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Published in The Seattle Times online on June 18, 2026
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on June 21, 2026

Chinatown ‘Unrecognized’ documentary maps Duwamish ‘archeology of memory’

By Jean Sherrard

“How am I supposed to acknowledge I’m on my own land?”

Ken Workman, Duwamish tribal elder and direct descendant of Chief Seattle, lets the question hang in the salt air above Alki Beach. He stands at the monument erected in 1905 to mark the arrival of the first white settlers of what would become Seattle.

“Three years, two months and nine days,” he says, his voice steady and matter-of-fact, noting the passage of time like a tolling bell.

“Three years, two months and nine days,” Workman repeats. “That’s how long it took from the moment my great-great-great-great-grandfather, Chief Seattle, said, ‘Come ashore, my friends, onto this ancient land of the Duwamish. You are welcome here,’ to the signing of

the Point Elliott Treaty, removing the Duwamish from their land forever.”

This year marks the 175th anniversary of that landing.

West Seattle filmmaker B.J. Bullert’s new documentary, “Unrecognized,” traces the removal of the Duwamish from their home and its long aftermath. She says, “There were only three ways for Indigenous people to survive: to move to a reservation set aside by the federal government, to intermarry and collaborate with the newcomers, or to retreat to remote areas and remain Duwamish.”

“Unrecognized” illuminates what Bullert, whose husband is

Workman, calls “an archaeology of memory” — the layered, largely invisible history of a people whose presence shaped this place for millennia before a single timber was felled for the Yesler Mill.

And this dispossession of a people — the loss of their land, the suppression of their sovereignty — is, says historian David Buerge, Seattle’s original sin. It continues today. The Duwamish remain unrecognized by the federal government, denied the healthcare, education and legal standing that recognition would confer.

The chief, of Duwamish and Suquamish lineage, was the first signer of the Point Elliott Treaty, and yet land was never set aside for his people in the city that bears his name.

In January 2001, a spark of hope briefly flared when the outgoing Clinton administration authorized federal recognition for the Duwamish on its last day in office. Less than 48 hours later, the incoming Bush administration withdrew it — and the legal struggle has continued ever since. Last year, U.S. District Court Judge Jamal Whitehead ruled the tribe’s petition must be reconsidered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. It has not been resolved yet.

For Workman, the welcome his ancestor extended to white settlers on the shores of a fertile bay is no less heartfelt today than it was 175 years ago. After all the long and painful years that followed the Point Elliott Treaty, perhaps the original invitation — so freely given, so incompletely returned — might yet be recognized.

WEB EXTRAS

“Unrecognized,” B.J. Bullert’s 30-minute documentary, screens at 6:30 p.m. on June 22 at Town Hall Seattle, 1119 Eighth Ave., followed by a discussion; $15. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. More info: townhallseattle.org.

For our narrated 360 degree video on location, click here.