On March 14th, Maria Ha and her husband were victims of a hate crime in NYC where Maura Moynihan told the Asian American couple to "go back to China" (Sources: Gothamist names masked woman, Ha's original video of perpetrator). Maura is the daughter of the late New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, whose namesake was recently added to Penn Station which sees over 650,000 daily commuters across NY, NJ and Long Island (Source: Architectural Record announcement). The new train hall was erected on January 1, 2021. 

Here we are, living in this moment, in REAL TIME, letting racist people perpetuate stereotypes and putting them on a pedestal. The history ahead of us is being written right now. In NYC, the most diverse place on Earth, my and many others' home. 

It's too easy to point at the person who is so obviously racist with malicious intention, beating and killing innocents (Sources: NYT on Atlanta Spa Shooting, NPR on Bay Area attacks). Hate crimes against Asian Americans have increased 150% in 2020 - and that is likely still under reported (Sources: CSUSB report, CNN on under reported hate crime data). What is even more sinister is what hides in plain sight, every day. Some times it's as big as the Moynihan Train Hall. I cannot, as a proud Asian American New Yorker, walk by or participate in such a landmark knowing that it's named history is unfolding in front of us as we reassess some of the older racist scars from outdated symbols, statues, and flags.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan marketed the Asian American model minority at a gathering with policymakers and blamed Black poverty on ghetto culture in his 1965 Moynihan Report (Sources: Washington Post on Moynihan's comments, The Atlantic's annotated summary of the report). He not only influenced his peers in public office, he passed that lesser than perspective to his own daughter.

We must rename the Moynihan Train Hall immediately so our children don't have to look at an insensitive relic celebrating racists, rip it down in disgust, and suffer dissociative shame at our ignorance. We can't be the generation that KNOWS and not ACT.

Please sign the petition to rewrite NYC history before it stains the fabric of what makes this city beautiful.