8 Asians

If you have been following San Francisco local politics, you will have heard that Ed Jew, one of eleven members of the city’s Board of Supervisors (Jew represents District 4),  is accused of falsifying his residency on 28th Avenue while actually living in Burlingame three-plus years before he filed to run for his seat in 2006. As The San Francisco Chronicle has reported:

“It wasn’t just Chinese Americans sticking up for Jew at the rally Friday. Joe O’Donoghue, former head of the Residential Builders Association, said Jew should stay in office and fight what he characterized as a media witch hunt. “The press has not played fair,” he said. “If you’re an immigrant or a minority, you’re a second-class citizen in this country.” Rita Goldberger, a Sunset resident and a Green Party member, said she just about always disagrees politically with Jew, a former member of the Republican Party. But she thinks it’s unfair that several of Jew’s more liberal colleagues on the Board of Supervisors are calling for his resignation. “Not one of them cares where Ed sleeps,” she said. “The only thing they care about is how he votes.”

From the little I have read and seen in local TV, the evidence against Jew does seem damning, but the media coverage and Jew’s critics have been calling for his immediate resignation. But I do agree, that in the United States, one is innocent until proven guilty. It’s interesting to see how the “race card” in this incident is being played up, and there is great sensitivity since Ed Jew is Chinese, as San Francisco has a lot of Asian Americans:

“Asian Americans are often called “the sleeping giant” in San Francisco politics because they make up a third of city residents, but don’t have much political representation. Jew is the only Asian American on the Board of Supervisors.”

I kind of always knew the percentage of Asian Americans in San Francisco was high, but am always surprised to always read the actual figure.