Dear MOCA Friends:

Thank you for supporting our 8th Annual Celebration of Community Heroes and coming together as one to honor the community and philanthropic work of Margaret Lam, founder of the New Jersey Chinese Festival and the United Chinese American Association of New Jersey; Commissioner Wellington Chen, Executive Director of Chinatown Partnership; the Ging Hawk Club, pioneering Chinese American women’s association founded in 1929; and Bubble_T, Asian/Pacific/LGBTQIA+ collective.

This year’s Celebration of Community Heroes was unprecedented. Recognizing that MOCA not only must continue to redefine the American historical narrative but also broaden the definition of what true community means, this year we honored community leaders from New York City’s Chinatown, the borough of Queens, New Jersey and the Tri-State area.

Nearly 500 guests joined us for an elegant evening of dinner and dancing emceed by Cindy Hsu, Emmy award winning CBS2 News anchor. Guests were treated to a live jazz band and swing dancing by Hello Peril Swing as we embraced the nostalgia of the Roaring Twenties and transformed Jing Fong restaurant into a 1920s-style ballroom.

Our Community Hero honorees inspired us with their speeches and life journeys. They were then joined on stage by middle-school and high-school students who won MOCA’s “What Makes a Hero?” essay contest. The winning students read excerpts from their essays in honor of the evening’s Community Heroes.

On behalf of MOCA, we extend a heartfelt thank you. By supporting the Museum, you foster the excellent work and achievements of local leaders, and enable us to tell the untold stories in the making of America to the 15,000 schoolchildren and 50,000 visitors who come to MOCA annually.

Inspired by our Heroes, given the generosity of the MOCA community, and recognizing that MOCA is first and foremost a community museum, we are proud to announce that beginning July 1, 2019, MOCA will begin a “pay what you wish” policy for any resident of the Chinatown and Two Bridges neighborhoods.

With gratitude,

Jonathan Chu, Eric T. Lee, Christina Ho, Sandra K. Lee, Celebration Co-Chairs
Nancy Yao Maasbach, President
and the MOCA team