Asian Americans Flex Growing Political Muscle

Enough shovels of earth--a mountain.

Enough pails of water--a river.

That Chinese proverb as much as anything explains the growing political empowerment of Asian Americans across California and particularly in the San Gabriel Valley. Election by election, and without fanfare, the ranks of Asian American elected officials statewide have swelled from 106 in 1980 to 503 in 1998.

That figure, compiled by the Public Policy Institute of California and the most recent available, does not include some recent gains. Two longtime San Gabriel Valley city councilwomen have joined the Assembly: Carol Liu of La Canada Flintridge, elected in November, and Judy Chu of Monterey Park, who took office this summer.

With two other Asian American Democrats in the Assembly--Wilma Chan of Oakland and George Nakano of Torrance--they form the Legislature’s largest Asian American caucus ever. It may be only four members strong, but the Capitol’s black caucus has only seven. In fact, the institute found that Asian American officeholders outnumber African American officials in California by 2 to 1.

It’s been a gradual progression, driven by demographics, multiethnic coalition politics and the changing attitudes of Asian Americans and others toward electing people of Asian descent.

“Ten or 15 years ago, a meeting of Asian American elected officials could have been held around the kitchen table. Now we’re talking a small banquet hall,” said Joaquin Lim, a city councilman in Walnut. Lim heads the 33-member organization of Chinese American Elected Officials, which includes current and former officeholders and trains potential candidates.

The San Gabriel Valley--a 300-square-mile “ethnoburbia” east of Los Angeles with 29 cities and about 1.7 million people--has proved to be fertile ground for ethnic politics before. Inside its city halls and on its school boards, Latinos showed they could flex their political muscle a decade ago.

The number of city council and school board members and other elected officials of Asian descent in the valley has climbed in a decade from six to 17. There have been as many as 20, but three stepped down to seek even higher office.

“What we’re seeing in the San Gabriel Valley reflects a larger trend of Asian Americans becoming more involved in politics,” said Don T. Nakanishi, head of the Asian-American Studies Center at UCLA. And even if they aren’t winning, more Asian Americans are getting their names on the ballot.

“The number of Asian American candidates is exploding,” said David Lang, a political consultant. “Chinese Americans running for office used to be news in the San Gabriel Valley. Now we’re talking 10 to 15 candidates every election cycle.”

At a candidates forum in Monterey Park on Aug. 31, five of seven council contenders were Asian American.

“When I was A little girl, my mother told me those who are fortunate should contribute to the community,” candidate Lisa Yang told the crowd.

Packing the council chambers for the event was a virtual who’s who of Asian American politics, including West Covina Mayor Benjamin Wong, Monterey Park Councilman David T. Lau and state Board of Equalization member John Chiang.

Hosting the event was a growing collection of Asian American political organizations, including the Chinese-American Elected Officials, the Indo-Chinese American Political Action Committee and CAUSE/Vision 21.

CAUSE/Vision 21, created by the merger last year of two Asian American political groups, was formed to register voters and help train Asian American candidates. The Chinese Americans United for Self-Empowerment, founded in 1993 and known as CAUSE, teamed with Vision 21, founded in 1998. With an eye toward the future, they arrange internships in Sacramento for young Asian Americans.

In July, more than 250 people attended a CAUSE/Vision 21 political meeting in Alhambra, including Secretary of State Bill Jones and Matt Fong, a former state treasurer.

The number of Asian American officeholders remains small: 6% statewide. The number of Asian Americans among registered voters in California has climbed to 6%--up from 3% a decade ago--but is still the lowest rate of any ethnic group. But once registered, they are frequent voters and they have logged successes at the polls.

San Francisco’s Chinese community, which dates to the Gold Rush, has held as many as three county supervisorial seats there. Elsewhere in the Bay Area, Oakland has two Chinese American City Council members, as well as Assemblywoman Chan. And San Jose is home to Rep. Mike Honda. Pockets of Asian American electoral power can be found in Cerritos, where those of Asian descent are the majority, and Gardena, where four of five City Council members are of Asian decent.

Nationwide, the number of elected and appointed officials in the Asian Pacific American political roster is 2,200, up from 700 two decades ago.

Population growth is helping to fuel some of these gains. Asian Americans account for 13% of California’s population and are the state’s fastest-growing minority group. It is a population that has doubled every decade since immigration restrictions were eased in 1965.

