PORT ANGELES — Racism is real in Port Angeles, Lower Elwha Klallam tribal members said Tuesday — and it’s much older than the controversy over the Hood Canal Bridge graving yard.
“Racism, it is hush-hush,” Tribal Chairwoman Frances Charles told the city’s Multicultural Task Force, which held a special meeting in the tribal center on the Lower Elwha Klallam reservation.
“It is not perceived (by non-Natives), but we feel it.”
“There’s always been racism,” tribal member Monica Charles agreed.
“It just flares up when there’s an issue like the graving yard.”
The graving yard is the 22.5-acre site on the Port Angeles waterfront where the state had hoped to build huge concrete anchors, pontoons, and highway decks to replace the east end of the Hood Canal Bridge.
The project halted after workers discovered Klallam burials and artifacts throughout the site.
“It’s been an open grave for us,” said Monica Charles. “It has been an open wound.”
‘Genocide by archaeology’
She called the graving yard “genocide by archaeology.”
“The biggest archaeological discovery in the state they did in 15 months,” she said. “It should have taken 20 years.
“We are told to think about the greater good of the community.
“What we’re really being asked to do is step aside again.”
