Squirrel Hill’s annual Lunar New Year celebration has been canceled this year, amid fears in Pittsburgh’s Asian community about the surge in federal immigration enforcement.
The decision was made in January, according to Maria Cohen, executive director of the Squirrel Hill Urban Coalition, and was made in partnership with the Pittsburgh chapter of the OCA-Asian Pacific American Advocates.
“We have Asian community members here locally that fear for their safety,” said OCA-Pittsburgh board co-president Marian Lien, who consulted with senior leadership in the local Chinese and Asian communities. “We’re not completely sure that everyone who would come to the parade, who’s Asian, who is an immigrant, who is of a refugee status, would feel safe enough to be in these spaces.
“If this parade had gone on and if we put even just one life at risk, I don’t think we could have that on our conscience, Lien added. “That’s not what these parades were meant to do.”
Although much of the debate over immigration enforcement has focused on people from Central and South America, other populations are also being affected. While precise numbers are hard to come by, data compiled by the Deportation Data Project shows the number of East Asians arrested in Pennsylvania between January and mid-October of last year was triple that of the same period in 2024.
In other cities across the U.S., it appears that many Lunar New Year events are proceeding as planned, with some exceptions. In Minneapolis, where the Department of Homeland Security deployed 4,000 federal ICE agents and other personnel as part of its immigration crackdown, at least two Lunar New Year celebrations were postponed or canceled.
‘In that moment, I truly felt accepted’
It’s the first time since 2016 that a public Squirrel Hill Lunar New Year event will not take place. In the past, the parade has showcased local dance troupes, schools and businesses. While the parade up Murray Avenue has been on-again, off-again since the COVID-19 pandemic, there has always been some version of an event for the public.
The neighborhood’s first Lunar New Year parade was in the Year of the Monkey, in 2016. Lien was the executive director of the Squirrel Hill Urban Coalition at the time, and she spearheaded the founding of the event.
She had recently moved from the West Coast, and felt homesick as she tried to find her new community in Pittsburgh.
“It was a moment where I kept hearing Asian leadership in the city say, ‘Oh, we can’t wait to go to New York City. We can’t wait to go to Chicago to experience Lunar New Year,’” Lien remembers. “And I thought, ‘This is crazy. Why do we not just have a parade ourselves?’”
She enlisted the support of Squirrel Hill Urban Coalition board members, including Martha “Mardi” Isler and Raymond Baum.
As Lien recealled, “To have their strength to push open doors for you — that was what gave [the Chinese and Asian community] the courage … to come together and to say, ‘We can do this.’”
That first year, the parade was grand marshaled by the late Dr. Freddie Fu, a prominent UPMC knee surgeon, and his wife Hilda Pang Fu, a social entrepreneur.
“It was such a beautiful day. And, you know, in that moment, I truly felt accepted,” Lien said. She remembers the parade cementing a feeling of belonging — and the hope that the next generation might struggle less. “We wanted to have a sense of legacy for our children that they might have it easier. To have a way to say, ‘I am a proud Chinese Pittsburgher.’”
Susan Scott Peterson
/
90.5 WESA
The Squirrel Hill Urban Coalition has invited residents to write wishes for the Lunar New Year on red tags, to be tied to trees around the neighborhood. These tags were filled out at Silk Elephant on Murray Avenue.
Still celebrating, but differently
In lieu of the public event, the Squirrel Hill Urban Coalition is inviting residents to write their New Year’s wishes for themselves and the Asian community on red tags, and tie them on trees throughout the neighborhood in support of the local Asian community. It’s a program Lien started several years ago with students at St. Edmund’s Academy, where she works as director of education and global awareness.
“The response has been very positive,” said SHUC’s Cohen, adding there has been significant interest from organizations, community members and local schools, including Minadeo PreK-5, Colfax K-8 and Linden PreK-5.
Squirrel Hill restaurant Silk Elephant, a Thai establishment owned by Norraset Mareedokmai, is distributing the tags. Mareedokmai has been a restaurant owner in the neighborhood for 25 years and, in the past, has sponsored a Thai dance troupe for the Lunar New Year parade. He said he’s disappointed the parade is canceled this year, but agrees with the decision.
“I’m okay with the big picture of what we do for the safety of the neighborhood,” Mareedokmai said. He added that he’s glad to be able to help by distributing the tags: “That’s at least a little thing that people can do to show the support that we have.”
SHUC is also encouraging people to shop at Asian businesses, and dine at Asian restaurants, as a show of support. According to Lien, there are more than 400 Chinese restaurants in Allegheny County alone, to say nothing of other Asian-owned restaurants and businesses in the region.
But she said business owners have reported a dip in sales since January.
“Coming out of the holidays, there was a big slump where they just really had to think how to get through month to month,” Lien said.
Despite the cancellation of the parade, other Lunar New Year events have taken place, including OCA-Pittsburgh’s annual Lunar New Year’s banquet at Szechuan Spice and an all-day affair at Phipp’s Conservatory. Lien helped run an event at the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh.
But Lien says those events had a different focus, with an emphasis on educating the broader public on cultural traditions and the community’s presence.
“ What the parade would have been — and this is the difference — is that the parade would’ve been something for us, for the Asian community right now,” Lien said.
Lien did not fill out her own red wish tag this year.
“I think I was too heartbroken,” she said. “But we will regroup and we hope for better next year.”
Residents can pick up red tags to write their Lunar New Year wishes at Silk Elephant, at 1712 Murray Ave. The Lunar New Year spring festival continues through March 3.
Steel Dragon Kung Fu and Lion Dance team performs a lion dance in the 2023 Squirrel Hill Lunar New Year Parade.