What does a house contain in addition to its residents and their belongings? The Eng Family Home, nestled between loquat trees and small businesses in the Chinatown-International District (CID), holds many stories of a Chinese American family who, after living in an apartment in the neighborhood's Canton Alley, built this one-story, single-family residence just a couple of blocks away.
Wing Luke Museum acquired the Eng Family Home in 2021 for $1.8 million to preserve it and to incorporate the home as an immersive exhibit, representing the experience of one family in the CID during the early 20th century. The home will be open for guided public tours starting Oct. 29. A $30 admission includes access to the museum.
The home was built by Suen King Eng, who founded and managed Min Hing Knitting Company for the Eng Corporation. His wife, Sue Fong, ran a bean sprout business out of the home's basement. The family added Eng's Grocery, Golden Star Cafe, and King's Chinese Hand Laundry to the list of family businesses as they provided for their family in Seattle and sent money to relatives in Guangdong, China, during the Great Depression.
"If [the Eng] family's future generations can't live in the house and maintain it, the next best thing is for it to be in the Wing's hands, to tell not only our story, but all people who came to Seattle and were othered," said Sue May Eng, the granddaughter of Suen King and Sue Fong, referring to discriminatory practices like redlining. Communities of color were segregated from white communities, and exclusionary laws blocked Chinese women from immigrating to the U.S. until the mid-1900s.
Side x Side Architects and Metis Construction restored portions of the space and retrofitted it for ADA accessibility and a new staircase. Wing Luke Museum worked with the family to create the exhibit. The museum purchased items and gathered items from the family, its own collections, and the community to create a space that reflects the historical period of the home.
This is not the first time the museum has purchased land in the neighborhood. The museum is in the East Kong Yick building, built with money pooled by more than 150 Chinese immigrants in 1910. It acquired the building in 2003 for $2 million. "Many Chinatowns, Japantowns, and Manilatowns have been lost over the years," said Wing Luke Museum board member Diane Narasaki. "The Wing is preserving community by purchasing property that has historic significance. It keeps property owned by a community-based organization, so it doesn't get sold to an outside developer who may not have particular interest in the community."
Before the space opens to visitors, Sue May and her father, Tuck Ling Eng (Suen King and Sue Fong's son), sat down with the Emerald. Here's what they had to say about their family.
Tuck's parents (center photo) and grandparents are featured on the living room wall.
Because of Chinese exclusion laws that lasted into the mid-20th century, Chinatowns throughout North America were communities of men who worked and sent money to relatives in China. At that time, women from China were often barred entry into the U.S. This reality impacted the Eng family experience in Seattle.
Tuck says his paternal grandfather (pictured at far left in a Western-style suit) arrived in the city in the late 1800s and established Eng Trading Company with a relative. His maternal grandfather went to work in Vancouver, Canada.
Tuck said the grandmothers "never made it here."
In 1921, Tuck's paternal grandfather brought Tuck's father, Suen King, to the U.S. Suen King had a wife and children still living in China. Though exclusionary laws made immigration for Chinese women less accessible, Suen King was able to bring his wife, Sue Fong, and a daughter to Seattle in 1927. The mother and daughter were incarcerated at the Immigration and Naturalization Service for six months before they were released. The eldest daughter arrived from Guangdong in 1949.
Along with Sue Fong giving birth to children in China, she also gave birth to children in the U.S. Tuck, the youngest child in the family, was born in 1933.
In 1937, Suen King acquired land for a house through a contractor. Because non-U.S. citizens couldn't own property in Seattle, the site was deeded to Suen King's 8-year-old son, William, who had birthright citizenship.
Suen King planned a two-story, three-bedroom frame house with a full basement. "The City approved the permit at first," said Tuck. "Then, after the foundation was poured, they issued a stop-order of the construction, saying that frame houses weren't allowed on that side of 8th Avenue South due to a zoning change."
Despite the limitations, Suen King built a one-story, three-bedroom home with a half-basement per permit requirements. Since a frame house was not permitted, he had a choice of bricks or cinder blocks. Suen King went with cinder blocks manufactured just a few blocks away.
