Book Club at The Panama Hotel

Though I usually have to miss it due to all my activities and work at ZINO Society, this week I attended my Book Club, of which I have been a member for around 30 years, which met at the Panama Hotel in the international district in Seattle.  Diane Kuenster was our hostess this month and the book that we read was “Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet” by Jamie Ford reviewed by Jan Rogers.  (See top photo of Denise Nielsen, Jan Rogers and Diane Kuenster in the attached Tea Room).

The story revolved around the wartime persecution and internment of Japanese immigrants during World War II.  In the opening pages of the novel, protagonist, Henry Lee comes upon a crowd gathered outside the Panama Hotel, once the gateway to Seattle’s Japantown.  It has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has made an incredible discovery: the belongings of Japanese families, left when they were rounded up and sent to internment camps during World War II.  The book tells the story of Henry Lee’s earlier life during the days of World War II and then his search to find his friend and the owner of some of the possessions that had been left behind when she was forced to go to the internment camp with her parents.

Since the Panama Hotel is a real place located at 605 ½ South Main Street in Seattle and has a Tea Room attached, it was the ideal place for Book Club to meet.  Jan Johnson, the current owner, bought the Panama Hotel in 1985 and has spent the last 25 years attempting to collect and catalog the many belongings and mementos that were from that period as well as from the time when the hotel was built in 1910 and on.  (See photos of Jan Johnson sharing photos of an earlier era from her collection and touring us through the attached bath house.)  Jan is an artist who has become an archivist and collector and advocate for the Japanese culture and the progenitors of the families who lived and worked in “Japantown” and whose descendants still live in Seattle.  She shared the story of acquiring the hotel and the challenges she faces with all the complexities of the ongoing business of running a hotel and keeping it true to the historical era and genre of what it was meant to be when it was built 100 years ago.  The number of keys she wore on her belt was impressive or frightening depending on your point of view.  My guess is that she had 40 or 50 keys on her keychain.  And now with the release of the popular book that highlights her hotel, she is getting many people stopping by to relive the story and to see the venerable, Panama Hotel.

Following the lecture and tour, the Book Club group adjourned to an adjacent room for a light lunch and review and discussion of the book by reviewer, Jan Rogers.  (See photo of hostess Diane Kuenster offering cookies to Jacqueline Witter and Kathy Haggart above.)  It was a fascinating afternoon which everyone seemed to thoroughly enjoy.