Washington State Battle Inspires Asian Americans

The biggest noise in the large room is the tinkle of tea cups and the polite slurping of hot fish maw soup. The ladies at the $100-a-plate tables wear embroidered silk and cluck at their table-mates to “eat, eat!” A young Filipina singer croons “Moon River” from the stage. This is elegant old Chinatown, and the gathering is one of a family so established and so numerous it is known as “The Locke Family Association.”

Midway through the meal, Wayne Locke, a Seattle architect and president of the clan, climbs to the podium and stands in front of a scarlet flag bedecked with sequined dragons. “Remember now, we want all of you to go out and vote, and please tell your relations, tell your neighbors and tell your friends, ‘Go out and vote for Gary Locke!’ ” the elderly man intones in heavily accented English. “We want to help make history.”

When history stands up, it’s got shaggy bangs, a shy grin and a tailored gray suit. “Our ancestors gave their blood, sweat and tears to make this country great,” says Gary Locke. “It’s only fair and right that having contributed to the success of this country, that Asian Americans be at the table where the laws affecting the country are made.”

In California, Asian Americans have had considerable difficulty gaining a seat at that table. To the north in Washington state, however, it’s a different story. Asian Americans sit on city councils and school boards. In 1993, before Republican gains reversed the trend, five sat in the Legislature. A Chinese American served as lieutenant governor, and a Korean American ran a high-profile, if unsuccessful, campaign for lieutenant governor earlier this year.

Though Asian Americans make up only 4.5% of Washington’s population--less than half the percentage in California--they have fared better at the polls than in any state other than Hawaii.

Now, though the race is narrowing to a close finish, the 46-year-old Locke, son of an immigrant Chinese grocer, stands a good chance of becoming the first Asian American elected governor in the mainland United States. His campaign, carried to fund-raisers as far away as New York, Washington, D.C., and California, has inspired Asian American groups across the country.

The relative success of Asian American candidates in Washington state, analysts say, can be linked to long-standing trade links with Asia in a state where one of every four jobs is trade-related. The two cultures have melded in the modern era by way of strong Asian American business and academic influence at companies like Microsoft Corp. and Boeing Co.

“You must remember that Chinese and Japanese and Filipinos who came since the 19th century, they worked hard and they made a good impression at Washington state, and they received a lot of favorable response from the mainstream,” said Paull Shin, a Korean American university professor who ran for lieutenant governor earlier this year.

“Also, during World War II, the evacuation to relocation camps in Washington was less violent, more cooperative and more cordial than it was in other places, and people recognized that.”

Shin himself is one of Washington state’s best examples of Asian politicking. Orphaned at the age of 4, he was begging on the streets of Korea during the Korean War when he was adopted by an American soldier. He became a houseboy and had never even attended grade school when he immigrated to the U.S. at the age of 18. He went on to get his graduate equivalency degree and eventually his PhD before being elected to the Legislature from a Seattle district.

Locke, a Democrat, has risen to prominence on the strength of his appeal as a mainstream politician, only occasionally talking about his Asian roots during his years as a powerful member of the Legislature and, more recently, elected executive of King County, the metropolitan region that includes Seattle.

But Locke’s message at this recent Chinatown fund-raiser was not the one about preserving educational quality, developing jobs and fighting juvenile crime that has propelled him to a narrow lead in the polls. Tonight, he is talking to the aunts, uncles, cousins and neighbors, the restaurant owners, lawyers, software engineers and entrepreneurs of Seattle’s thriving International District, who see the young politician as a ticket to a political future for Asian Americans.

Californians know Locke as the Seattle politician who blocked Seahawks owner Ken Behring from moving his National Football League team to Los Angeles earlier this year. In Washington state, he is better known for his 11 years in the Legislature, where he oversaw the House Appropriations Committee for five years; championed rights for gay men and lesbians, tenants, women, interned Japanese and the developmentally disabled; presided over one of the largest tax increases in the state’s history and, in the midst of the nationwide English-only debate, proposed making it state policy to “welcome and encourage” the use of diverse languages.

His opponent is a self-described “Christian radical,” Ellen Craswell, who has called for implementing “God’s wonderful plan for government,” for working to elect “Bible-believing Christians” to office, for returning to an era when “those who don’t work don’t eat” and for cutting state taxes by 30%.

