New President Appointed to Lead the Museum of Chinese in America

After several years rocked by protests, resignations, and a 2020 fire that destroyed a part of its collection, the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) is placing its hopes on nonprofit executive Michael E. Lee to steer the ship into calmer waters. The board of directors announced its decision to appoint Lee as president earlier this month, marking the end of a search that began when Nancy Yao stepped down from the role in April 2023.

Lee will assume leadership of MOCA with an extensive background of working in Asian-American communities. From 2011 to 2018, he led APEX for Youth, a nonprofit that provides educational services for underserved Asian youth. He also sits on the board of directors for the Chinese American Planning Council (CPC), which describes itself as a social services organization, and teaches martial arts and lion dancing at Norman Chin’s Southern Praying Mantis Kung Fu School.

“My mission is to preserve the history, promote the culture, tell the stories, and celebrate the accomplishments of Chinese people in America,” he told Our Town Downtown. “If we can show the impact that we’ve made in this country and build more cultural understanding, maybe there’d be less scapegoating of immigrants and other kinds of harm that the Chinese community faces.”

MOCA hired an outside firm to conduct the vetting and interview process for Lee and several other candidates. After three interviews, Lee met the museum’s board of directors and pitched some of his ideas, which include regular history classes and collaborations with Chinese-American book publishers and filmmakers. “I told them that outside the museum walls, we should think of ourselves as like a media company that can tell our stories beyond just exhibits,” he said.

The museum Lee is preparing to lead only recently purchased its home on 215 Centre Street for $51 million, after fifteen years of paying rent. The de Blasio administration provided assistance in the form of a $39 million grant, part of a 2019 memorandum that called the grant a “community investment.”

Lee also inherits from Yao the hostility of local activists who reacted furiously to the grant, calling it a “bribe” or “giveback” by the city to placate MOCA over a planned 300-foot prison tower in the middle of Chinatown while ignoring the concerns and needs of its working-class residents. According to the memorandum that finalized the grant, city-led discussions to “engage the community on the [prison] plan” included solicitations for investment proposals by community leaders. During one of those discussions, then-MOCA president Yao suggested an initial city investment of $32 million.

“If the Museum of Chinese in America truly cares about the community it pretends to represent, then it would have continued to pay rent for its own building instead of selling out the Chinatown community,” said a spokesperson from Youth Against Displacement (YAD), a Chinatown-based organization.

Lee denies that the grant was part of a bargain. “For something to be a bribe, you’d need to offer something in return,” he said. “The museum doesn’t have any land or jurisdiction that would stop the prison from being built.”

Members of YAD, the Chinese Staff and Workers’ Association (CSWA), and other community groups are unconvinced. They continue to maintain a steady picket outside the museum entrance, demanding that MOCA reinvest $39 million into the neighborhood and put the brakes on a $118 million renovation plan that they say will drive up the costs of living. Protesters have also trained their ire on MOCA board member and landlord Jonathan Chu, who they accuse of rolling over local businesses and workers in order to clear the way for luxury development.

The enmity between working-class Chinatown residents and a museum that aims to highlight the history of Chinese communities is a situation that Lee hopes to resolve with an open door. “I’m willing to sit down and have meetings with anybody to talk about what kinds of plans we have for the museum, what we want to do with this building, and what our role is in the community,” he said.

Some community organizers like 318 Restaurant Workers’ Union president Nelson Mar have reacted to Lee’s ascendancy with guarded openness. “The change in leadership offers some hope that things can maybe move forward,” said Mar. “But that’s not up to me or the union. That’s up to the museum leadership to listen and provide a concrete response to people’s concerns.”

Others are more skeptical. A YAD spokesperson criticized Lee’s continued defense of the $39 million city grant “despite the immense displacement it will drive in Chinatown,” saying that it underscored a “disregard from Michael for the Chinese community and Chinatown.”

For now, protesters may find some respite from MOCA’s shortage of funds to pay for the $118 million renovation plan. The Maya Lin-designed project, which would quintuple the museum’s size to house classrooms, demonstration kitchens, and performance spaces, is being postponed as MOCA officials put together a capital campaign to raise the necessary money and ask the city for additional help if need be.

Lee expects the project to be implemented in some form in the near future and maintains that an expansion of MOCA’s footprint would be a boon for the community. “This museum is a place where people can come and learn about Chinese culture and history while also driving up foot traffic in the area,” he said. “More tourism is good news for local restaurants and stores.”

The museum wouldn’t just be for tourists, he added—it can also be a place where descendants of Chinese immigrants “learn about their background and recognize themselves as people who are contributing to this country.”

Many of them would rather stay in the picket line until the museum addresses their grievances. Lee, who officially steps into his new role on April 1, will have a clear view of them from his third floor office.