1875 L Street NW, Suite 400, Washington DC, 20006 Office: (202) 697-3858 Email:
[email protected] Chinatown Subway: Name it After a Truly Great Hero, not Rose Pak Dear SFMTA Board Members, Congratulations on the new subway stop in Chinatown. That is a huge accomplishment, for which Rose Pak may deserve some credit, though not the high honor of having her name immortalized on a San Francisco landmark. Naming a geographic feature after an individual deserves true greatness, and we can think of no better person than Liu Xiaobo, a philosopher, poet, and human rights activist who won a Nobel Peace prize. Alternatively, we would suggest naming the subway stop as simply Chinatown, which represents all the great diversity of the neighborhood over the many decades of its flourishing. Rose Pak, unfortunately, has a history that makes her inappropriate as a true hero of the Chinese people, or of San Francisco. China uses influence tactics, especially through its United Front Work Department, to compromise U.S. democracy, and democracies around the world. The most horrendous examples of this are in East Turkistan, where 1-3 million minorities have been locked up due to their beliefs, in Tibet, where Buddhist monasteries are torn down, against the Falun Gong, who are subject to forced organ transplants, and in Hong Kong, where the hopes of over a million people who have marched to demand freedom and democracy from the Chinese Communist Party are being suppressed through police brutality. As discussed below, this is not the right time to honor someone who has been closely associated with China's dictatorship.