# Chinese Reconciliation Park

A park on the Old Town waterfront built to remember Tacoma's 1885 expulsion of its Chinese residents. Walk the paths and read the signs; the pavilion is one stop of many.

Canonical URL: https://tacomairl.com/places/chinese-reconciliation-park/
Section: places
Area: Old Town
Published: 2026-10-11
Last fact check: 2026-10-11
Status: Not marked closed; check official information
Location: Old Town waterfront
Address: 1741 N Schuster Parkway, Tacoma, WA, US
Price: Public park; check individual event information. Admission charge not listed by the foundation.
Official information: https://crpftacoma.org/tacoma-chinese-reconciliation-park/
Access: Outdoor park; current opening hours and restroom availability not confirmed in the inspected foundation pages.

Give the interpretive signs your attention before treating this as a waterfront photo stop. Chinese Reconciliation Park responds to the forced expulsion of Tacoma's Chinese residents in 1885. The Chinese Reconciliation Project Foundation and the City developed it as a place to acknowledge that history and work toward reconciliation.

The setting beside Commencement Bay is beautiful. The point of the place is what you learn while looking at it.

## Follow the story through the garden

The foundation identifies stone tableaux, interpretive pathways, the Grotto of the Tides, the String of Pearls Bridge and the Fuzhou Ting pavilion among the park's features. Use those as a sequence for a slow visit. Read, walk a little, then look back at how the next feature changes your view of the bay.

An easy mistake is to stop at the pavilion and leave. The pathways carry the explanation that gives the structures meaning. With children, read the history yourself first and decide how to discuss the expulsion plainly; the view does not make the subject less serious.

## A gathering place as well as a memorial

The foundation's September 12, 2026 Moon Festival announcement described its 14th annual celebration, drawing on East Asian Mid-Autumn traditions. That event history matters here. The park has a civic life in the present, alongside its work of remembering the past.

Use the foundation's current calendar for future festival or reconciliation-walk details. A past listing establishes neither the next date nor its arrangements.

**Plan for a short, attentive visit.** The foundation's park description lists restrooms among future improvements; that is not confirmation of a working facility today. Make a separate restroom plan. If you want to continue thinking about whose histories appear in public spaces, [Tacoma Art Museum's](https://tacomairl.com/places/tam/) Western art coverage offers another starting point, at a separate downtown stop.

Image: https://tacomairl.com/images/chinese-reconciliation-park.webp
Alt: The red-pillared Fuzhou Ting pavilion sits among autumn shrubs at Chinese Reconciliation Park.
Caption: Photographed in 2017.
Image credit: Photo: Joe Mabel
Image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tacoma,_WA_-_Chinese_Pavilion,_Chinese_Reconciliation_Park_02.jpg
Image rights: CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)

## Sources

- [Foundation: park features and address](https://crpftacoma.org/tacoma-chinese-reconciliation-park/)
- [Foundation: expulsion and reconciliation context](https://crpftacoma.org/)
- [Foundation: September 12, 2026 Moon Festival](https://crpftacoma.org/crpf-news/tacoma-moon-festival-2026-sept-12th-1-6-pm/)