How the Wing Luke Museum Uses Storytelling as a Tool for Healing and Community Empowerment
America’s Cultural Treasures: The Wing Luke Museum and the Power of Storytelling
In the evolving landscape of American arts and culture, some institutions stand out not only for preserving heritage but also for healing communities through the stories they tell. Among such beacons of cultural stewardship and community wellness is the Wing Luke Museum, a Smithsonian affiliate in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District. As part of “America’s Cultural Treasures” — a series supported by the Ford Foundation — the Wing Luke Museum exemplifies how storytelling, cultural history, and community engagement can serve as powerful tools of inclusion, education, and transformation.
Rooted in Memory and Transformation
Founded in 1967 to honor Wing Luke — the first Asian American elected official in the Pacific Northwest and a tireless advocate for civil rights — the museum continues his legacy by preserving and amplifying the stories of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) communities.
Wing Luke’s own biography is emblematic of the American story: an immigrant from China, a war hero, a legal advocate, and a civil rights visionary. After his untimely death in a 1965 plane crash, his friends and colleagues established a foundation in his memory, which led to the creation of a modest museum in a storefront. Today, the Wing Luke Museum occupies the historic East Kong Yick Building, constructed in 1910 by Chinese American immigrants and situated in one of the most unique pan-Asian neighborhoods in the United States.
The Journey of Doan Diane Hoang Dy
Doan Diane Hoang Dy’s story exemplifies the museum’s transformative power. As the daughter of Vietnamese refugees growing up in Burien, Washington, Dy felt disconnected from her roots and community. Like many young people of color, she wrestled with internalized racism, asking why she didn’t look or sound like her classmates.
Everything changed when a college class exposed her to Asian American studies. Volunteering at the Wing Luke Museum deepened this awakening, connecting her personal experiences to a broader historical fabric. Dy began transcribing oral histories and selecting quotes for exhibitions and now serves as the museum’s associate tour director. By advocating for the stories of the AANHPI community, Dy turned her private struggle into a public mission of amplification and healing.
Wellness as a Cultural Framework
The Wing Luke Museum goes beyond conventional museum practices. Under the leadership of former executive director Joël Barraquiel Tan, the museum adopted a radical yet culturally coherent framework: wellness as a guiding principle, linking storytelling, art, and history to individual and collective healing.
Barraquiel Tan, the first queer, immigrant, Filipino director of the museum, brought with him extensive experience in community development and wellness initiatives. He argued that “culturally rooted work”—whether it takes the form of ceremony, art, or oral history—can improve public health, strengthen economies, and nurture social well-being.
One of his pivotal contributions was redefining work-life conditions at the museum, instituting salary increases and wellness indices based on NIH’s eight Dimensions of Wellness. This internal accountability for well-being was aimed at ensuring that the staff embody the same values of healing they seek to promote through public programming.
From Survival to Sustainability
Too often, America’s smaller cultural organizations are expected to survive on a shoe-string budget, relying heavily on underpaid staff, limited infrastructure, and unguaranteed funding. But with multi-million-dollar unrestricted grants from the Ford Foundation and philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, the Wing Luke Museum has begun reshaping its operations from scarcity to sustainability.
Steve McLean, the museum’s senior director of Strategic Communications and a former public health professional, noted that Barraquiel Tan “wanted to take the organization in an evolved direction.” Rather than simply maintaining programs, the goal is to thrive — not just organizationally, but emotionally, culturally, and economically.
Community-Centered Exhibitions
At the heart of the Wing Luke Museum’s success is its community-based exhibition model. Pioneered by former executive director Ron Chew and formalized by Cassie Chinn, the model places community members as the principal creators of exhibitions. Each Community Advisory Committee (CAC) comprises a diverse collective of historians, artists, and everyday people who live the stories being told.
This collaborative method revolutionized museum practice. One landmark exhibition, Executive Order 9066: 50 Years Before and 50 Years After, was the first to let Japanese Americans share their World War II incarceration experiences on their own terms. According to Jessica Rubenacker, then director of Exhibitions, the show’s popularity galvanized the community and solidified the CAC model as a permanent fixture of the museum’s curatorial approach.
Other landmark exhibitions have explored an array of critical topics including:
– Twenty Years After the Fall of Saigon (1995)
– Out of Focus: Media Stereotypes of Asian Pacific Americans (1996)
– From Awareness to Healing: Asian Pacific Americans and AIDS (2001