Wing Luke Museum staffers speak out after anti-Asian vandalism

Catch up: Craig Milne, 76, was arrested for smashing several glass windows of the Wing Luke Museum at around 5 p.m. on Sept. 14. He was later charged with a hate crime and first-degree malicious mischief for causing over $100,000 in damages.

Staffers speak out: Monica Day, the museum’s director of finance and human resources, described the incident as a “methodical” attack in the staffers’ new interview with King 5. “This person was angry but very calm while he was doing it and that was what was most striking to me,” she said.

Hanif Muid, head of security, recalled running out to confront Milne and said he heard the suspect spout rhetoric “about the Chinese ruining his life.” Joel Barraquiel Tan, executive director, said the suspect’s sledgehammer “started swinging as far back as the Chinese Exclusion Act,” describing the attack as “nothing less than an act of terror.”

Beyond property damage, the brazen vandalism has struck fears in many Asian Americans in the Chinatown-International District (CID). Psychologist Sally Chung told King 5, “If you can’t be safe in a predominantly Asian area as an Asian person, where are you safe?”

Why it matters: Wing Luke Museum, located in the heart of Seattle’s CID, describes itself as “the only pan-Asian Pacific American community-based museum in the U.S.” The building is also where many immigrant families lived in the early 1900s.

Activities continue: Despite the harrowing experience, the museum launched a music exhibit around a month later. On Dec. 9, it hosted an event featuring CID Santas Roger Rigor and Stephen Sumida.