Nowhere is this growth more evident than in the San Gabriel Valley, where Asians outnumber all others in Monterey Park, Rowland Heights and Walnut.

But political growth has taken more than bodies, it has required Asian Americans and others to change their minds about electing those of Asian descent.

Some Say Asians Don’t Vote

The cost of noninvolvement has been high, said Paul Zee, 50, a former South Pasadena mayor and a recent Republican state Senate candidate.

“I overheard two politicians talking. One said, ‘But what about the Asian response?’ The other guy just looked at him and said, ‘I don’t have to worry about the Asian response, do I? They don’t vote,’ ” Zee said.

The treatment of Taiwan-born scientist Wen Ho Lee, who became entangled in allegations of passing nuclear secrets to China, underscored the need for activism, said Marian Tse, a former member of the State Board of Education.

Much as Proposition 187 galvanized the Latino community in 1994, Lee’s legal battle drew slices of America’s diverse Chinese American population into politics that had long ignored it, she said.

Lee’s experience resonated so deeply, said Tse, because he was portrayed as a foreigner--a familiar stereotype. The Lee case echoed the controversy over political contributions by Asian Americans during the Clinton administration. The Hsi Lai Temple in Hacienda Heights became a symbol of the controversy after Vice President Al Gore attended a fund-raiser there in 1996.

“Now is time for politics,” said Tse, a Taiwan-born Monterey Park resident. “New immigrants initially had to take care of the family, their business. Now they are looking to contribute to the community.”

In Zee’s view, the rise of Latino politicians serves as a model for Asian Americans.

“We need a machine like the one Richard Polanco built for Latinos in Southern California,” he said. Assemblyman Polanco (D-Los Angeles) spent years cultivating candidates and positioning Latinos to run outside traditional Latino strongholds. Thanks partly to openings created by term limits, Latinos now hold 20 seats in the Assembly, contrasting with just four in 1991.

Latinos also made gains through redistricting and, for the first time, Asians are playing a serious role in California’s redistricting debate. Last week, Asian leaders testifying in Sacramento demanded that the Legislature abandon a redistricting plan that they said would undermine growing Asian American political strength.

And the new Coalition of Asian Pacific Americans for Fair Redistricting is lobbying for Assembly districts that could help elect Asian Americans in as many as 10 seats.

“Asian Pacific Islanders wouldn’t be in the majority but a plurality that, together with other groups, could form coalitions,” said Kathay Feng, an attorney for the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California. “Judy Chu in the 49th District and George Nakano in Torrance were elected this way.”

“You have to be a candidate for all the people,” said Chu, a 13-year Monterey Park councilwoman whose Assembly district is a cultural mix, with nearly half the population Latino and more than a quarter Asian. For Chu and others, one key is to campaign on quality-of-life issues, such as promoting parks or opposing billboards.

In April, Annie Yuen became the first minority person elected to the school board in Arcadia, ousting a four-term incumbent. Yuen built a reputation as a parent activist, helping create Mandarin-language parenting classes but also leading that most American of institutions--the PTA.

Some Resented the Asian Influx

“People now look beyond skin color,” said Arcadia Councilman Sheng Chang, the city’s first elected Asian American. “A few years ago they didn’t.”

Still, the influx of people of Asian descent into the San Gabriel Valley has tested the attitudes of some non-Asians.

A decade ago, Walnut had a fledgling Anglo-American Assn., created in response to the growing Asian presence. Today, two council members are Asian Americans.

“People used to say an Asian couldn’t get elected in Walnut,” said Councilman Lim. “Well, I smashed that glass ceiling and the glass is cracking everywhere these days.”

In that respect, the San Gabriel Valley, with its multiracial quilt of residents, might be ahead of the country, analysts say. A nationwide survey this year found that although Americans admire many qualities of Chinese Americans, one in four held negative attitudes toward those of Chinese ancestry and a third questioned their loyalty to the country.

Issues still exist. The Asian Pacific American Legal Center alleges that, during the presidential election in November, some poll workers in San Marino often asked Asian American voters for proof of citizenship--questions they did not ask non-Asian voters. The county registrar-recorder is investigating.

Four months later, Matthew Lin, an orthopedic surgeon, was elected to the San Marino City Council, becoming the first minority to join that body.