Suen King and Sue Fong had six children and 17 grandchildren, which meant a group of nearly 30 people gathered in the roughly 1,800-square-foot house each Sunday for dinner.
"Back then, there was a whole backyard there with a fig tree, a sandbox, greenhouse, chicken coops, and a fish pond," Sue May said.
Sue May says that after school and during the summer, cousins were dropped off in the morning when the parents went to work, and these grandchildren stayed at the house until they were picked up in the evening or after dinner.
"The first thing I learned in Toisanese was 'hoy mon,' which meant 'open the door,' because when we get to the front door, there's a mail slot, and we would push [the flap] and say, 'Hoy mon, hoy mon, hoy mon,'" said Sue May.
Her father, Tuck, chuckled. "[Pushing the flap in and letting go] sounded like 'bang, bang, bang,'" he said.
During the Great Depression, the family struggled financially to raise six children along with sending money to relatives in Guangdong. Tuck said that at the time, his father made $48 a month. "Before my dad would go to work, Dad and Mom would go out to pick watercress, purslane, seaweed, or cabbage sprouts early in the morning in places like Auburn, Kent, Richmond Beach, and Tacoma," said Tuck. His mother would sell them to local restaurants, and, Tuck said, "If she sold 100 of them for 10 cents a bundle, she could make a lot more money than my father could in a month."
Later, Sue Fong learned how to cultivate bean sprouts from elders at the Wah Sang Co. grocery store.
Daryl Eng, a grandson of Suen King and Sue Fong, remembered piling the mung bean sacks to the ceiling in the basement with another cousin. At the time, he was about 8. "We sterilized the equipment, bleached them, washed the mung beans, watered them three times a day, and drained them. Then, we'd hull all of the sprouts using water. When they were long enough, we needed to pull them out of the containers without breaking the sprouts, or they go bad quickly," said Daryl.
Sue May recounted taking bean sprout orders to restaurants. "We liked to go to Gim Ling [restaurant], through the alley to the back door, and you'd go downstairs, and you give them their bean sprouts. They would give us all chicken wings. We loved it."
Suen King established Min Hing Knitting Co. in 1932 and managed it for the Eng Corporation after learning how to produce knitted fabric. The store, located near Hing Hay Park, also sold men's furnishings. Min Hing Knitting Co. closed in the late 1940s.
Suen King opened other businesses, including King's Chinese Hand Laundry in the mid-1940s, where Tuck and his siblings ironed handkerchiefs, darned socks, and starched collars and cuffs. "We were known for premium white shirts," said Tuck. "Undertakers and attorneys came for their white shirts. We would send out the clothes for a wet wash on Friday. On Sunday, we'd hang up the wet clothes in a drying room and build a fire to warm them. Then we'd go out for 'Sunday Fun Day.'"
There were other Eng family shops, including the Golden Star Cafe, which operated from 1944 into the early 1950s, and Eng's Grocery Store, which ran from 1964 until the late 1960s.
"Living in the house as a kid, we had to keep the house clean. We had to cook dinner. We hulled the bean sprouts and spread them in the backyard for compost. We had dinner at six and studied from eight to midnight," said Tuck. "Sunday was our relax day. Dad would take us to Triple X and treat us to hamburgers."
Herbal Medicine
"Mom would go into the mountains and harvest herbs," said Tuck. "She'd buy other herbs at the store. She'd make alcohol from a rice-potato mash in a still. Then she'd make tinctures that would sit for a year before she'd dispense them. She would make formulas. One was Het Ah Diu in Toisanese, which was good for bruises. She would give this formula away. She never charged for that medicine. I still have a batch of that made by her."
Wing Luke Museum tours of the Eng Family Home are by advance reservation. Call 206-623-5124, ext. 125, or email Tours@WingLuke.org.
Wing Luke Museum hours are Wednesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The museum also offers historic hotel tours of the East Kong Yick building, Wednesday through Sunday at 10:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m.
Got an idea for a South End story you'd like to see us cover? Let me know: Yuko.Kodama@SeattleEmerald.org.
This article is published under a Seattle Human Services Department grant, “Resilience Amidst Hate,” in response to anti-Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander violence.