achtungbaby
08-04-2005, 10:53 PM
Touched by the City of Angels: Mayor selects Asian American As Deputy Chief of Staff
AsianWeek, Sam Chu Lin, Jul 20, 2005
In some political circles, Asian Pacific Americans weren’t expecting too much from Los Angeles’ recently inaugurated mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa. APAs comprise 11 percent of more than 3.6 million residents in the nation’s second largest city, but a majority of the city’s APA voters didn’t support Villaraigosa on Election Day.
According to an exit poll by Loyola Marymount of Los Angeles and its Center for the Study of Los Angeles, 58.4% of APA voters cast their ballots for incumbent James Hahn, while 41.6% of them went for Villaraigosa.
Despite this, the 52-year-old mayor quickly has placed APAs in top positions and solicited advice of APAs.
Villaraigosa named 33-year-old Jimmy Blackman, a Los Angeles native of Chinese and Anglo heritage, as his Deputy Chief of Staff.
“Jimmy Blackman is a great asset,” Villaraigosa stated. “He’s been with me for seven years since I was in the State Assembly and during my speaker ship. I have a great deal of respect for him and confidence for his ability.”
Blackman is helping Villaraigosa find the best people to deal with such issues as transportation and public safety.
“Right now, APAs are under represented in the LAPD and in [the] LA Fire Department,” Blackman observed. “We need officers that are culturally sensitive, that can go into these communities and speak the language so that people can feel comfortable when a police officer comes to their door to offer assistance.”
Villaraigosa was alarmed about growing gang violence after the execution styled killing of a Sheriff’s Deputy and the wounding of a police officer in a drive-by shooting.
“This attack on a police officer was unprovoked and unacceptable,” the mayor angrily stated. “The attack on Officer [Rudolfo] Fuentes is a despicable act on all officers of the law, and this will not be tolerated in this city.”
Villaraigosa hopes to add 1,300 new police officers, but has already told the police chief that funds are not available yet to accomplish this.
Warren Furutani, a Los Angeles Community College District trustee, is cautiously optimistic that the new mayor understands and shares common experiences with APAs. Both parents of the mayor and APAs, for example, share a common immigrant experience.
“Although we use that term [APAs] to lump us all together, nicely and neatly, he knows that we’re not all the same, that there are different groups, generations, different status relative to immigration,” said Furutani.
“70% of the APIs in Los Angeles are immigrants –– hav[ing] direct connections to the countries that they immigrated from. So the trade issue is something that he’s very interested in relative to L.A.”
Furutani also points out that attorney and longtime environmentalist Paula Daniels, a Korean/Chinese American, was selected as a commissioner to the Board of Public Works.
The attorney aimed to improve the quality of life for Angelinos by dealing with such problems as thousands of street potholes, sewer system, and water and power while thinking about their environmental impact.
“It’s really important to make sure that all the things that make the city run well, that make the residents be able to enjoy their neighborhoods well are addressed,” she remarked.
Eleven APA community leaders have also been serving on Villaraigosa’s transition team. Stewart Kwoh, head of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center in Los Angeles, is one of them. He and transition members Furutani, and Carol Baca, the Sheriff’s wife, sat with other dignitaries when Villaraigosa was inaugurated.
According to APA transition members, 5,000 APAs have submitted resumes to work in the new administration, but it’s been a challenge to fill some positions.
Irene Hirano, a transition team member, notes that many APA professionals live outside the city, and some of those critical jobs require residency.
“It is not as easy to find people who are willing to assume those positions,” she stated. “We as a community have an on-going responsibility to keep encouraging people to think about public service, to think about working in the mayor’s office or other positions within politics and to get people to think about serving on boards and commissions.”
Blackman says more APA appointments will be announced for more than 350 commission spots.
“APIs are going to be well represented on all of the commissions from the police and fire on down to public works and the commission on children, youth and their families,” said the deputy chief of staff. “There is going to be very strong APA representation on all of these commissions.”
APA Who’s Who with Villaraigosa
Mayoral Cabinet
Jimmy Blackman
Current Position/Personal: Deputy Chief of Staff, ranked after Mayoral Chief of Staff Robin Kramer; married with one child
Previous Awards/Position: Campaign Manager for Villaraigosa’s City Council Campaign; Councilmember’s Chief of Staff; Chief of Staff to State Senator Richard Alacron
Quote: “My mother never finished elementary school in Taiwan. She worked in the rice fields morning, noon, and night like so many hard-working farmers in Taiwan.”
