Jeff Adachi says he grew up hearing the stories of his Japanese-American family’s internment during World War II.
“They lost everything, but they taught me not to be bitter, to get an education and to stand up for what’s right,” Adachi, San Francisco’s public defender, writes on the Web site devoted to his campaign for mayor.
He’s one of six Asian-American candidates who are drawing on their life stories of immigration, discrimination and empowerment as they try to become the first Asian-American elected mayor in the city’s history.
San Francisco already has an Asian-American mayor in Ed Lee (李孟賢), a Chinese-American who was appointed in January. However, the election on Tuesday next week is being seen as an historic moment in a city that has the largest percentage of Asian-Americans in the continental US and boasts the oldest Chinatown in the US.
While the candidates are from diverse Asian backgrounds and differ on policy, all agree that the community’s time has come.
And it’s not just in San Francisco. The race “is just a glimmer of what’s to come for Asian-American and Pacific Islander communities across the country,” said Gloria Chan, president of the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies (APAICS) in Washington.
If an Asian-American candidate wins, San Francisco will be the largest US city with an elected Asian-American mayor. There are 35 Asian-American mayors nationwide, including Lee, APAICS says.
Having one elected in San Francisco would have special meaning.
“There has been a long history of anti-Asian sentiment in California, even in San Francisco,” said Board of Supervisors President David Chiu (邱信福), a Taiwanese-American who is among the mayoral candidates and was endorsed by the San Francisco Chronicle.
The Chinese, for example, came during the Gold Rush then stayed to help build railroads and bridges. When gold became scarce and wages began to fall after the US Civil War, many Chinese were forced to take up low-income jobs.
In 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was the nation’s first law limiting immigration based on race or nationality.
Later, after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, about 120,000 Japanese and Japanese-Americans like Adachi’s family were sent to internment camps. Some remember the tales of the camps and other eras of discrimination.
When Chiu first ran in 2008, there was only one Asian-American on the Board of Supervisors. Today, Lee, who became interim mayor when Gavin Newsom became California’s lieutenant governor, notes that four of the 11 board members are Asian-American.
“It says Asian professionals actually consider the political civil service arena to be a viable one,” Lee said. “Ten years ago, you still had parents telling their kids, ‘Doctor, lawyer, professional — but not politics.’”
Asians, Lee said, have moved beyond Chinatown and issues that only pertain to that part of the city.
“So there’s an Asian awakening and I certainly think the voting interest is more there because of the generations of Asians who have now matured and are civic-minded,” Lee said.
There are 3,000 elected or appointed Asian-Americans in office in 38 US states, according to Don Nakanishi, director emeritus of the UCLA Asian American Studies Center.
Still, Asian-Americans hold a small share of elected positions. There are 12 members of the US Congress who are Asian-American or Pacific Islander.
Chiu said the Asian-American community is not monolithic. It includes the Taiwanese, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Filipinos, Thais, Indians and Pakistanis.
“All these elements of diversity have made it more difficult for the Asian-American community to coalesce around particular candidates,” he said.
San Francisco political consultant Johnny Wang said that in the city, the Chinese vote is going to determine how the city goes.
“It’s the awakening of the sleeping dragon,” he said.
Only a decade ago, Wang said, the city’s Chinese-Americans didn’t vote as a bloc and turnout at the polls was low. They were disenfranchised, partially by their own cultural fear of politics and belief that their votes would not count.
Today, they represent about 20 percent of the city electorate, but their issues — namely education, safety and transportation — are being addressed. They have their own powerbrokers and the clout to hold the winners accountable.
When Lee was named interim mayor, it was a big development for the Chinese-American community.
“The Chinese community in San Francisco has never had this opportunity before,” San Francisco Supervisor John Avalos said in January, before casting his vote for Lee. “It’s very, very meaningful.”
Whoever wins, Adachi said, it is a positive development that so many Asian-Americans are running for public office.
However, that can’t be the end of the story.
“We can’t rely on being a certain ethnicity to define who we are,” Adachi said. “I feel it’s incumbent on Asian-Americans to distinguish themselves as leaders in their own right.”
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