an echo of what Chinese immigrants overcame some 130 years prior.

The Chinese first came to America in the 1850s, fleeing famine in Southern China -- mostly around the city of Canton in Kwangtung Province -- to seek fortunes in the Gold Rush. When the Gold Rush ended, builders of the Northern Pacific Railroad hired Chinese to help build tracks out of Northern California and into Seattle. Railroad builder Charles Crocker hired an overwhelming number of Chinese men who were, in turn, given the somewhat degrading name "Crocker's Pets." Chinese immigrants were a pivotal part of the development of the West Coast in the mid-nineteenth century. Chinese planted the first grapes in the Napa Valley and started the California shrimping industry. They drained the marshes of the Sacramento Delta and the Bing cherry was actually named after a Chinese farmworker named Ah Bing. Chinese bachelors worked tirelessly, finding work and long hours at stores, hotels, hand-laundries, and canneries.

But the attitudes of white Pacific Northwesterners toward the Chinese changed several times between their arrival in the 1850s and the turn of the century.

When the Chinese first arrived, it was by way of the wealthy railroad builders who hired them as cheap labor. The Chinese laborers were collectively referred to as "John," and there was no one else who worked harder than John. For the railroad builders, the Chinese were a Godsend. They worked twelve hours a day eating no more than a handful of rice and earning pennies a day. The Chinese were brave, working with the explosives that would blast the land and clear the way for railroad tracks; many of the non-Chinese were wary of this job.

The Chinese worked tirelessly for a minimal wage and did not complain. What more could a wealthy railroad magnate ask for?

But when the railroad was finished and jobs grew scarce, the Chinese were suddenly reviled. The construction boom was over and jobs were scarce. The Chinese scooped the few jobs available up because they worked for a wage that was less than that of white men. And if the Chinese were to stay, their cheap labor would permanently depress wages. The unemployed white men wanted the Chinese out. "Go home, John," they cried. "Go, John!"

The anti-Chinese movement was born, and a vicious movement it was. Anti-Chinese campaigners made racist and hyperbolic claims. They cited that since a tariff protected businessmen against the competition of cheap Chinese, an immigration ban should protect laborers against cheap Oriental competition. So Congress curtailed the entry of Asiatics.

The anti-Chinese movement was not satisfied. The movement wanted the Chinese who were already here to go home. A labor-oriented paper, The Seattle Call, referred to the Chinese as "the two-bit conscience of the scurvy opium fiend...the treacherous almond-eyed sons of Confucius…chattering, roundmouthed lepers…yellow rascals who have infested our Western country."

The anti-Chinese movement, also known in some circles as "the better element" and spanning the Western states from California to Oregon to Washington to Wyoming, were in substantial agreement that the Chinese must go. Radical members of the movement wanted to load the Chinese into boxcars and ship them back to China. The more "conservative" members wanted to "talk the Chinese into going home."

This rhetoric of hate and racism was followed shortly thereafter by violence. In Rock Springs, Wyoming Territory, unemployed miners raided a Chinese campsite. The miners killed eleven people and burned down their shacks. The anti-Chinese movement referred to it as the "the successful action." Four days later, five white men and a group of Indians converged on a Chinese mining campsite twenty miles east of Seattle. They raided thirty-five Chinese hop-pickers during the night, shooting randomly, killing three, driving the rest away, and burning the campsite. Later that same week, Chinese working in the Coal Creek and Black Diamond coalmines were terrorized.

Support for the Chinese was scarce. After the Wyoming Massacre and the following incidents of violence, a small group of lawyers, ministers, and public officials lashed out against the anti-Chinese movement. The Methodist Episcopal Ministers' Association called the anti-Chinese movement "cruel, brutal, un-American, and un-Christian." Others quoted the Bill of Rights, American treaties with the Chinese government, and criticized the movement's mistreatment of the Chinese.

Such arguments were generally ignored, however. The anti-Chinese activists felt those who supported the Chinese were only in cahoots with the "Interests" -- the wealthy railroad- and land-companies.

Enter Dan Cronin, a particularly vituperative anti-Chinese crusader. A shrewd propagandist from Eureka, California, Cronin arrived in the Pacific Northwest and spent most of his time in Tacoma, where he organized the Knights of Labor -- a labor sub-group of the anti-Chinese movement. While enlisting members of the Knights of Labor, Cronin also formed the Committee of Nine, which worked to expel the Chinese, divide the wealth, and attack capitalists.

Cronin organized a meeting called the Congress of Sinophobes (or, "The Anti-Chinese Congress") at Yesler Hall in Seattle on September 28, 1885. A president was appointed, along with officers, and several resolutions were made. They agreed that the Chinese had arrived illegally; had thirty days to leave; and that they would not be "[held] responsible for any acts of violence which may arise from the non-compliance of these resolutions." The Chinese, then, had approximately thirty days to uproot themselves and return home. Many did, but many did not. Those who stayed didn't do so in a show of protest; rather, they stayed because they either had valuable investments in the Western states or they simply could not afford to buy passage back to China.