Paula Daniels*
Current Position/Personal: Commissioner, Board of Public Works; married with no children, daughter of Jackie Young – Korean American legislator from 1990-1994 in Hawai‘i.
Previous Awards/Position: Attorney and President, Heal the Bay; California Coastal Commission in 1999, senior research fellow at UCLA Institute of the Environment, former President of Korean Youth Community Center; and member, Bay Delta Authority
Quote: “[Mother] always said … ‘You can make more impact on life sometimes in a policy-making arena than you can being a doctor or lawyer’ ... the policy that you make affects everybody. People don’t often see it. But they will feel it.”
Jaime de la Vega
Current Position: Deputy Mayor and Chief of Transportation
Previous Award/Position: Transit adviser for former Mayor Richard Riordan; member, Metropolitan Transportation Authority Board; aide to City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo
Quote: “Because we are the car capital of the world, it’s part of our psyche, it’s part of our personality, and to a large extent, it’s very difficult to get anywhere without a car.”
Mayoral Transition Team
Warren Furutani
Current Position/Personal: Member, L.A. Community College District Board of Trustees, candidate for California State Assembly; has known Villaraigosa for more than 30 years
Previous Awards/Position: Executive Director, Asian Pacific Community Fund; President/CEO of the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council; first APA elected to the L.A. Unified School District Board of Education; API advisor for then-Assembly Speaker Villaraigosa
Irene Y. Hirano
Current Position: President, Japanese American National Museum/LA Inc.; member, Toyota North American Diversity Advisory Board
Previous Awards/Position: Executive Director of T.H.E. Clinic, Inc. in Los Angeles, a nonprofit multicultural community clinic; consultant, U.S. Department of Health Education and Welfare, Administration on Aging, Project Advocacy for the Elderly; and Associate Director of the Asian Women’s Center
Stewart Kwoh
Current Position: President/Executive Director of Asian Pacific American Legal Center, Vice-chair of the Board of Directors for the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium
Previous Awards/Position: President of the Southern California Chinese Lawyers Association, named 1998 MacArthur Fellow, Chair of the Board of Directors for The California Endowment, committee member of the Coalition for Humane Immigration Rights of Los Angeles
Paul Kim
Current Position/Personal: Chairman of Justice For Murdered Children; married to Kaylynn Kim
Previous Awards/Position: 27-year veteran Commander and Captain of the Harbor Division of the LAPD, 1999 Quality of Service Award LAPD, created an Area Traffic Coordinator Council, “Stop the Violence” program in city high schools, highest ranking APA officer in LAPD history
Kaylynn Kim
Current Position/Personal: Attorney, Law Offices of Kaylynn L. Kim and Associates; serves on the Board of Directors for the Koreatown Youth and Community Center, married to Paul Kim
Previous Awards/Position: Attorney
Dominic Ng
Current Position: President/CEO of East West Bank
Previous Award/Position: Asia Society of Southern California Chairman’s Award, The California Society of CPAs Outstanding Member in Industry Award, and Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year – Financial Services Award
Chris Pak
Current Position: President and CEO of Archeon Group
Previous Award/Position: Chairman, Board of Zoning Appeals and board member, Department of Neighborhood Empowerment
Andrew Cherng
Current Position: President/CEO of Panda Restaurant Group, Inc.
Previous Awards/Position: Entrepreneur
Awee Aurora Abayari
Current Position: Executive Vice President, First Tri-Media Group Companies; Station Manager, Radio Manila Worldwide, now in its 20th year
Previous Awards/Position: Director, Philippine American Convention & Exposition, Inc., news correspondent in Europe
Carol Baca
Current Position/Personal: Board member, Chinese American Museum of Los Angeles; married to L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca with two daughters
Previous Award/Position: Committee Chair, Chinese American Museum Capital Campaign
Ishmael Ileto
Current Position/Personal: Co-founder, Joseph Ileto Hate Crimes Prevention Fellowship; member, Attorney General’s Commission on Hate Crime; brother of Joseph Ileto, 1999 murder victim of a neo-Nazi
Previous Award/Position: Spokesman against hate and intolerance; John Anson Ford Award 2000 – Human Relations Committee Los Angeles County
*also a transition team member
AsianWeek, Sam Chu Lin, Jul 20, 2005
In some political circles, Asian Pacific Americans weren’t expecting too much from Los Angeles’ recently inaugurated mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa. APAs comprise 11 percent of more than 3.6 million residents in the nation’s second largest city, but a majority of the city’s APA voters didn’t support Villaraigosa on Election Day.
