ESSAY // The Dissident
Implication by Franklin Einspruch
The Case for Institutional Plurality
by Franklin Einspruch
EXCERPT //
The Wing Luke Museum, founded in Seattle in 1967 to showcase the culture, art, and history of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders, currently has no executive director. Joël Barraquiel Tan, who moved from Hawaii to Washington to lead the institution, stepped down in September 2024 after less than three years in the position.
His statements to the press about his departure did not explain his reasons. But they were evidently connected to a walkout, in May, by two dozen Wing Luke Museum (hereafter WLM) staff. At issue was signage in an exhibition at the museum, “Confronting Hate Together,” presented jointly by the WLM, the Washington State Jewish Historical Society, and the Black Heritage Society of Washington State. The exhibition planned to “[focus] on the activism and responses to hate and discrimination taken by three communities,” namely Asians, Jews, and blacks, “which historically overlap and intersect in their experiences living within the highly discriminatory Redline boundary of Seattle.”
The protesters objected to a panel provided by the Jewish Historical Society which noted, factually, that “antisemitism is often disguised as anti-Zionism” and that “pro-Palestinian groups have voiced support for Hamas.” The walkout absented half of the museum’s staff and closed the WLM for several days. Protesters demanded, via Instagram, that the museum “remove any language in any WLM publication and question any partnerships that attempt to frame Palestinian liberation and anti-Zionism as antisemitism.” They further demanded that the exhibition “[platform] community stories within an anti-colonial, anti-white supremacist framework.” //
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