s a former journalist, Ron Chew doesn't relish being at the heart of the story.
But the 54-year-old Beacon Hill resident has left his friends and colleagues little choice.
On Wednesday, Dec. 12, a community reception will honor Chew, who will retire at the end of the year after 17 years as executive director of the Wing Luke Asian Museum.
"My one request was not to do a party," the soft-spoken Chew said. "I didn't want to be the center of attention."
That request is characteristic of Chew, the son of hard-working, Chinese immigrants who, as a shy Beacon Hill kid, observed life from the margins as he made his way through school.
Chew is retiring after nearing the completion of a $23.2 million capital campaign to float the museum's new, 59,000-square-foot space - about 10 times the size of its current location at 407 Seventh Ave., which closed Nov. 30. The museum's new incarnation will open in June in the historic East Kong Yick Building, 719 S. King St.
Some said it couldn't be done, but quiet, unswerving determination - whatever you want to call it - is also characteristic of the man.
In his tenure at the Wing Luke, Chew has taken the museum from a one-man operation with a $130,000 budget to a debt-free, annual operating budget of $1 million. Along the way the Wing Luke has become the Northwest's first Smithsonian affiliate. And Chew has help change the concept of a museum from noun to verb: The Wing Luke is a place where things happen, a place where, over the years, the Asian community has come together to help produce many of its own exhibitions.
The 1992 exhibit, "Executive Order: 50 Years Before and 50 Years After," brought home the Japanese-American experience of the barbed-wire camps during World War II.
Some 100 people from the Japanese-American community helped put the exhibit together.
"We had recreated a barrack," Chew recalled. "I saw some people sitting in there with their families for an hour, weeping. They had never talked to their grandchildren about it."
It has been that kind of powerful experience that has made the museum a touchstone for the local Asian community. The Wing Luke has also given contemporary issues their due - the destruction of the rainforests, overseas sweatshop labor and the trafficking of women, hate crimes and post Sept. 11 discrimination.
The Wing Luke's successful capital campaign for its expanded, new digs has provided plenty of crow for early skeptics to eat.
In 2005 art critic Matt Kangas, speaking of the Wing Luke's drive for dollars, told the Seattle Weekly: "The great Asian art collectors here are white. Seattle's Asian-American community is not mature enough to support arts institutions. The SAAM is proof of that."
Kangas' clueless omniscience missed the fact that the Wing Luke is not your standard, collection-driven museum.
"People believe in the cause," Chew said of the fund-raising efforts. "And the cause is ultimately about using history, culture, art as a vehicle for creating a better society."
A HISTORY OF OVERCOMING
Chew is no stranger to overcoming obstacles.
Just shy of earning enough credits for his diploma, he sued the University of Washington for discrimination in 1975 after being passed over for the editorship of The Daily, the student newspaper. The case was settled out of court. The Daily changed its procedures.
"I knew I had been treated unfairly," he told this newspaper in a 2003 interview. A few years ago the University of Washington awarded Chew his diploma. He's now considered a distinguished alum.
Chew moved on to become editor-in-chief of the International Examiner, Seattle's Asian-American newspaper, where he deepened his knowledge of the city and learned his trade.
Bob Shimabukuro is a long time friend who wrote a column for the Examiner from the late 1980s to 2000. He also worked on the Executive Order exhibit.
"He's a very creative, out-of-the-box thinker," Shimabukuro said. Recalling the planning stages of Executive Order, he recalled wondering of Chew: "I didn't know if he was a genius or a fool."
Chew, Shimabukuro said, saw strength in community-based participation where others might see gridlock by committee.
"By having representatives of different generations run the project, it strengthened it," he noted. "To this day the Japanese-American community has never forgotten it."
Shimabukuro also recalled inspecting the decrepit, 1910 East Kong Yick Building with Chew.
"I saw nothing but bird (excrement)," Shimbukuro laughed. "Ron saw: What a great place for a museum. He's real stubborn. He doesn't give up."
RECOGNITION COMES
Over the years awards have come Chew's way.
In 2007 Chew and the Wing Luke received the William O. Douglas Award for showcasing the Asian American struggle for civil rights. The Ford Foundation has recognized him with a Leadership for Changing the World award and in 2000 President Clinton named Chew to the National Council of Humanities. Chew is also on the American Association of Museums Honor Roll.
To all of this, partly in wonder, Chew insists, "I'm just a Beacon Hill kid."
Chew is retiring from the Wing Luke because, "I've stayed on to shepherd this (capital) campaign. It's time for somebody else."
Current CEO Beth Takekawa will follow Chew as Wing Luke executive director
Ever the quiet buttonholer, Chew is known as an effective fundraiser. For his part, he is quick to point out the fund-raising drive has been a group effort on the part of Wing Luke employees, board members and friends in the community.
Looking back, Chew noted, "There is something sacred about providing public space to share stories."
Looking ahead, Chew is preparing to return to his journalistic, storytelling roots with Chew Communications, a writing and editing service. As the single father of two boys, the prospect, he allows, "is kind of scary."
Chew may even write the story that requires him to occupy center stage: The University of Washington Press has asked him to pen his autobiography.
"It's going to be hard to do," Chew said.
That's never stopped him before.
A Community Reception for Honoring Ron Chew, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 6-8 p.m. at House of Hong, 409 Eighth Ave. S. The event is free and open to the public. Space is limited.