According to an exit poll by Loyola Marymount of Los Angeles and its Center for the Study of Los Angeles, 58.4% of APA voters cast their ballots for incumbent James Hahn, while 41.6% of them went for Villaraigosa.
Despite this, the 52-year-old mayor quickly has placed APAs in top positions and solicited advice of APAs.
Villaraigosa named 33-year-old Jimmy Blackman, a Los Angeles native of Chinese and Anglo heritage, as his Deputy Chief of Staff.
“Jimmy Blackman is a great asset,” Villaraigosa stated. “He’s been with me for seven years since I was in the State Assembly and during my speaker ship. I have a great deal of respect for him and confidence for his ability.”
Blackman is helping Villaraigosa find the best people to deal with such issues as transportation and public safety.
“Right now, APAs are under represented in the LAPD and in [the] LA Fire Department,” Blackman observed. “We need officers that are culturally sensitive, that can go into these communities and speak the language so that people can feel comfortable when a police officer comes to their door to offer assistance.”
Villaraigosa was alarmed about growing gang violence after the execution styled killing of a Sheriff’s Deputy and the wounding of a police officer in a drive-by shooting.
“This attack on a police officer was unprovoked and unacceptable,” the mayor angrily stated. “The attack on Officer [Rudolfo] Fuentes is a despicable act on all officers of the law, and this will not be tolerated in this city.”
Villaraigosa hopes to add 1,300 new police officers, but has already told the police chief that funds are not available yet to accomplish this.
Warren Furutani, a Los Angeles Community College District trustee, is cautiously optimistic that the new mayor understands and shares common experiences with APAs. Both parents of the mayor and APAs, for example, share a common immigrant experience.
“Although we use that term [APAs] to lump us all together, nicely and neatly, he knows that we’re not all the same, that there are different groups, generations, different status relative to immigration,” said Furutani.
“70% of the APIs in Los Angeles are immigrants –– hav[ing] direct connections to the countries that they immigrated from. So the trade issue is something that he’s very interested in relative to L.A.”
Furutani also points out that attorney and longtime environmentalist Paula Daniels, a Korean/Chinese American, was selected as a commissioner to the Board of Public Works.
The attorney aimed to improve the quality of life for Angelinos by dealing with such problems as thousands of street potholes, sewer system, and water and power while thinking about their environmental impact.
“It’s really important to make sure that all the things that make the city run well, that make the residents be able to enjoy their neighborhoods well are addressed,” she remarked.
Eleven APA community leaders have also been serving on Villaraigosa’s transition team. Stewart Kwoh, head of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center in Los Angeles, is one of them. He and transition members Furutani, and Carol Baca, the Sheriff’s wife, sat with other dignitaries when Villaraigosa was inaugurated.
According to APA transition members, 5,000 APAs have submitted resumes to work in the new administration, but it’s been a challenge to fill some positions.
Irene Hirano, a transition team member, notes that many APA professionals live outside the city, and some of those critical jobs require residency.
“It is not as easy to find people who are willing to assume those positions,” she stated. “We as a community have an on-going responsibility to keep encouraging people to think about public service, to think about working in the mayor’s office or other positions within politics and to get people to think about serving on boards and commissions.”
Blackman says more APA appointments will be announced for more than 350 commission spots.
“APIs are going to be well represented on all of the commissions from the police and fire on down to public works and the commission on children, youth and their families,” said the deputy chief of staff. “There is going to be very strong APA representation on all of these commissions.”
APA Who’s Who with Villaraigosa
Mayoral Cabinet
Jimmy Blackman
Current Position/Personal: Deputy Chief of Staff, ranked after Mayoral Chief of Staff Robin Kramer; married with one child
Previous Awards/Position: Campaign Manager for Villaraigosa’s City Council Campaign; Councilmember’s Chief of Staff; Chief of Staff to State Senator Richard Alacron
Quote: “My mother never finished elementary school in Taiwan. She worked in the rice fields morning, noon, and night like so many hard-working farmers in Taiwan.”
