Noncitizen Voting Divides S.F. Chinese

Chinese parents would benefit most from a proposal to give noncitizens a vote in school board elections, but the plan appears to have divided this city’s Chinese community, in part along generational lines.

The Board of Supervisors here agreed this week to place a measure on the November ballot allowing voters to decide whether noncitizens should be permitted a say in school board races. The controversial proposal would contradict state law and is expected to face court challenges.

Still, it has generated much talk in a town known for taking on politically tricky -- and unabashedly liberal -- issues.

John Zhao, 47, is no fan of the San Francisco Unified School District. The agency’s busing policy forces his daughter and other Chinese American students to attend schools up to two hours away. Nonetheless, Zhao strongly opposes the plan to give the vote to noncitizens with children in school.

“I studied the books. I took the tests. I became a citizen,” he said. “If you don’t want to be part of America, but suddenly you want to vote, that’s not fair.”

The view of Zhao, who has lived in America for 20 years, is shared by many of his generation, who say voting is something that must be earned.

It is the younger generation that is eager for a chance to enter the voting booth -- citizen or not, community leaders say.

Playing with her 4-year-old son on a Chinatown playground, Wan Hong Li, 32, said she arrived four months ago from Guangdong, China. She supports the idea.

“Of course having more say is better,” she said in Cantonese. “Some of my friends’ children have to take buses far, far away because of the schools’ policies. We come to America for opportunity, but find that our children’s studying is difficult.”

Noncitizen parents deserve more say in the public education system because they make up a growing population of the city’s schools, said state Assemblyman Leland Yee (D-San Francisco). Yee has offered to draft a constitutional amendment if voters pass the initiative in November.

“I will do whatever I need to do if voters decide this is what they want,” Yee said. “While many white parents have deserted public schools, immigrant parents decided to stake a future in the system.”

Currently, Chinese children are the district’s largest ethnic group -- 31% of the student population. Though 30.5% of the city’s children are white, according to the 2000 U.S. Census, district statistics show they comprise only about 9.6% of public school enrollment.

Few people know what to expect from the voters in November.

David Lee, director of the Chinese American Voter Education Committee, a nonpartisan group that researches and encourages Chinese American voting, said anecdotal evidence shows that younger parents support the idea.

“Clearly, young people tend to favor the proposal. It’s their grandparents and parents who are basically opposed,” Lee said.

Fiona Ma, a city supervisor, disagrees with the notion that parents who are not citizens need to vote to become more involved in their children’s education. And, she said, giving noncitizens the vote would have other implications. The only Chinese member of the supervisors board, Ma opposes the measure.

“If we pass this thing, we will open up a Pandora’s box,” she said. “Yes, there are many immigrants in the school system, but voting is an honor, a privilege.”

She also worries that allowing noncitizens to vote would discourage them from becoming citizens. “If they can’t vote, they can still participate by joining the PTA or volunteering.”

But volunteering is not enough, say many parents who are frustrated by the system’s policies.

Last year, Chinese parents staged several protests against the schools’ diversity index -- a remnant of civil rights lawsuits that forces some children to attend schools that are farther away and, in some cases, lower-achieving than their neighborhood schools in order to meet diversity goals.

In recent weeks, parents have also expressed frustration as the Board of Education deliberated whether to move another school into the building that currently houses Newcomer High, a program for predominantly immigrant students.

“Time and time again, the [Chinese] parents get slammed in the face,” Yee said. “That’s why they now want a voice.”

David Chiu, one of the measure’s authors, disagrees that the issue breaks down along generational lines. “I don’t think the divide is that neat,” he said. “I think a lot of it has to do with people’s personal views.”

He also disagrees with the prediction that older, naturalized voters would automatically oppose the proposal because they had already labored to gain their citizenship.

“I think a lot of naturalized citizens also see how difficult and arduous the process is now, and they want to see fellow immigrants have a way to be heard,” he said.

Based on history, however, the measure might be facing an uphill battle. In 2002, San Francisco voters rejected a measure to allow noncitizens to participate on city commissions.

“And that was even more innocuous than what’s being proposed now,” said Lee, of the voter education group.

But to Vivian Louie, history matters little. Louie, 31, arrived four months ago from Shanghai with her two children. She has only just learned about the city’s latest controversy, but if given a chance to vote, she says she would do so passionately.

“Yes, of course,” she said. “It’s about my kids.”

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Wan is a Times staff writer and Hollis is a special correspondent.