Thirty days came and went. The Committee of Nine and its supporters took action on November 3, 1885, raiding the Tacoma Chinese community during the early morning. They ordered the Chinese to pack their things and escorted them to railroad boxcars. The Chinese were then taken to Portland, Oregon.

At around the same time, in Seattle, a compromise was forged between the Knights of Labor, the Chinese, and members of the Seattle business community. The Chinese agreed to leave but claimed they needed more time.

While the anti-Chinese movement clearly opposed Chinese in the Pacific Northwest, the Opera House Party represented support of sorts for the Chinese. On November 5, 1885, a meeting between the two parties was held at the Marion Street Opera House in Seattle. Nearly 1,000 people gathered to hear arguments pro- and anti-Chinese.

The Methodist Episcopal Ministers' Association, while opposing the anti-Chinese movement, did not support Chinese settlement. Rather, the ministers supported non-violence toward the Chinese. The Opera House Party and the anti-Chinese movement agreed that the Chinese should go; the Opera House Party just wanted to make sure there was no violence.

Another supporter of non-violence toward the Chinese was Judge Thomas Burke. At the November 5th meeting in Seattle, Judge Burke spoke out against the anti-Chinese movement:

"False stories have been put into circulation inciting hostility against the Chinese.…We are all agreed that the time has come when a new treaty should be made with China restricting Chinese immigration to this country. But by the lawless action of irresponsible persons from outside, the people of this city are called upon to decide whether this shall be brought about in a lawful and orderly manner or by defiantly trampling on the laws, treaties, and Constitution of our country."

In January 1886 a law forbidding Chinese to own real property was passed. Three other laws that would prohibit Chinese from obtaining public or private employment were blocked thanks in part to former Seattle mayor, Orange Jacobs, who called the laws unconstitutional.

The next month, another meeting between pro- and anti-Chinese supporters convened. A fiery, freethinking, leftist widow named Mary Kenworthy rather baldly spoke out against the anti-Chinese movement, calling it a "dog-salmon aristocracy." She was a member of the Opera House Party and agreed with the party's view of the anti-Chinese movement and its affiliates. Members of the Opera House Party believed the anti-Chinese movement was a gang of toughs trying to foment a revolution.

At the same meeting, the Committee of Nine was replaced by the Committee of Fifteen. This new committee made two decisions. The first was to investigate whether the Chinese were violating city regulations concerning the number of persons per cubic foot of air in residences (the regulations had been slated with the Chinese in mind, knowing that many of the Chinese lived in cramped shanties in the city). The second decision was to boycott all employers who hired Chinese.

The next day, the anti-Chinese movement took action. They inspected the Chinese residences, found them in violation of the aforementioned regulations, and ordered them to board the Queen of the Pacific, which was headed for San Francisco. More than 350 Chinese were hustled down to the dock, where many boarded the ship. But there was a problem. The Queen of the Pacific's captain wanted seven dollars for each Chinese person he transported. The anti-Chinese supporters raised more than $600 on the spot, but that was hardly enough. To further complicate things, a Chinese merchant had appeared before Judge Greene and complained that his countrymen were being unlawfully detained aboard the ship. The Queen of the Pacific's captain was ordered to appear in court the following morning.

The Chinese were detained in a warehouse in the interim.

In court the following morning, Judge Greene told the Chinese that they would be protected if they decided to stay. But hostility was high and, understandably, the Chinese didn't want to stay. One hundred and eighty-five Chinese boarded the Queen of the Pacific (the boat could hold no more) and headed for San Francisco. The remaining Chinese were ordered back to their homes. En route to their homes, escorted by the Home Guard, a riot broke out and there was gunfire. Five men were wounded and one person was killed -- all of whom were anti-Chinese. The riot dispersed, and the Chinese were escorted to their homes. A few days later, members of the 14th Infantry arrived in Seattle to insure that there would be no more violence. Less than a week later, the remaining Chinese boarded the Elder and left Seattle.

Chinese would not return to Seattle for at least another six years. A Japanese steamship line wanted to start regular service to the West Coast. Wounds were still fresh from the anti-Chinese movement, so the Japanese had decided to use San Diego as their West Coast port. Still, Seattle sought the lucrative opportunity of becoming America's pivotal West Coast port to the Orient. A local railroad magnate's representative was sent to Tokyo and managed to persuade the Japanese steamship line to change its mind.

Seattle's dream of becoming a gateway to the Orient came true. On August 31, 1896, the Miiki Maru of the Nippon Yuson Kaisha Line steamed into Elliott Bay. Tens of thousands of Seattleites -- many of whom had earlier forced the Chinese out of their city -- welcomed the ship and its lucrative cargo with open arms. The ship represented an economic boost and a link to the wealth of the Far East. The Japanese settled in Seattle and, shortly thereafter, the Chinese returned.

Chapter Seven | And as the story continued to break, scores of Chinatown residents reported that the Wah Mee Club was well-known by police officers

This story originally appeared as a serialized feature in Asian Focus newspaper