Paula Daniels*
Current Position/Personal: Commissioner, Board of Public Works; married with no children, daughter of Jackie Young – Korean American legislator from 1990-1994 in Hawai‘i.
Previous Awards/Position: Attorney and President, Heal the Bay; California Coastal Commission in 1999, senior research fellow at UCLA Institute of the Environment, former President of Korean Youth Community Center; and member, Bay Delta Authority
Quote: “[Mother] always said … ‘You can make more impact on life sometimes in a policy-making arena than you can being a doctor or lawyer’ ... the policy that you make affects everybody. People don’t often see it. But they will feel it.”
Jaime de la Vega
Current Position: Deputy Mayor and Chief of Transportation
Previous Award/Position: Transit adviser for former Mayor Richard Riordan; member, Metropolitan Transportation Authority Board; aide to City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo
Quote: “Because we are the car capital of the world, it’s part of our psyche, it’s part of our personality, and to a large extent, it’s very difficult to get anywhere without a car.”
Mayoral Transition Team
Warren Furutani
Current Position/Personal: Member, L.A. Community College District Board of Trustees, candidate for California State Assembly; has known Villaraigosa for more than 30 years
Previous Awards/Position: Executive Director, Asian Pacific Community Fund; President/CEO of the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council; first APA elected to the L.A. Unified School District Board of Education; API advisor for then-Assembly Speaker Villaraigosa
Irene Y. Hirano
Current Position: President, Japanese American National Museum/LA Inc.; member, Toyota North American Diversity Advisory Board
Previous Awards/Position: Executive Director of T.H.E. Clinic, Inc. in Los Angeles, a nonprofit multicultural community clinic; consultant, U.S. Department of Health Education and Welfare, Administration on Aging, Project Advocacy for the Elderly; and Associate Director of the Asian Women’s Center
Stewart Kwoh
Current Position: President/Executive Director of Asian Pacific American Legal Center, Vice-chair of the Board of Directors for the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium
Previous Awards/Position: President of the Southern California Chinese Lawyers Association, named 1998 MacArthur Fellow, Chair of the Board of Directors for The California Endowment, committee member of the Coalition for Humane Immigration Rights of Los Angeles
Paul Kim
Current Position/Personal: Chairman of Justice For Murdered Children; married to Kaylynn Kim
Previous Awards/Position: 27-year veteran Commander and Captain of the Harbor Division of the LAPD, 1999 Quality of Service Award LAPD, created an Area Traffic Coordinator Council, “Stop the Violence” program in city high schools, highest ranking APA officer in LAPD history
Kaylynn Kim
Current Position/Personal: Attorney, Law Offices of Kaylynn L. Kim and Associates; serves on the Board of Directors for the Koreatown Youth and Community Center, married to Paul Kim
Previous Awards/Position: Attorney
Dominic Ng
Current Position: President/CEO of East West Bank
Previous Award/Position: Asia Society of Southern California Chairman’s Award, The California Society of CPAs Outstanding Member in Industry Award, and Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year – Financial Services Award
Chris Pak
Current Position: President and CEO of Archeon Group
Previous Award/Position: Chairman, Board of Zoning Appeals and board member, Department of Neighborhood Empowerment
Andrew Cherng
Current Position: President/CEO of Panda Restaurant Group, Inc.
Previous Awards/Position: Entrepreneur
Awee Aurora Abayari
Current Position: Executive Vice President, First Tri-Media Group Companies; Station Manager, Radio Manila Worldwide, now in its 20th year
Previous Awards/Position: Director, Philippine American Convention & Exposition, Inc., news correspondent in Europe
Carol Baca
Current Position/Personal: Board member, Chinese American Museum of Los Angeles; married to L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca with two daughters
Previous Award/Position: Committee Chair, Chinese American Museum Capital Campaign
Ishmael Ileto
Current Position/Personal: Co-founder, Joseph Ileto Hate Crimes Prevention Fellowship; member, Attorney General’s Commission on Hate Crime; brother of Joseph Ileto, 1999 murder victim of a neo-Nazi
Previous Award/Position: Spokesman against hate and intolerance; John Anson Ford Award 2000 – Human Relations Committee Los Angeles County
*also a transition team member