Bowing deeply and shaking hands with shopkeepers along the streets of Chinatown, San Francisco’s newly elected mayor understands the significance: These are the people who put him in office, the people for whom he fought when he was an activist attorney and the people who expect more of him than of any other mayor who came before.
“The community has been waiting for this kind of historic opportunity for many, many decades,” San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee (李孟賢) said on Thursday as he performed his first duty as the city’s first elected Chinese-American head of City Hall. “There have been a lot of sacrifices.”
Those sacrifices are steeped in San Francisco history. Chinese-American families have reared generations of assimilated and -successful children, but many of their grandparents and great grandparents were once outcast.
Though Asians comprise a third of the city’s population, they have traditionally been underrepresented in politics and economics. Beyond the kitsch and chaos of touristy Chinatown, look deeper down the alleys of one of the nation’s mostly densely populated neighborhoods and you will find tenement housing, elderly poor and struggling family businesses.
Lee, who as interim mayor closed a US$380 million deficit to balance the city budget this year, pledged during his campaign to invest US$5 million in the coming year to help small businesses like those scattered across Chinatown and other distressed neighborhoods. He has also vowed to keep on track the first subway line through the heart of congested Chinatown.
Sandy Tan, owner of An An Hair Salon on Stockton Street, is one of those counting on Lee to keep his promises.
“We think he’s the one to revitalize the entire city,” she said. “Business is very slow; we are putting all our hopes on him.”
She was thrilled when Lee ducked into her beauty salon to wave at astonished women in their curlers and concoctions.
“We’re so very proud,” Tan said. “It’s like he’s part of the family; one of our own.”
Lee is part of the family. He is a member of the politically powerful Lee Family Association, the largest benevolent society in Chinatown, established in the mid-1800s to help other immigrant Lees from China’s Guangdong Province.
And that family helped to seal Lee’s victory with high voter turnout on Tuesday.
“It’s a milestone; as significant as Obama’s election was for -African-Americans,” Chinese American Voters Education Committee director David Lee said. “The only difference is that -Chinese-Americans in San Francisco put Ed Lee into office with their votes and their money.”
“So his victory is the community’s victory,” David Lee said. “You have to realize that Chinatown and the Chinese community have been among the most ostracized and marginalized in the nation. All the Chinese-Americans really want is somebody in City Hall that listens to the community.”
Lee, 59, came from humble beginnings. Both parents emigrated from southern China; his father was a cook and restaurant -manager and his mother a waitress and seamstress. A law graduate from the University of California, Berkeley, he went to work for the San Francisco Asian Law Caucus to advocate for affordable housing and immigrant and tenant rights.
He then went to City Hall, working for four mayors for 22 years. He was the city administrator when appointed interim mayor in January when then-San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom became California’s lieutenant-governor.
He dropped his pledge not to run for the office in August, after a string of accomplishments and relentless encouragement from Chinatown powerbrokers and former Democratic San Francisco mayors Newsom, Willie Brown and US Senator Dianne Feinstein.
Those accomplishments in office include a balanced budget, a deal to keep tech giant Twitter in town while wooing the America’s Cup yacht race to the bay and a voter-approved public pension overhaul to save the city about US$1.3 billion over the next decade.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese