Cultural tribute or racial caricature?

Now, a recommendation by a city-appointed task force to abandon the seal has spawned a tempest.

To one side, the seal contains an anachronistic, racial caricature of a 19th-century Asian merchant. To the other side, it honors a progressive, cross-cultural commerce that benefited peoples a world apart.

“I don’t think at this point in history we should be using any person on a seal. It raises a lot of issues,” said Rachel TonThat, the task force’s vice chair. “Is this one individual representing an entire diverse community?”

The dispute is the latest in a series of often-heated debates across the nation about whether official symbols, the names of professional sports teams, and school mascots should be changed if they diminish or stereotype historically marginalized peoples. Massachusetts, for example, has decided to replace its flag and seal, which depict a Native American man standing under a raised sword.

In Salem, the city seal is used for legal and ceremonial purposes, such as birth, marriage, and death certificates, and for certifying City Council votes and ordinances.

It differs from its colorful “Witch City” emblem, showing a broomstick-riding woman wearing a pointy hat. That image appears on shoulder patches worn by Salem police and on their cruisers, while the seal appears on their badges and hats.

Some critics have questioned which image is more offensive — the one on the seal or on the police cruisers.

But advocates for a new seal point to its longstanding use as an official legal imprint as an important difference.

Whatever the seal’s original intent, TonThat said, the 21st-century interpretation of its message can perpetuate harmful stereotypes.

That’s a view that draws support from the city’s Asian American and Pacific Islander community, which in 2024 broached the idea to reconsider the seal. During widespread anxiety surrounding the pandemic, TonThat recalled, she had been told angrily by a passerby outside Salem City Hall to “go back to China,” where the COVID-19 virus had originated.

“The regalia that the figure is wearing is not an accurate representation of what Sumatrans would wear,” said Regina Zaragoza Frey, who chaired the task force and is the city’s DEI director.

Rather, she said, the image is what “people would have thought an Asian figure would have looked like at the time. … These traits when viewed together become shorthand, oversimplified characterization or stereotype.”

To R. Michael Feener, a Salem native and history professor at Kyoto University in Japan, the symbolism is quite different. In his view, the proponents of change are missing the point.

Instead of caricature, he said, the seal respectfully depicts a finely dressed merchant from Sumatra’s social elite. And it’s a paean, he said, to sound trading and cultural curiosity that helped build many of Salem’s great mansions between 1790 and 1830.

“The Salem trade in Sumatra is sort of a bright spot in a dark history” of East-West relations, Feener said, occurring at a time when militant European colonialism was on the march in southeast Asia.

Instead of brute force, Feener said, Salem merchants leveraged respect, a non-monopolistic approach, and negotiations with local rajahs to gain the contracts that made their Massachusetts city rich.

“It’s a historical artifact, and history should not make us feel better all the time. History should challenge us,” Feener said.

Harvard professor Erika Lee, who has focused on US-Asia relations, sees a more complicated relationship between Salem and Aceh, the Indonesian province where the Salem trade was concentrated, according to a task force summary of her presentation.

“To her, the seal’s beauty conceals an uncomfortable legacy of racial capitalism and selective memory,” the task force wrote. Part of the legacy included a punitive US naval expedition in 1831 that killed more than 150 civilians in Aceh after a Salem ship had been attacked.

Feener described that episode as a tragic outlier and said the US Navy captain of the expedition was disciplined upon his return.

“I’ve probably spent more time in Sumatra than I had in Salem growing up. I had never seen it as a problem,” he said of the seal.

And neither, apparently, had the current governor of Aceh, according to a letter he wrote to Salem officials, which Feener and City Council President Conrad Prosniewski shared with the Globe.

“Your city’s emblem has long symbolized not just Salem’s prosperity, but also a respectful acknowledgment of Aceh’s role in that legacy,” Governor Muzakir Manaf wrote in July.

“While we wholeheartedly support inclusive dialogue and racial equity, we hope that the historical context of the image — as a mutual tribute rather than a stereotype — is fully considered,” he wrote.

Other support for the existing seal came from Justin Whittier, a Salem resident who said his Massachusetts roots date to the 1630s.

“We know what a caricature is,” said Whittier, who has criticized the task force on social media. “It’s meant to ridicule, to exaggerate features. There’s no attempt to ridicule here; it’s respectful.”

The task force was created in September 2024 by an 8-3 vote of the City Council, following calls by local Asian American and Pacific Islanders to reconsider the seal.

After 17 meetings and three public listening sessions beginning in March, the task force voted, 5-1, in October to change the image. That recommendation now must be approved by the City Council and Mayor Dominick Pangallo. The mayor did not respond to a request for comment.

Along the way, task force members were questioned by some residents about the accuracy of public-opinion surveys on the change, one of which, the critics said, showed overwhelming support to retain the seal. And members on both sides of the issue were subjected to verbal and online attacks.

Feener was called a racist by an anonymous participant in an online public hearing, according to Feener and TonThat. Supporters of changing the seal have had their personal information publicized by critics.

“I’ve witnessed a lot of ugliness on both sides, and it’s really regrettable,” TonThat said.

TonThat confirmed that the task force did not reach out to people in Aceh, including its governor, to gauge their opinions. However, she added, input from Sumatrans would be sought in any redesign of the seal.

TonThat, an artist of Chinese-Vietnamese descent, said she senses that some of Salem’s old guard have been “stressed” by the push for change. Now, she is hoping for more harmonious dialogue going forward.

“We made a lot of allies and met some great people,” she said. “I think, next year, my focus will be bringing the community back in friendlier ways.”

Brian MacQuarrie can be reached at [email protected].