Locke had a large early lead, but the most recent poll, conducted by the Mason-Dixon polling firm on Oct. 24 and 25, showed the race narrowing, with Locke ahead by only 7 percentage points.

Craswell has begun gearing up a 16,000-strong network of grass-roots volunteers--the largest volunteer force in Washington state politics in the last 20 years--opening phone banks, posting signs, walking door to door and mailing postcards to their friends.

Her small campaign headquarters staff in the tiny Puget Sound community of Poulsbo is made up mostly of born-again Christians; her assistant campaign manager, Chad Minnick, is the 23-year-old son of her pastor.

Minnick said voters are responding to the quiet appeals of the 64-year-old grandmother of 14 to eliminate the state’s business-and-operating tax, motor vehicle excise tax and the state’s half-share of the property tax; to give parents a stronger voice in education; and to return government as much as possible to the local level.

“If you read about revolutions, the Boston Tea Party was thrown over some very insignificant tax compared to what we have now,” Minnick said. “In Snohomish County, Ellen goes out there and she talks to the Cattlemen’s Assn. and she gives them the same speech she gives to a church congregation, and she gets a standing ovation. They’re sick and tired of being sick and tired. They want somebody who’s not only going to slow down the growth of government, but somebody who’ll actually turn things around.”

Campaign officials have started turning defensive over charges that Craswell is seeking to eliminate the barrier between religion and government. “What we’re saying now is that if you want to define Ellen in terms of religion,” Minnick said, “call her an anti-tax evangelist fighting against the sins of a gluttonous government.”

Craswell has, however, stirred considerable controversy, as when she said in a televised debate with Locke that homosexuals have a life expectancy 35 years less than heterosexuals “and when government makes it a protected lifestyle, it kind of puts government’s stamp of approval on it.”

Locke has hit Craswell for trying to link religion and government but has stopped short of attacking her faith, pointing out that he himself is a Baptist who sang in the church choir for years.

But the religion issue has sent a flood of moderate Republicans into the Locke camp, and most election analysts predict a win, if a narrow one, for Locke.

“I would still rate Gary Locke a solid favorite in this race, but as they often do, the Democrats misread the potential appeal of conservative Republicans,” said Tim Hibbits, one of the Northwest’s leading pollsters.

Ironically, Craswell has drawn some of her most enthusiastic support in the small Southeast Asian refugee community of northern Seattle, where Cambodian immigrants by the hundreds wore “Craswell for Governor” buttons at a celebration last weekend. Buddhist monks lined up and prayed for the born-again Baptist.

“Gary Locke supports people from Japan and Hong Kong because they have the kind of big-money fund-raising. But us, Southeast Asians, we are the refugees, we don’t have that kind of fund-raising,” said Por K. Chheng, head of the Sahak Khemararam Buddhist Assn., which sponsored the weekend event.

“One thing that we Southeast Asians believe in is democracy. We support Republicans. A lot of Southeast Asians don’t want a big kind of government because we lived under communism, you know? We know how it is.”

Locke’s campaign has benefited from support from Asian Americans nationally, with fund-raisers heavily geared toward Asian American communities in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.

“Many Asians all across the country see this race as an opportunity to make history, but also as an opportunity to elevate the concerns of the Asian American community all across the U.S.,” Locke said in an interview.

“I don’t expect, if I’m successful, as governor to be the spokesperson for Asian Americans all across the country, but I think that by being governor, I can increase the visibility of Asian American elected officials, as well as help raise the debate on issues of concern to Asian Americans.”

That prospect appeals to many Asian Americans both in Washington state and across the country.

“There are not a whole lot of Chinese Americans in government and the political scene. We have done well at being a doctor, being an engineer, being entrepreneuring business people, but there hasn’t been a lot of interest in being in politics,” said Charles Woo, president of Megatoys in Los Angeles, who co-hosted an Oct. 19 fund-raiser for Locke at the Universal Hilton.

“Gary represents the breaking of the glass ceiling. . . . Hopefully, that will be a motivating factor for the younger generation, so they have more diverse career opportunities,” Woo said.

Assunta Ng, publisher of Northwest Asian Weekly, said Locke’s appeal has traversed a broad spectrum of what has always been an extremely diverse community.

“It’s a voice for us,” Ng said. “We want to be able to tell our children, ‘Yes, the American dream is still possible.’ Don’t give me this crap about discrimination, about white America dominating--no, because Gary Locke did it. You look at him, and you know that anything is possible.”