Ryan Laird on WNYC for the Museum of Chinese in America in Lower Manhattan,

the pandemic would have been hard enough, but then shortly after COVID upended life for everyone,

a fire ripped through the museum's archive and destroyed about 5% of its permanent collection.

These last few years have been hard for the museum in other ways too.

Moka became the unlikely site of protests over the city's plan to build jails in four of the five

boroughs, including one in Chinatown, to close Rikers Island. The specific issue was a $35 million

award from the city proposed back in 2019 as part of a community give back, as they called it. New York

magazines curb reported, the city calls the money

it gave the museum a community investment, one of many given out in an attempt to make an

unpopular plan more palatable. Now, the museum has named a new leader, non-profit executive Michael

Lee. We will ask him about what's next for Moka

and what the museum has to do with the city's borough-based jail program. Michael Lee, incoming

president of the Museum of Chinese and America, joins me now. Michael, thanks so much for coming on.

Welcome to WNYC. Oh, thanks so much. This is an incredible honor. I've grew up in New York City.

I've been listening to you for 20 years.

And my high school classmate calls you her radio boyfriend.

So a bunch of people are really thrilled I'm on.

Somebody's going to get jealous.

Michael, by way of introduction, and thank you for those very nice words.

I want to get your background.

But first, tell a lot of listeners who really have no idea about Museum of Chinese in America

what its mission is and what it does. Well, the mission of the Museum of Chinese and America

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