Rita Moy Interview, January 26, 2020

INDEXED CLIP TIME: 00:00:04.980 --> 00:02:34.830 SEGMENT SYNOPSIS: Jenna Goff interviews Rita Moy on January 26, 2020 in Chinatown during the Lunar New Year Festival. In this clip, Rita Moy discusses her connection to Chinatown. SUBJECTS: Lunar New Year Festival; Chinatown (Washington, D.C.); Chinese New Year's Day parade; immigrants; Chinese immigrants; family associations; Moy Family Association; On Leong Association; red envelopes (hóng bao); Chinese culture; Chinese heritage; Ethnic identity

It is January 26 2020, and we are at the Lunar New Year Festival. This is an interview with

Rita Moy, or my Chinese name is Moi Lai Jin.

And this is Jenna Goff. Do I have permission to record this interview?

Yes.

So what brings you out to the parade here today?

I was encouraged by my friend, Mai Tin Gong, as part of this festival today.

And what is your history with DC Chinatown?

Well, my history is that I'm a native Washingtonian. My parents are both from China. I want to share my story of my experience of the Chinese New Year celebration here in Chinatown during my years here as a youngster. My father was very active in the Chinatown politics. with part of the family association, the Moy Family Association, as well as the On Leong Association.

And every celebration downtown in Chinatown, we would come down by street car and go to the to these Family Association buildings and enjoy to eat and get the red envelopes which is equivalent to a little treat for you money gift okay? What they call hóng bao. And we had a treat to go up to like the top floor of these buildings and stick our head out and watch the the celebration which was essentially the Dragon Dance, the drums, and firecrackers. The firecrackers were hung up about three or four stories high on a hook and ladder truck all the way up to the top floor, strung all the way down and lit up. And I, my brother and sister, we were 7-8-9 years old, you know, holding our ears, closing our ears, until all the firecrackers go off. Light from the bottom on up. And hear all the drums and noise. We loved it. What we liked best were the red envelopes. It was a good time to share in Chinatown and everybody brought their families down and that's how we met. So we had a lot of fun. A lot of fun. We looked forward to it.

INDEXED CLIP TIME: 00:02:36.030 --> 00:04:21.030 SEGMENT SYNOPSIS: Jenna Goff interviews Rita Moy on January 26, 2020 in Chinatown during the Lunar New Year Festival. In this clip, Rita Moy discusses changes in the parade and in Chinatown over the years. SUBJECTS: Lunar New Year Festival; Chinatown (Washington, D.C.); Chinese New Year's Day parade; Chinese culture; Ethnic identity; Chinese identity; Gentrification; Racial diversity

What changes have you seen in the parade?

What changes have I seen in the parade? There's a lot of diversity in the parade that I noticed, which is very good. It's going with the changes of the makeup of this area and it's good, good.

What changes have you seen in the area? You said you were a native Washingtonian.

Well, let's say Chinatown was made up of a lot of Chinese from Southern China, from like the Canton province. So they spoke, not Mandarin, but like Cantonese, or a lot of my friends and I, of my generation, they speak Toisanese (Taishanese). But now we've got a mixture of everybody including the Taiwanese as well as the Chinese. So it's nice. It's a diverse group celebration.

So what exactly does Chinatown mean to you? And has that changed at all over the years?

The one thing that's changed ... it used to be a very tight community where everybody knew each other, you know. But most of the Chinese that were part of the community 30-40 years ago are scattered throughout the area. So we got mini Chinatowns in the areas like Rockville, Gaithersburg, and then to Virginia.

Do you have anything else that you want to share with me?

I just enjoy Chinatown, you know. There's something for everybody to enjoy.

All right, well, thank you so much.

Okay.