Rose Lan Pak () was a political activist in San Francisco, California, noted for her influence on city politics and power in the

Chinatown A Chinatown () is an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Austra ...

community. Pak served as a consultant for the San Francisco Chinese Chamber of Commerce and organizer of the Chinese New Year Parade in San Francisco. Although Pak never held an elective political office, she was known as an outspoken, controversial but well-connected "gatekeeper" figure who supported politicians by raising funds and connecting them with the city's growing Asian American community. Her political ties to the Chinese government attracted scrutiny.

Early life

Pak was born in Henan, China, on November 27, 1947. She received a Catholic education while growing up as a refugee in Portuguese Macau and

British Hong Kong Hong Kong was a colony and later a dependent territory of the British Empire from 1841 to 1997, apart from a period of occupation under the Japanese Empire from 1941 to 1945 during the Pacific War. The colonial period began with the Briti ...

after her father, a businessman, had died in the Chinese Civil War. When she was 17, she received a scholarship to attend the

San Francisco College for Women Lone Mountain College was a college acquired by the University of San Francisco (USF) in 1978. History It was built and founded by the Religious of the Sacred Heart as Sacred Heart Academy in Menlo Park, California, in 1898. The school becam ...

and in 1972, earned a master's degree at the Columbia School of Journalism. After a brief stint working at '' The New York Times'', she returned to San Francisco in 1974 to work for the '' San Francisco Chronicle'' (as its first female Asian American journalist), a job that she left after eight years to become a full-time social activist.

Political career

Pak's first objective as an activist was to organize a campaign to save the San Francisco Chinese Hospital from closure. Later she worked for decades to advocate for its replacement by a new, modern building, and for the Central Subway project that is set to improve Chinatown's connection to the rest of the Bay Area. Both projects broke ground in 2013. Pak was a supporter of Art Agnos (the city's mayor from 1988 to 1992) but opposed his efforts to tear down the Embarcadero Freeway, arguing that Chinatown would suffer catastrophic consequences if it lost the fast crosstown connection. She won a ballot measure about the issue in 1987, but after the

1989 Loma Prieta earthquake The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake occurred on California's Central Coast on October 17 at local time. The shock was centered in The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park in Santa Cruz County, approximately northeast of Santa Cruz on a section of t ...

damaged the freeway, her objections were overturned. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Pak then "almost single-handedly persuaded the city to build" the $1.5 billion Central Subway project to compensate Chinatown for the demolition of the freeway. According to

Claire Jean Kim Claire Jean Kim (born July 27, 1965) is an American political scientist at the University of California, Irvine. She received her A.B. from Harvard College and an M. Phil and Ph.D. from Yale University. Her research interests are comparative rac ...

, Pak and Chinatown power broker

Pius Lee Pius Lee is an American political power broker and landlord. He was a long-time supporter of Mayor Willie Brown and has served as the commissioner on several governmental commissions in San Francisco, including the San Francisco Port Commission ...

were "famously at odds." In 1996, Pak lobbied for the appointment of Fred H. Lau as the first Asian American head of the San Francisco Police Department. She threatened to withdraw support for the S.F. Giants' proposed

Pac Bell Park Oracle Park is a Major League Baseball stadium in the SoMa neighborhood of San Francisco, California. Since 2000, it has been the home of the San Francisco Giants. Previously named Pacific Bell Park, SBC Park, and AT&T Park, the stadium's curren ...

if Mayor Brown didn't fire a political consultant hostile to Lau. In 2011, Pak was instrumental in obtaining consensus to nominate Edwin M. Lee as the first

Asian American Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants). Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous people ...

mayor of San Francisco. Pak said, "This was finally our moment to make the first Chinese mayor of a major city." In 2015, Pak and her ally Ed Lee had a fallout over Lee's choice of Julie Christensen as a replacement appointment to the Board of Supervisor instead of Pak's protege Cindy Wu. Pak went on to support her former longtime adversary

Aaron Peskin Aaron Dan Peskin (born June 17, 1964) is an American elected official in San Francisco, California. He serves as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors representing District 3, and is currently Dean of the Board. He was elected in 20 ...

