Peninsula’s Asians Slow to Turn Numbers Into Clout : Politics: Asians make up a growing share of the population of the Palos Verdes Peninsula. But cultural differences, language and citizenship keep all but a few out of politics.

When Teresa Sun decided last year to seek a seat on the Palos Verdes Library District Board of Trustees, she knew that East and West would collide.

Sun, who was born in China and came to the United States in 1959, expected to receive votes from the Asian community on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. But she also knew that American-style politics could offend and alienate those supporters.

Although American politicians are expected to seek donations from supporters and portray themselves in glowing terms, asking friends for money and bragging about yourself are frowned upon in Asian culture, she said.

So Sun carefully avoided both. To keep her candidacy low key, she also decided to forgo a kick-off party to announce her bid for office, and she limited her campaign committee to just one person, a treasurer.

“My style looked like a very Asian one,” said Sun, who was elected to a four-year term on the library board.

Sun and others say cultural differences can discourage Asians from becoming involved in local politics. Sun, for example, is the first Asian to be elected to public office on the peninsula, even though Asians constitute the largest minority group in the community.

To be sure, Asians are represented in city government in the South Bay. For example, in Gardena, which Japanese farmers helped settle and where about 30% of the population is Asian, Mas Fukai and Paul Tsukahara have long served as council members. In Torrance, George Nakano has served on the council since 1984.

But the situation is markedly different on the peninsula, even though Asians are expected to account for about 14% of the population there by 1997, almost double the percentage in 1980.

No Asian is on the city council in any of the peninsula’s four cities. No Asians serve on the school board. None are planning commissioners, appointed posts that often serve as a steppingstone to a council seat.

Sun and others cite various reasons. Asians are still only a small percentage of the peninsula’s population, they say. And, unlike the case in Gardena, many Asians on the peninsula are relative newcomers to the United States who may find the democratic process unfamiliar or intimidating. Others, especially those who work for Japanese-based companies, are resident aliens, not U.S. citizens, and are unable to vote or hold office.

“(If) they don’t have voting rights, they are not going to be active,” said Angie Ma Wong, a Rancho Palos Verdes resident who conducts seminars on Asian values and culture for business and other groups.

Many Asians say cultural and other barriers also slow their assimilation into public life. The most obvious is language, they say. Others include a traditional mistrust of politics, a tendency to focus on family life instead of volunteerism, and the transient lifestyle of Japanese residents who have been assigned by their employers to work temporarily in the United States.

“I think more and more there may be a push to have an Asian representative (in some offices), but I think it will take a little while still,” said Linda Moriwaki, who for the past two years has served on the board of the Peninsula Educational Foundation, a group that raises money for the school district.

Although 1990 census information is not yet available, Asians are expected to constitute 13.75% of the peninsula’s population by 1997, compared to 7.6% in 1980, according to a study recently commissioned by the library district.

Figures compiled by the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District show that during the last school year, about 27% of the district’s 8,938 students were of Asian descent. Among students who spoke limited or no English, 495 were Japanese, up from 238 in 1983; 171 were Chinese, up from 156, and 158 were Korean, up from 57.

A major reason for the large number of Japanese students is the influx of Japanese business people who have been transferred to the area by their companies. Many live on the peninsula for three to five years before being reassigned to other cities or moved back to Japan.

Miyo Fujimoto, whose husband is a vice president for a Japanese corporation, said her family moved to Rancho Palos Verdes five years ago. Fujimoto said she and her husband hope to stay in the United States until their daughter graduates from Rolling Hills High School in two years, but are uncertain whether they will be able to.

“We really don’t (have) a definite plan,” said Fujimoto, who works as a volunteer with school district instructors assigned to teach English to Japanese children.

The uncertainty that such families face may make them feel like outsiders in the community, some Asians say. And even if they wanted to get involved in local politics, by seeking a city council seat for example, they could not because they are not citizens.

“They are pretty much transient; there is no permanence,” Moriwaki said. “Their basic feeling is that they are in a host country.”

Janet Baszile, who co-chairs the multicultural committee of the Community Assn. of the Peninsula, a group that works to identify cultural and other needs in the community, said language poses a major challenge in getting Asians involved in local affairs.

“It is a real impediment,” Baszile said. “They would like to be more active in the community, but the language barrier is a factor.”

She said the committee, which encouraged Sun to seek a seat on the library district board, has had success in getting Asian mothers involved in school affairs. Baszile said such volunteer efforts are important if the presence of Asians in local government is to grow.

“I think that over the years,” she said, “most people who have functioned (in city government) in Palos Verdes have not necessarily been from an old boys’ network but people highly visible in the volunteer community. . . . Since Palos Verdes functions on volunteer time, those would be the first people considered.”

Although many Asians and Asian-based companies with ties to the Los Angeles area donate generous amounts of time and money to local causes and organizations, the ethic of volunteerism is not as strong in traditional Asian cultures as it is in the United States, Baszile and others say.

Tsukahara, a Gardena city councilman since 1980, said that in Japan, large corporations or the government are expected to assume a large role in such activities.

Judy Chu, mayor of Monterey Park in the San Gabriel Valley--a city where Asians are 51% of the population--said the lack of volunteer involvement in the Asian culture is especially evident in the education system.

“There is a tendency for people in Asia (to think) the school will take care of everything,” said Chu, a former teacher of Asian studies at UCLA.

Chu and others said a factor that may work to slow Asian involvement in local government is a traditional distrust of politics.

“In Asia,” she said, “I think a lot of people are taught to stay away from politics. . . . I think, generally speaking, the whole electoral process runs against Asian values. You are not supposed to sit around and talk about yourself, and you are supposed to be humble and rely on yourself to survive.”

William Chang, a Palos Verdes Estates resident who is president of the California chapter of the Asian American Republican National Assn., said, “Back home in Asia, in most countries usually just one party dominates the country, and if you join the wrong party you are in trouble.”

However, Chang and others said there are signs that Asians are becoming much more involved in the political process. He said he doesn’t encounter the same amount of resistance that he did 10 or 15 years ago when he approaches someone about getting involved.

Sun’s election should prove to other Asians that they can be successful in political life, Chang said.

Sun said, “Asians by nature are still adapting to the modern democratic system.”