All throughout May, WTOP is celebrating Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month with stories about the people and places shaping the D.C. region.
If you’ve walked through D.C.’s Chinatown lately, you may have spotted a vibrant, two-story mural tucked into an alley off H Street NW. It features a woman in a bright red hat, a yellow flower pinned to her lapel and the words, “Vote. It’s Your Voice.”
If you don’t immediately recognize her, that’s the point, according to the organization that commissioned the mural.
The mural depicts Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, a Chinese American suffragist, scholar and community leader. 1882 Foundation said the project is meant to spark curiosity and draw attention to stories of Chinese Americans that have long been overlooked.
Who was Mabel Ping-Hua Lee?
Lee immigrated to the United States from China as a young girl in 1905. She grew up in New York and went on to become a prominent community leader.
Her achievements include becoming the first Chinese American woman to receive a PhD in economics, earning the degree from Columbia University. She was also a passionate suffragette, advocating for women’s right to vote and for full participation in American civic life. She participated in the historic New York City suffrage parade in 1912 at the age of sixteen.
But there was just one catch after the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920: the young woman still could not vote.
Ted Gong, founder of the 1882 Foundation, explained that it was due to the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, “That act prohibited Chinese from immigrating to United States and from becoming American citizens. That was first passed in 1882, and it was not rescinded until 1943.”
“She was arguing for this right for women to vote and to participate fully in American affairs, and she could not become an American citizen and could not vote,” Gong said.
Sharing stories like Lee’s is central to the foundation’s mission shedding light on the Chinese immigrants during that era, and the barriers they faced despite their contributions.
The mural itself is impossible to miss with bright blues, reds and yellows framing Lee’s face, which is painted in black and white. The contrast is intentional.
“She lived a long time ago, before there was color photography, so I wanted it to represent an older era, when she was a pioneering suffragette” Artist Jeff Huntington, known as Jahru, said.
He said it was very challenging to paint at a scale this large, “and on a wall this textured. It involves a lot of math and a lot of problems solving, and that’s just a huge part of my process.”
The colors are a triadic color scheme, Jahru said it offers “harmony and balance as far as the color wheel goes.”
The mural is in Jahru’s signature style with an almost prism-like effect.
“You see the fractal radiance in the background. It gave me an opportunity to give her a glow that radiates from the center of her soul,” he said.
That sense of invitation is at the heart of the project.
An opportunity like this one highlighting Mabel Ping-Hua Lee carries extra weight for an artist like Jahru.
“It’s a huge honor. They gave me some artistic freedom to put in some of my style in the work, and it’s also very important for me to create a public piece that sort of invites the public and the community in, with curiosity,” he said.
Gong said, the issues Lee fought for more than a century ago haven’t disappeared.
“The current issue is who has a right to become an American, and how do we welcome immigrants?” he said.
“Art, it’s such a powerful tool, it’s a beautification tool. It’s a way to activate a space, but it’s also about telling a story,” said Lukas Umana, The Downtown D.C. Business Improvement District senior director of public space operations and activations. “It’s really about a story of the importance of voting and what she meant to America as we celebrate 250 years of American democracy.”
A formal dedication of the mural is planned for July 1.
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