An Interracial Marriage in 1887 Seattle
A white woman’s decision to marry a Chinese man and adapt to his life in a hostile era.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Under the heading 'Married to a Chinaman,' the Post-Intelligencer publishes the following: A white woman, aged about 18, is now a resident of a Chinese house on Washington street. Her husband is a Chinaman, and the couple were legally married at Vancouver, where the almond-eyed man was in business. The hostile feeling against the Chinese at that city has since caused him to give up his business at the terminal city, and the couple removed to Victoria, where they now reside. The bride is said to have adopted all the national customs of her husband.
“The bride is said to have adopted all the national customs of her husband.”
This brief report from 1887 highlights the intense anti-Chinese sentiment that defined the Pacific Northwest in the late 19th century, including the forced expulsion of Chinese residents from Seattle just a year prior. Today, the location on Washington Street sits in the heart of the International District, a center of multicultural resilience that stands in stark contrast to the exclusionist politics of the 1880s.
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