Chu Is Known as a Bridge-Builder

She’s a student of the antiwar movement who, years later, reached out to developers to bring a shopping center to her hometown.

She’s an educator who, when Latinos and Asians began to clash at a local high school, helped start conflict-resolution classes.

She’s a politician who battled against a backlash against Asian Americans in Monterey Park during the 1980s and later won over some of her biggest foes.

When Democrat Judy Chu is sworn into the state Assembly on Monday after a stunning election victory this week in the 49th District, she brings with her a reputation as a builder of alliances across ethnic, political and social lines. And she’s a woman who doesn’t give up easily--she twice before lost races for the seat.

Chu, a 13-year Monterey Park councilwoman, will represent a district in which distinctly different cultures mix, with nearly half the population Latino and more than a quarter Asian.

“This is a tremendously diverse district and I think there’s some very positive lessons from it for those in Sacramento,” said Chu, 47, the first Chinese American to win the traditionally Latino district that runs from El Sereno to Rosemead.

“She’s the first Democrat I’ve ever endorsed,” said Betty Couch, an ardent Republican who served with Chu on the Monterey Park City Council. “Judy is a bridge-builder. She argues with you with evidence, not emotions. She’s a professor of psychology.”

Couch acknowledges that she and Chu, who left the council this week, have little in common politically. They were once ardent opponents in the 1980s when Monterey Park was often balkanized along racial lines as it surged to an Asian majority.

Rep. Hilda Solis (D-El Monte), who has known Chu for 16 years, said Chu was at the forefront of reaching out across ethnic lines. “She has helped the Latino community numerous times over the years,” she said.

Chu’s appreciation for diversity began as a child on the streets of South-Central Los Angeles, around 62nd Street and Normandie Avenue. Her father was a union machinist at Lockheed, her mother a cannery worker with a Teamsters card.

She entered UCLA during the Vietnam War. “I went to college going to be this quiet little math major, and I took ethnic and women’s studies classes and was appalled at the disparities I discovered,” said Chu. “I was soon involved in the antiwar movement,” she said.

“I see myself as a progressive on social issues, thanks to my roots,” said Chu, whose style and wardrobe of suits fits the stereotype of a more conservative politician. Among her recent backers was former state Sen. Tom Hayden and she counts Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg (D-Los Angeles), an outspoken liberal, among her friends. She aligns herself on the political spectrum as more Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) than Sen. Diane Feinstein D-Calif.).

Her political activism led her to change her focus to clinical psychology, in which she has a doctorate. Her 1979 thesis reflects her social concerns. Its subject: the adjustment process of Vietnamese refugees. She became an instructor of psychology at East Los Angeles College, in Monterey Park in 1980s. It’s the teaching that she’ll most miss when she heads to Sacramento. “On rough days in politics, the classroom is a refuge,” she said.

Chu became the first Asian elected to the local Garvey school board in 1985. Not long after, Chu said, the City Council urged Congress to tighten immigration laws and to adopt English as the nation’s official language. Chu and her husband, Michael Eng, were among the most vocal protesters against the council action, which eventually was reversed.

Those events thrust Chu to the forefront and in 1988 she won election to the council with multiethnic support. Slowly, Chu built alliances with those who were once her opponents. She helped Couch oust a city manager, led a successful effort to stop a casino from coming to Monterey Park and championed a grass-roots ballot measure that stopped dozens of new billboards from being erected.

“She always does her homework,” Couch said. Chu, in fact, has a reputation as Clinton-like policy wonk.

Such are Chu’s politics, that Timothy P. Fong in his 1994 book “The First Suburban Chinatown: The Remaking of Monterey Park, California,” noted that some Chinese consider her “not Chinese enough.” “As a bridge-builder I am not Chinese enough for some, but too Chinese for others,” she said.

She has had ups and downs. She suffered a bruising defeat to incumbent Diane Martinez for the 49th Assembly seat in 1994, despite raising $300,000 for the campaign. That candidacy, she said, was ill-conceived and somewhat naive. In 1998 she lost narrowly for the seat to Gloria Romero, who garnered the key endorsements, including the county labor federation.

This time out, however, it was Chu who picked up a slew of endorsements from Latino leaders, such as Solis and Sheriff Lee Baca as well as the county labor federation.

Like her parents, Chu is union member and her sister, Dorothy, heads the Montebello Teachers Assn. In the last year, Chu supported nurses at Garfield Medical Center and employees of the Chinese Daily News, both based in Monterey Park, in successful efforts to unionize. That, she said, helped her secure the support of the county labor federation. “The endorsement that shook the world,” said Chu, surrounded by her volunteers on election night. Few people, and even some of her own staff, had given her much chance of securing the endorsement.

In Sacramento, she plans to shake things up too. “This election was very significant in that the good old boy network lost,” she said. “This is a new era.”

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Profile: Judy Chu

* Born: 1953

* Residence: Monterey Park

* Education: Bachelor’s degree in mathematics from UCLA. PhD in clinical psychology, California School of Professional Psychology

* Career highlights: Garvey School Board 1985-1988, Monterey Park councilwoman 1988-2001, professor of psychology at East Los Angeles College

* Interests: Computer technology

* Family: Married to Michael Eng.