My business [in Tacoma] was that of keeping a dry goods, provision, medicine, and general merchandise store. On the 3rd day of November . . . . there were eight hundred or nine hundred Chinese persons in and about Tacoma who at that time were forcibly expelled by the white people of Tacoma. . . .
They must have been in the neighborhood of 1000 people in the crowd of white people though I cannot tell how many. They went to all the Chinese houses and establishments . . . . Where the doors were locked they broke forcibly into the houses, smashing in doors and breaking in windows. Some of the crowd were armed with pistols, some with clubs. They acted in a rude, boisterous, and threatening manner, dragging and kicking the Chinese out of their houses.
My wife refused to go, and some of the white persons dragged her out of the house. . . . From the excitement, the fright, and the losses we sustained through the riot she lost her reason. She was hopelessly insane and attacked people with a hatchet or any other weapon if not watched. . . . The outrages I and my family suffered at the hands of the mob has utterly ruined me. . . .
My wife was perfectly sane before the riot.
- Lum May, ca. 1886
How did Lum May’s wife respond to the rioters?
She fought back.
She called for help.
She joined the mob.
She hid inside her home.
