BELLINGHAM RIOT OF 1907 AND

ARCH OF HEALING AND RECONCILIATION

WATCH THE EVENT RECORDING FOR THE BELLINGHAM PUBLIC HISTORY COMMEMORATION

This project was supported by the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation’s Valerie Sivinski Fund.

This gathering reflected on key periods of exclusion and injustice in American history — from the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, to the 1907 expulsion of South Asian laborers in Bellingham, to the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.

In September 1907, a white mob in Bellingham violently targeted South Asian immigrants, primarily Sikh laborers from Punjab recruited to work in the region's lumber mills. Hundreds were beaten, robbed, and forced from their homes, then confined in the city jail under the pretense of "protection." Within days, nearly the entire South Asian community had been driven out of Bellingham, with many leaving the region altogether. This expulsion was part of a broader wave of anti-Asian violence on the West Coast, rooted in the legacy of Chinese Exclusion laws and foreshadowing the Japanese American incarceration of World War II.

During the 2025 commemoration, APIAHiP highlighted the work of Digital Humanities Intern Avneet Dhaliwal, who created a pamphlet documenting the events of the Bellingham Riot. Developed in partnership with the Sikh American History Project and the Whatcom County Sikh community — with participation from County Executive Satpal Sidhu — the program featured history-sharing, community reflections, and the unveiling of a new interpretive marker at the Arch of Healing and Reconciliation, connecting on-site visitors with a broader collection of online materials.

Explore the event pamphlet below, prepared by our Digital Humanities Intern, Avneet Dhaliwal.

EXPLORE RELATED DOCUMENTARIES

We're Not Strangers

We’re Not Strangers (2013) is a 15-minute short film that uncovers the little-known story of the September 4, 1907 labor riot in Bellingham, Washington. On that night, a white mob violently rounded up nearly 200 Sikh Punjabi immigrant mill workers and forced them out of the city. Through evocative recreations, spoken recollections, and poetic visual storytelling, the film captures both the tragedy of that night and its enduring aftermath, showing how Bellingham continues to wrestle with its past more than a century later.

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Present in All That We Do

Present in All That We Do (2007) is a 58 minute-long documentary that connects the 1907 "Anti-Hindu" riot in Bellingham, Washington to contemporary struggles for immigrant rights in Whatcom County. Written by Andrew Hedden and Ian Morgan to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Bellingham riots, the film features interviews with current residents of Bellingham and historical images from the riots. The film is narrated by Antasia Parker.

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