Summary

A divisive character who dedicated her life to improving conditions in her community, Rose Pak was San Francisco’s atypical kingmaker. An immigrant from China, she started as a journalist and activist but found her greatest success as a controversial power broker who collaborated with Mayors Willie Brown, Gavin Newsom, and Ed Lee. She fought against the closure of the Embarcadero Freeway, a vital link to Chinatown, after the Loma Prieta earthquake, but claimed victory in her fight for the building of the city’s Central Subway, her crowning achievement. Rooth Tang unpacks and holds up to the light the work of a woman who worked tirelessly to bring Chinese-American issues to the forefront of discourse in this patient and probing profile of a Bay Area mover and shaker.