IT all started with a pair of old shoes, and the vision of a young immigrant who became the first Asian American to hold public office in the Northwest United States, but who was to die in tragic circumstances.
It was the discovery of the old-style Chinese shoes in a storehouse in Seattle that planted the idea of a museum dedicated to the life and experiences of Asian immigrants in the mind of Chinese-born Wing Luke.
Luke was born in Guangdong Province in 1925 and moved with his family to the United States when he was six years old, where his father ran a laundry. Luke won a seat on the city council in 1962, but died three years later at the age of 40 in a light plane crash.
The museum was founded in his honour, and occupies a converted garage in the middle of Seattle's Chinatown, now named International District.
''It's a unique museum,'' says director Ron Chew. ''We are the only pan-Asian museum in the whole of the United States.'' The Wing Luke documents the life of the Asian communities in Washington State through photographs, mementoes, artefacts and documents. There are children's dresses, kites, an old dentist's chair . . . and those original shoes, of course.
It was the promise of gold that first lured the Chinese across the Pacific to Washington territory in the 1860s; in fact they called the country Gim San or ''gold mountain''.