1. Rose Lan Pak was a political activist in San Francisco, California, noted for her influence on city politics and power in the Chinatown community.
17 Facts About Rose Pak
1. 2.
Rose Pak was born in Henan, China, on November 27,1947.
3.
Rose Pak received a Catholic education while growing up as a refugee in Portuguese Macau and British Hong Kong after her father, a businessman, had died in the Chinese Civil War.
4.
Rose Pak was a supporter of Art Agnos but opposed his efforts to tear down the Embarcadero Freeway, arguing that Chinatown would suffer catastrophic consequences if it lost the fast crosstown connection.
5.
Rose Pak won a ballot measure about the issue in 1987, but after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake damaged the freeway, her objections were overturned.
6.
In 1996, Pak lobbied for the appointment of Fred H Lau as the first Asian American head of the San Francisco Police Department.
7.
In 2011, Pak was instrumental in obtaining consensus to nominate Edwin M Lee as the first Asian American mayor of San Francisco.
8.
Rose Pak went on to support her former longtime adversary Aaron Peskin against Christensen in the supervisor elections for District 3 later that year.
9.
Shortly before her death in 2016, Rose Pak vehemently opposed a project to permanently convert parts of Stockton Street 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.
10.
Rose Pak was an overseas executive director of the China Overseas Exchange Association, a united front organization overseen by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, at the time under the State Council of the People's Republic of China.
11.
Rose 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.
12.
The group and others, including San Francisco Supervisor Chris Daly, subsequently alleged that Rose Pak had connections to the Chinese Communist Party.
13.
In May 2016, Rose 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.
14.
Rose Pak died in San Francisco on September 18,2016, aged 68.
15.
Rose Pak was single all of her life and had no children.
16.
Rose 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 between her two surviving sisters over the estate.
17.
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 Rose Pak, which was met with protests by Falun Gong activists.