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Sam Yoon: Boston City Councilman?Bostonians head to polls Sept. 27 -- perhaps to elect Korean American teacher as their first APA Council member
9/23/05 - Another milestone in the ongoing struggle to bring Asian Pacific Americans into the American political mainstream is taking place in Boston. Sam Yoon, who was born in Korea, brought to this country at 10 months, naturalized at age 10, and educated at Princeton and Harvard, has been running to serve as the first Asian Pacific American member of the Boston City Council. A teacher and community development advocate, he has served as a leader of the local Asian Community Development Corporation, whose goal has been to bring affordable development and residential stability to the city. Boston’s primary election is taking place on Tuesday, September 27, after this article has been submitted for publication. If he survives the cut from 15 to 8 candidates, he will become eligible to run November 8 in the race for four At-large seats on the council. City Council seats are a good way to move up the political ladder. Current Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta served as San Jose councilman and mayor before serving twenty years in Congress. Bob Matsui served on the Sacramento City Council and as Vice Mayor before serving 13 terms in Congress. APAs have been serving on local city councils for almost half a century. Korean American Alfred Song was elected to the Monterey Park (California) City Council in 1960, before his election to the state legislature in 1961. Wing Luke, whose name now adorns an APA museum in Seattle, became the first APA member of the Seattle City Council in 1962. Gordon Lau was appointed by Mayor George Moscone to serve on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977, and went on to win another elected term on his own. The East Coast has lagged behind Hawaii and the West Coast when it comes to elected APA officials. Even New York did not have an APA on the City Council until 2001. The Institute for Asian American Studies at the University of Massachusetts describes the history of APAs in New England in three phases. As the United States was being born, trade with Asia was important, so Asians had an impact even if there were no known APAs. In the second phase, roughly from the late 18thcentury to 1945, APAs appeared as immigrants, visitors, students, merchants, missionaries, educators, military officers, and officials. Unable to become citizens, they enjoyed varying amounts of privilege and opportunity, and were not active in the political life of the region. In the third phase, after World War II and especially after immigration barriers were eased after 1965, APAs came and became citizens, both by naturalization and birth. Progressive APA voices in Boston created innovative publications such as Sampan and institutions such as the Institute for Asian American Studies. They won battles to preserve Boston’s small but vibrant Chinatown from gentrification, and graduated many community-minded APAs from the Boston area’s well-regarded institutions of higher education. James Dien Bui, Shirley Suet-ling Tang, and Peter Nien-chu Kiang wrote an important article in a recent issue of UCLA’s “AAPI Nexus,” where they recount how, in 1992, a local Boston City Councilman made disparaging comments about the Vietnamese American community that had located in the Boston area. His comments were recorded on video and shown on a local television station, causing outrage in the local APA community. Unfortunately, the APA community had no political clout and could not even force him to apologize. With that as a catalyst, voter registration and participation in local politics became more of a community imperative. A self-help organization named Viet-AID was founded in 1994, and Viet-Vote was launched by Viet-AID and a coalition of other groups to encourage voter education and turnout. Sam Yoon’s candidacy comes at a political turning point not just for APAs in Boston, but for the city as a whole, One in four residents of Boston are immigrants, and the city is now majority-minority. Yoon himself defies stereotypes, because he is a political progressive who serves as an elder at his church and supports gay rights. The Asian Republicans of Massachusetts held an event for Yoon on June 22 at Dominick’s restaurant near Boston’s Chinatown, and the Asian American Action Fund, a Democratic PAC, held a fundraiser for him in Washington a few weeks ago. In order for Yoon to win, he must deal with several key issues. First, he must heighten his name recognition in a broad-enough range of communities to win. As a candidate pledging to bring greater diversity to the Council, he must unite APAs of all national origins while reaching out to progressives of all backgrounds. Second, he must raise enough money to be competitive in a field that includes three incumbents vying for four seats. Two of the candidates are children of former mayors, and others include a Hispanic and others with high name recognition. Third, he must deal with Boston’s tricky bullet voting mechanism, which could limit his votes if the supporters of other candidates choose to give all of their votes to one candidate and not one vote to each of several candidates. Finally, although anti-Asian sentiment has not shown up in Yoon’s campaign so far, Lydia Lowe, executive director of the Chinese Progressive Association and co-chairwoman of the New Majority coalition, found that election officials in 2003 and 2004 were deficient in their posting of bilingual signage, distribution of provisional ballots, and training of election workers. Sam Yoon’s campaign has stirred the imagination of APAs in Boston and nationwide, and already has made the Boston political establishment take the APA community more seriously. If, on top of these victories, he can win in the primary and general elections, the APA community in all parts of the country will celebrate, and, in the words of Congressman Mike Honda, “give new meaning to the phrase ‘Boston Tea Party.’”
Other Readings of Interest
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