Asians and Latinos Divided Over Prop. 209

They are both 28-year-old lawyers with the same last name. They came to this country as children and seem paragons of immigrant achievement, proof that the battered American dream still has plenty of life to it.

They both have crammed debates and forums about Proposition 209 into their schedules. But there the similarity ends.

Jerry Kang is doing everything he can to defeat the initiative, which would end state and local government-sponsored affirmative action aimed at women and minorities. Susan Kang is working for 209’s passage.

Their division reflects the complex way Proposition 209 is playing out in California’s Asian and Latino communities. On a topic that could be expected to stir considerable passion this election season, there has been confusion, disagreement and a lack of awareness.

An October survey by a Claremont think tank indicated that more than two-thirds of Latino citizens in the state were undecided or had no opinion on Proposition 209. And although Asian organizations generally oppose the measure, there seems to be no such broad consensus within the community.

Some of this splintering arises from the initiative, which omits any reference to affirmative action, instead prohibiting “preferential treatment” on the basis of race, gender or ethnicity. Consequently, supporters of affirmative action--which include a majority of Latinos and Asians--don’t necessarily know Proposition 209 would eliminate such programs.

But there are other factors at work as well.

For newer immigrants who have swelled the state’s Asian and Latino populations in recent years, the concept of affirmative action can have little meaning, community leaders say. The slew of initiatives on next week’s ballot is confusing and intimidating. Latinos and Asians don’t perceive their stake in affirmative action to be as great as that of African Americans, polls show.

And in one highly prized area--education--Asians sometimes see themselves as the victims of affirmative action rather than the beneficiaries.

Listen, for example, to Susan Kang, who blames her rejection letters from UC law schools at least partly on affirmative action policies. “Had I been the proper minority I would have had an easier chance,” she said with an edge to her voice.

Indeed, analysis by the UC system indicates that the number of Asian and Filipino Americans admitted to UCLA’s freshman class would increase by about 300 if affirmative action preferences were eliminated.

Stewart Kwoh, executive director of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, said the education argument has frequently arisen in Asian community debates on Proposition 209, along with the idea that “I pulled myself up and everybody else should too.”

The latter also strikes a chord with Susan Kang, a deputy city attorney in Anaheim.

“My family came here. We didn’t know anybody. We didn’t speak a word of English,” said Kang, who emigrated from Korea with her parents, three sisters and brother when she was 10.

Her parents, she said, took menial jobs. Her mother worked in a factory. Her father cleaned offices, painted, and opened a small business selling machinery to dry cleaners.

She and her siblings attended college on scholarships and loans. Her older sister is a medical resident. Her brother has a doctorate in the aerospace field.

“The America I know . . . if you just work hard enough, you’ll achieve whatever you want,” Kang said.

Jerry Kang has a similar tale.

His family emigrated from Korea to Chicago when he was 6. He graduated from Harvard magna cum laude in physics, earned a degree from Harvard Law School magna cum laude, was on the Harvard law review and clerked in federal appeals court. He was offered a position on the UCLA law faculty last year, when he was 27.

It is the kind of story Asian audiences love to hear. But Kang adds another dimension: He is a beneficiary of affirmative action.

UCLA recruited him. And “one of the many factors that went into their calculation to solicit an application from me,” Kang says, was that “I was an Asian American and the law school had no Asian American law faculty.”

Get rid of affirmative action, he says, and there will be no such calls to the next Jerry Kang.

That too resonates with his audiences. “Many Asian Americans have not thought long and hard about affirmative action,” he said. When they do, they are open to persuasion, he said.

Polling reveals a pronounced split in the Asian community. A survey sponsored last summer by AsianWeek, a national news weekly, found that 57% of Asian American voters favored affirmative action, 51% supported giving hiring preferences to underrepresented minorities and 54% supported preferences for minorities in college admissions.

Although polling indicates stronger support for affirmative action among Latinos, Proposition 209 has not roused nearly the reaction that Proposition 187 did two years ago.

“From the beginning, this has not grabbed the attention of or moved Latinos in any way like 187,” said David Ayon, research associate at the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University.

Unlike Proposition 187--which aimed to deny many government services to illegal immigrants--Proposition 209 is not perceived as especially targeting Latinos, Ayon said, nor has it been debated in those terms.

Looking at the results of a poll by the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute, president Harry Pachon said Proposition 209 is “not really even smoldering” in the Latino community.

The survey found that less than a month before the election, 70% of Latino citizens were undecided or didn’t know about the initiative. A Los Angeles Times Poll taken about the same time showed 42% of Latinos opposed Proposition 209 and 38% were in favor of it.

“The Latino vote is very volatile on this issue,” Pachon said. “It’s going to be a wild card,” decided by which side does the best job of getting its message out, he added.

One need look no further than David Siqueiros of Silver Lake to see how confused many voters are about Proposition 209. The 32-year-old film director said he thought a yes vote for the initiative would preserve affirmative action, which he said helped him get into UCLA and get a job.

“In my view, [affirmative action] was first created for minorities, but mostly for African Americans,” Siqueiros said. “Hispanic people, by the end of this century, will be the majority here. It’s our turn to take advantage of affirmative action. It’s been helping other minorities.”

Latino organizations have done their best to stir opposition to Proposition 209. But like everyone else in the anti-Proposition 209 camp, they have been hurt by a lack of funding and, they complain, a lack of media attention.

Noemi Cruz Yates of the League of United Latin American Citizens said opponents have organized a number of events that have “just received no coverage--to the point where I thought, do you have to burn something like they did in the ‘60s” to get on television?

Correspondent Maki Becker contributed to this story.