Review: Oly AHA’s ‘Chinese Life in Olympia Walking Tour’ and remembrance exhibit
Originally published on The JOLT News on April 16, 2026
About a week ago, Visitor Services and Marketing Manager Lauren Richards, of the Olympia Arts & Heritage Alliance (Oly AHA) Museum, invited me to experience everything the museum is currently doing. What intrigued me most about her invitation were the words “Olympia’s Old Chinatown.”
Wait, what? We had a Chinatown? Why did I never learn about this during my K-12 education here in Thurston County? It became an immediate priority to learn more, and I am so glad that I pursued this. I must urge you to prioritize this yourself as the remembrance exhibit and "Chinese Life in Olympia Walking Tour" are finishing up this weekend!
Click here to get your ticket.
Make sure to come early so you have time to experience the museum before your tour. Thank goodness I did because there were so many fascinating things to observe and learn about.
Prior to the tour, I also enjoyed chatting with Exhibitions and Programs Manager Ruth Kodish-Eskind and hearing the heart and insight that went into each detail of the museum.
When the Oly AHA museum first opened, I saw great potential, and it is quite exciting that the museum has tapped into that. I saw vibrant colors, multi-sensory exhibits, fascinating artifacts and clever uses of space. I cannot wait for you to experience this for yourselves, be sure to reach out and tell me all about it!
Walking tour review
Altogether, the walking tour discussing Chinese life and history in Olympia was about 45 minutes long, somehow it didn’t feel long enough. I mean that as a compliment because I was so engrossed in the experience that I wanted it to last longer.
Luckily, the visitor center has a couple of brochures that include a map, timeline with brief facts, and ideas of how to do your own self-guided tour. I plan on utilizing these resources in the future, but for now I urge you to get a ticket, experience a tour with members of the community and visitors, and seize the opportunity to ask the tour guide questions.
Every step we took was one that members of Olympia’s Chinese community of yesteryear took trying to establish a meaningful and sustainable life in the midst of difficult circumstances. The tour guide painted vivid pictures of the poor, as well as unsustainable conditions of the ground surrounding their part of town. I’ll let the museum tell you more about that.
Our tour guide pointed out multiple places where cafés, laundromats and lodging used to exist for and created by the Chinese community. On the outside, these places would seem ordinary, but these places are where life and community flourished.
This is where people came together to eat, drink, have fun, and sometimes formulate plans to meet the current need or create a resistance against discrimination.
The whole experience is emotional and makes you contemplate both how lucky we are today, but also how crucial our position is today. We must continue to safeguard our community and protect our diversity from assimilation.
Exhibit review
I encourage visitors to spend time in the exhibit before and after the tour to get a mental warm-up to the information you will receive, then get clarification after the fact.
I’m impressed by the way this exhibit packs so much information into a smaller space. The exhibit taps into multiple layers of this nuanced history, providing a timeline, copies of legal immigration documents, a response activity, and a copy of the book titled, “Sent Out on the They Built: Sinophobia in Olympia 1886,” by Sarah Dougher with illustrations by Nikki McClure.
I love the inclusion of the book because it shows how important artists are to the preservation of and teaching of history. Art opens up the doors to our hearts to learn what our brains sometimes can’t perceive on their own. One illustration can speak 1,000 words without any actual script included. It’s powerful!
Minimal photographs exist from these influential periods of our history, but those photos that visitors are able to see are very impactful. Each photograph allows you to travel back in time through your imagination, and the journey is emotional, sobering, but healing.
Through it all, I kept remembering a haunting truth: this history was not that long ago, and we are not immune to repeating terrible mistakes or adopting harmful attitudes toward people different than ourselves.
We must continue to visit and support our local museums and historical societies so the truth can remain preserved, and generations to come can have access to the story of the land we inhabit.
The Oly AHA Museum and Visitor Center is located at 203 Columbia St. NW in Olympia.