Who Is Rose Pak? New Film “Rally” Tells (Almost) All

Rose Pak was the first Asian American reporter hired by the San Francisco Chronicle in 1974.

-by Denise Sullivan

Still confused about Northern California politics, San Francisco in particular, and how and why so many of our electeds proceed to state and national office? Rally, ostensibly a documentary about the life of Rose Pak, an enigmatic kingmaker from Chinatown, also goes some way toward answering questions about the origins of our Democratic Party machine politics.

Pak got involved in community organizing during the ‘70s progressive era of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk and was ushered into their inner circle alongside congressmen Phil and John Burton and assemblyman (and one-day mayor) Willie Brown. Pak stayed at the center of the action and behind the scenes of city governance until her death in 2016, but not until after literally installing the city’s first Chinese American mayor Ed Lee, who made way for the city of today, such as it is. Here’s Pak talking to Will Hearst with her take on mayors from Joe Alioto to Lee.

Pak’s story begins in rural China, moves through her formative years as a refugee youth in Macau and on to graduate School at Columbia University School of Journalism, culminating in her hiring by the New York Times. Hearing the call of the West, Pak said goodbye to NYC and opted to make history in California by becoming the first Asian American reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle. In one of the film’s many revealing and rarely seen clips, Pak has much to say about the paper’ lack of diversity and inclusion at the time and how that led her toward community organizing.

I spoke to Rally director Rooth Tang for the Bay City News Foundation about Pak and her colleagues who helped him piece together her story, though not all in the community loved Pak the way she tried to love them: The fringe cult Fulan Gong, made its distaste for Pak known by waging several campaigns against her, claiming she was a communist spy.

“At one moment, we wanted to delve into the story of Fulan Gong more, but as we did, it was getting away from the story of Rose,” said Tang. The conflict is illustrated in Rally with believe-it-or-not riveting footage from a contentious public hearing of the Municipal Transportation Agency as two sides argue for and against naming a subway stop, the Chinatown-Rose Pak station.

As for the ailing city of San Francisco and its mayoral future, we’ll have to wait and see: Mayor London Breed is up for re-election next year and so far only her fellow moderate, Asha Safai, has announced he is exploring a potential run. “The city is in crisis right now,” he said, though the definition of what kind of crisis or crises depends on who you talk to: The only crisis as some of us see it is our lack of a viable progressive candidate for mayor in 2024.

“Rally” premiered at the San Francisco International Film Festival on April 21 at CGV in San Francisco and screens again on April 23 at BAMPFA in Berkeley. More information at Rally – SFFILM.