Dear MOCA Friend,
In written Chinese, the word "危机/Crisis" is composed of two characters: "危" represents danger and "机" represents opportunity. During these uncertain and unpredictable times, we face challenges, unprecedented situations, and new obstacles. We will, however, emerge stronger and more resilient than before. Remember, opportunity still exists. After we get through this together, we will rebuild collectively as a community.
In recent months, MOCA has experienced three compounding events:
- a 5-alarm fire at its Collections and Research site creating a volatile three months of recovery, repair, and rebuild
- the heightened racism against Chinatowns, Asian Americans, and Asians underscoring the importance of MOCA’s education and documentation work
- the global COVID-19 pandemic shuttering MOCA’s operations.
This unforeseen amalgamation of disruptions has, fatefully, created greater visibility for the necessity of MOCA's work.
MOCA holds space for the marginalized to be heard, while celebrating and connecting the dots to the diversity and richness of the American narrative through the lens of the Chinese American experience. To counter the hate that has surfaced against Asian American Pacific Islanders due to the outbreak of COVID-19, MOCA recently announced the establishment of the MOCA OneWorld COVID-19 Special Collection documenting the proactive steps and incredible acts of generosity and support exhibited by the Chinese in America and the Chinese diaspora.
Most importantly, during Asian Pacific American Heritage Month we at MOCA are committed to providing you with the best of our museum content. This May, we invite you to experience our content digitally and online through Digital Tours and Audio Guides, the Oral History Archive featuring video interviews from MOCA's Journey Wall collection, Collections Online with 35,000 digitized images from MOCA's archives, digital learning resources such as our new MOCA Heroes magazines, the My MOCA Story social media video series, MOCA Talks webcasts, and Listen With MOCA, our new website that tells the history of the Chinese in America through music, sound, playlists, and virtual cassettes.
MOCA will remain closed through May and is canceling our in-person programming through June. This decision is made with the understanding that our reopening will happen in stages as we plan for new safety protocols and allow time to reimagine how we can best serve each of you. Needless to say, we dearly miss our community members in this time of social distancing and hope that you and yours are safe and well. We are thinking of you, and we look forward to having you back in the museum once it is safe to do so.
MOCA welcomes you to send a write-up and photos to oneworld@mocanyc.org, to share a story that you believe should be recorded and documented for the OneWorld Collection. Help us continue to tell the stories of these extraordinary individuals and community groups.
Please follow us on:
Instagram: @mocanyc
Twitter: @mocanyc
Facebook: www.facebook.com/mocanyc
WeChat: MOCANYC_USA
With gratitude,
Nancy Yao Maasbach, President, and the MOCA Team
