8Asians | An Asian American collaborative blog

In today’s Sunday San Francisco Chronicle Front Page, the newspaper reports: “Asian Americans flex political muscle in wider Bay Area” and goes on to discuss the background, challenges and progress Asian Americans have made in Bay Area local politics:

“…In a city that is one-third Asian, the majority Chinese Americans, there are few prominent politicians of Chinese descent. Next year, the Chinese American population of San Francisco will mark the 160th anniversary of its presence in the city. Gone are the exclusionary laws that held the populace in check, the policies that curtailed Chinese immigration and citizenship. Gone is the official discrimination that kept many in the ghetto. Yet such progress has not translated into political power. No Chinese American has held the top office of mayor, and except for a few years in the late 1990s, they have never been proportionately represented in the city’s top political body, the Board of Supervisors…The longtime political frustration of Chinese Americans in San Francisco has been placed in sharp relief in recent months with the scandal-plagued first year of Chinese American Supervisor Ed Jew. Yet the political fate of Chinese Americans in San Francisco will not hinge on the Jew saga. Instead, the future could rest on what happens in the South Bay, where the Chinese American community’s dramatic strides could make San Francisco a virtual backwater on the Chinese American political landscape:

Kris Wang, an immigrant from Taiwan, is mayor of Cupertino. Otto Lee, a Hong Kong native with a degree in chemical and nuclear engineering from UC Berkeley and a law degree from UC Hastings, holds the top elected office in Sunnyvale. San Jose’s Kansen Chu, who hails from Taiwan, is the city’s first Chinese American councilman. Evan Low is the first Chinese American elected to the Campbell City Council. “The South Bay – in particular Santa Clara County and the Silicon Valley area – is really kind of leading the charge for Asian American political incorporation in the continental United States,” said James Lai, associate professor of political science and ethnic studies at Santa Clara University. A new generation of Chinese Americans in San Francisco hopes to grasp the gold ring, but it won’t be easy. In San Francisco, Lai says, Asian Americans are “one of many in line, and not necessarily first in line.””

The article goes on to discuss the historical context of previous generations of Asian Americans involved in San Francisco Bay Area politics – from San Francisco to San Jose. Additional, the article goes to to cover issues that have been barriers in the past for Asian Americans, including political, educational and economic differences in background and language from mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Of course “Asian Americans” are not one solidified voting block – as there are political differences that are natural – from liberal to conservative. Asian Americans have been running and been successful when trying to represent all of their constituents and not seen as just a candidate representing their ethnic base (if there is even such a thing given political diverse views within such an ethnic community). If there is one place in the continental United States that Asian Americans can make progress in politics at all stages of government – local, state and national, it is in California and the San Francisco Bay Area. I hope you all can be involved in our democracy, if only to be aware of the issues at hand and exercise your right to vote.