against Christensen in the supervisor elections for District 3 (which includes Chinatown) later that year. When Christensen used the physics concept “wormhole”—a connection between two different space-times—to describe the Stockton Street Tunnel connecting Union Square and Chinatown, Pak distorted the word “wormhole” to imply that Chinatown is a hole of worms, which successfully triggered the anger of some Chinatown residents. Aaron Peskin ended up defeating Julie Christensen. In the annual Chinese New Year's Parade, Pak was known for her outspoken comments about local politicians as they were passing by the central grandstand. As reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, Pak's quips "ranged from humorous to mean, but they were almost always pointed and pertinent to Chinatown’s interests". Shortly before her death in 2016, Pak vehemently opposed a project to permanently convert parts of

Stockton Street Stockton Street is a north-south street in San Francisco. It begins at Market Street passing Union Square, a major shopping district in the city. It then runs underground for about two and a half blocks in the Stockton Street Tunnel (lending its ...

in the Union Square area outside of Chinatown into a pedestrian zone, arguing that Stockton Street was a "vital link" for Chinatown, and threatening to organize a blockade of City Hall by thousands of vehicles if the idea came to pass.

Political ties to the People's Republic of China

Pak was an overseas executive director of the China Overseas Exchange Association (COEA), a united front organization overseen by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office (OCAO), at the time under the

State Council of the People's Republic of China The State Council, constitutionally synonymous with the Central People's Government since 1954 (particularly in relation to local governments), is the chief administrative authority of the People's Republic of China. It is chaired by the p ...

. At various times she spoke out in favor of the Chinese government's views, e.g. in 2012 calling all "overseas Chinese" to "defend the homeland” in the conflict about the Diaoyu Islands, and in 2008 opposing a resolution of the SF Board of Supervisors that criticized China for the

1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre The Tiananmen Square protests, known in Chinese as the June Fourth Incident (), were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or in Chinese the June Fourth ...

and other repression measures, passed on occasion of the

2008 Summer Olympics torch relay The 2008 Summer Olympics torch relay was run from March 24 until August 8, 2008, prior to the 2008 Summer Olympics, with the theme of "one world, one dream". Plans for the relay were announced on April 26, 2007, in Beijing, China. The relay, al ...

reaching San Francisco. As revealed in a 2018 '' Politico'' report after Pak's death, among U.S. intelligence officials "there were widespread concerns that Pak had been co-opted by Chinese intelligence". These also extended to her work in organizing many "

junket Junket may refer to: *Junket (dessert), a dessert made of flavoured, sweetened curds *Junket (company), a brand name of rennet tablets and dessert mixes *Film promotion, or press junket, meaning the interviews, advertising, and press releases crea ...

" trips to China for leading Bay Area politicians, exposing them to surveillance and recruitment efforts (although there is no evidence Pak directly participated in such efforts herself). Pak was critical of the Falun Gong movement in San Francisco and in 2004 she banned the group from participating in the city's annual Chinese New Year's Parade. The group and others, including San Francisco Supervisor Chris Daly, subsequently alleged that Pak had connections to the Chinese Communist Party. Pak consistently denied any ties with Beijing.

Death

In May 2016, Pak returned to San Francisco after an extended medical stay in China, where she had received a kidney transplant, announcing to a welcoming committee of Chinatown elders, local politicians and city officials that her health had been restored. She died in San Francisco on September 18, 2016, aged 68. She was single all of her life and had no children. Pak's funeral took place in September 2016, attended by many prominent San Francisco politicians, but her body was not cremated until three months later, due to a dispute among her two surviving sisters over the estate (estimated at $656,000, to the surprise of many observers, as Pak had had a reputation of being of little means).

Legacy

On the reopening of the Chinese Hospital at the end of April 2016, the city renamed an alley in Chinatown just east of the new tower in her honor to "Rose Pak's Way ". In October 2016, a few weeks after her death, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a resolution asking the SFMTA to name the future Chinatown subway station after Pak, which was met with protests by Falun Gong activists. On August 20, 2019, the Board of Supervisors for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency voted to rename the Muni Metro

Chinatown station Chinatown Station may refer to transit stations in: ;United States * Chinatown station (MBTA), a subway station in Boston, Massachusetts * Cermak–Chinatown station, an "L" station in Chicago, Illinois * Chinatown station (HART), a planned ligh ...

to "Chinatown Rose Pak station". The issue had been deferred from an earlier meeting in June, when the Board split 3–3 on the renaming proposal due to one board member's absence. In March 2017, the city planted a gingko biloba tree in Pak's honor in Saint Mary's Square. On the first anniversary of Pak's death in September 2017, the president of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce and other local leaders announced the launch of the "Rose Pak Community Fund", initially with $600,000 in donations, aimed at supporting health care, education, affordable housing and culture.

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