Suzanne Ma Online

From Chinatown streets to Washington D.C.

Saturday, January 30th, 2010 | posts | No Comments

It started with chatter on Chinatown street corners, and soon, the conversations moved into neighborhood community centers.

Hold the terror trials here? In my neighborhood?

Apparently so.

Federal officials had announced in November plans to hold the trials of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other self-professed 9/11 terrorists in a federal courthouse – right in the middle of Manhattan’s Chinatown.

Steps away from the Pearl Street courthouse is Columbus Park; where seniors bellow out Beijing opera in the pavilion, where men gather to play cards and Chinese chess, and where teens kick around soccer balls on the astro turf.

Around the corner are Vietnamese pho eateries on Centre Street, and a plethora of small household supply shops and grocery stores.

On nearby Mulberry Street, three Chinese funeral homes serve the Chinese American community – and honor the Chinese American dead – in New York City and across the entire eastern seaboard.

New York City’s Chinatown is not just a place of business. It’s home to one of the city’s oldest communities.

The trials, which are expected to last several years, would have locked down those neighborhood streets and cut the area into security zones bordered by metal barriers and armed guards. The tightest security zone would heavily restrict pedestrian and vehicle traffic in the heart of Chinatown, an area still rebuilding and recovering from the effects of 9/11.

Chinatown and lower Manhattan residents mobilized quickly. They knew they had to fight this before it got too far.

Community board officials soon joined in, sending a resolution to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder proposing alternative venues: Governors Island, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, a federal courthouse in White Plains, Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh and a federal institution in Otisville.

Support from city politicians followed, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who changed his mind on the matter.

He had originally called moving the trials to Governors Island “dumb.”

Chinatown residents did not miss a beat – they fired back calling the plan to hold the trials in their neighborhood “dumber.”

Then things started to change. Whether it was because of the mayor, I don’t know. But things snow balled. Politicians and lawmakers jumped on the bandwagon.

Gov. David Paterson, Sen. Charles Schumer and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said this week they were open to a move, and Republican Congressman Peter King introduced a bill that would prohibit the use of Justice Department funds to try Guantanamo detainees in federal civilian courts.

The growing chorus of dissent went straight through to Washington D.C.: Move the terror trials out of Manhattan.

Late Thursday night, news broke that federal officials were talking about moving the trials.

Today, it’s clear the message got through. The Obama administration is now looking at other options.

A source in Chinatown, who relentlessly called and emailed me about this story, talked to me on Friday about the “power of the people to make the impossible possible.”

I am so proud of the Chinatown community here in New York City. Literally from the grassroots level, from neighbors talking to neighbors, they fought through the politics and the bureaucracy to get their message to the federal government.

In a forwarded e-mail, a member of the Chinese community wrote this:

“…no more just firecrackers and lion dance.  From now on, we are not going to be taken granted, and we’ll say  “NO.” Don’t dare to take advantage of our amiable manner again, no more.  We’ll play hard ball too from now on.”

It’s a profound message because Chinese Americans have stereotypically been “model citizens.” They don’t like to rock the boat, they don’t like to make too much noise. They typically keep their heads down, work hard, and earn money so they can send their kids to good schools.

But when something like this comes along, they knew they had to fight it all the way. And they did. Bravo.

Tags: 9/11 terror trials, Bloomberg, chinatown, Chinese Americans, Governors Island, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, lower Manhattan, Manhattan, new york city, Washington D.C.