On August 19th, at Szechwan Palace Restaurant at the iconic Chinese Cultural Center and Garden in Phoenix AZ, a capacity crowd young and old gathered to commemorate the public street demonstration in the same month in 2017 that kicked off a year of vigorous efforts to preserve the ancestral heritage of the Chinese American Community in the metropolitan area.

In that time, community members have attended City Council sessions a dozen times, rallied in small and medium demonstrations another dozen times, attended 18 court hearings for a dozen legal cases, raised many tens of thousands of dollars to support costs, and spread the word by Facebook, Twitter, WeChat, local print and other media, collecting multiple tens of thousands of signatures across the U.S. and from abroad, and have been featured even on Chinese television special reports across the Pacific.

The attendees enjoyed dinner and presentations, as well as performances, and Citizen Voice has followed up with more planning to launch the next phase of the fight. It should be noted that one key law suit (alone) in the Arizona Court of Appeals, on a normal scheduling for 8 or 9 or more months to be heard was just re-set by combination with another related matter to June 18, 2018. This means that there cannot be more damage to the emblematic Chinese architectural elements or attempt to remove (“re-locate” has been the euphemism) the Chinese Garden well into 2019.

Stay alert for more announcements. The next City Council sessions are scheduled for September 19 and October 4, and court hearings are occurring more than once a month on the different fronts. On this somber anniversary, let us bear in mind that good things and human values must always be stoutly defended – vigilance is the price of liberty.

Cheak Yee, English Spokesman