kimpossible
02-14-2006, 10:21 AM
The best tactics for AA votes?
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ELECTION 2006: S.J. MAYOR
In avid pursuit of ethnic vote
VIETNAMESE-AMERICANS PLAY KEY POLITICAL ROLE AS NUMBERS INCREASE
By Phil Yost
Mercury News
What's that white male mayoral candidate doing dressed in a traditional Vietnamese robe and attempting a phrase or two in Vietnamese?
Why, politicking, of course, and demonstrating that San Jose's Vietnamese-American community has achieved an importance in local races that candidates for the city's highest office cannot ignore.
Vietnamese-Americans are ``getting into the mainstream,'' said mayoral candidate Chuck Reed, and ``elected officials are paying attention.'' Reed certainly is, along with fellow Councilman Dave Cortese and Vice Mayor Cindy Chavez, the candidates whose campaigns for the June mayoral primary are the most organized and best-funded to date.
At recent events celebrating Tet, the Vietnamese festival of the Lunar New Year, Reed, Cortese and Chavez participated in the same ways that candidates have at other ethnic festivals in America for decades.
Saturday, at the Tet Friendship Festival at the fairgrounds, the three joined other elected officials in a flag ceremony and then in the tradition of feeding dollars to a dragon for good luck.
All three appeared in the Tet parade in downtown San Jose on Jan. 29, as they have done for the past half-dozen years, where elected officials rode in convertibles. Reed and Cortese donned multi-colored traditional robes. They ventured a greeting in Vietnamese.
At both events, Reed, Cortese and Chavez each set up campaign booths in an exhibition hall and passed out fliers in Vietnamese and English.
The political attraction is mutual.
``Vietnamese organizations are sending out invitations to all the mayoral candidates,'' said Madison Nguyen, whose election in September to the San Jose City Council was a milestone for the Vietnamese community. ``We're starting to take the initiative to reach out to political candidates.''
Since Vietnamese immigrants began arriving in San Jose in substantial numbers in the mid-1970s, their population in San Jose has grown to 100,000. But as with every immigrant group, it took a while to become politically active and influential.
Eight years ago, the last time there was real competition for the office of mayor, Vietnamese-Americans were about 2 percent of San Jose voters, political consultants reckon. They were a political footnote.
No longer. Consultants peg them at 10 percent -- some 35,000 voters.
The mayoral candidates assert that they have been attentive to the needs of Vietnamese-Americans for years. When Reed was first a council member, he said, ``I was often the only elected official at some of their events.'' Reed has had a Vietnamese-speaking staff member in his council office since he was elected seven years ago.
Chavez said she was working on behalf of Vietnamese immigrant workers as a labor organizer in the early 1990s.
Cortese said his introduction to the community came when his family's real estate business established a partnership with a Vietnamese immigrant to operate a gas station in the late 1980s.
H.G. Nguyen, founding president of the Vietnamese American Chamber of commerce, says her community's increased political participation is easy to understand.
``More and more people live longer in this country, so they become U.S. citizens more and more,'' she said. And when they take citizenship classes, she said, ``a lot of us realize how this wonderful American system works.''
In the past few years, Vietnamese-Americans have seen the benefits. In 2002, Madison Nguyen was elected to the board of the Franklin-McKinley School District, the first Vietnamese-American woman to hold public office in California. Vietnamese-Americans make up a majority of the district's student body.
In July 2003, the community was galvanized when a San Jose police officer shot a disturbed Vietnamese-American woman, mistakenly thinking she was threatening him with a weapon that turned out to be a vegetable peeler.
In November 2004, Lan Nguyen won a school board seat in the East Side Union High School District, which Vietnamese-Americans saw as significant because they are a minority in the district.
But last summer is seen as the real breakout. In May, the city council, responding to community pleas and a well-organized campaign, passed a resolution recognizing the flag of pre-communist Vietnam as the flag of the Vietnamese community abroad.
That victory was followed shortly by the election that really put the local Vietnamese-American community on the political map.
In a special election to fill a vacant council seat, the two candidates who topped the field of five serious candidates -- and went on to the runoff -- were both Vietnamese-American women, Madison Nguyen, the eventual winner, and Linda Nguyen, no relation.
``People got the sense,'' Linda Nguyen said, ``that the Vietnamese community catapulted the two Vietnamese candidates into the runoff.''
What Vietnamese-Americans want from City Hall doesn't differ much from what other San Jose residents want, they say. Safe streets. Nice parks. The business community would like to have a neighborhood business district designated as Vietnamese, with banners, as in Japantown.
It's not apparent this early in the mayoral campaign whether any of the candidates is a favorite of Vietnamese-Americans -- or whether Vietnamese-Americans will vote as a bloc.
In the first fundraising report of the campaign, Chavez had raised the most money from Vietnamese-American contributors, more than $10,000, estimating from Vietnamese surnames. But Vietnamese names appeared on all three candidates' reports and those reports covered only three weeks in December.
The support flows the other way as well. Reed contributed $2,000 toward this year's Tet parade, and Cortese helped with $1,000.
Chavez has donated $500 from her ``officeholder account'' to the Viet Heritage Society.
At the Tet events, Reed's booth was staffed by Khoa Nguyen, a political science graduate of the University of California-Irvine.
He said his generation hears from parents who battled communism in Vietnam that having a voice in politics is ``what they fought for.''
``The Vietnamese youth have come of age,'' Nguyen said, ``and understand the need to participate.''
http://www.mercurynews.com/images/mercurynews/mercurynews/13804/190555204988.jpg
ELECTION 2006: S.J. MAYOR
In avid pursuit of ethnic vote
VIETNAMESE-AMERICANS PLAY KEY POLITICAL ROLE AS NUMBERS INCREASE
By Phil Yost
Mercury News
What's that white male mayoral candidate doing dressed in a traditional Vietnamese robe and attempting a phrase or two in Vietnamese?
Why, politicking, of course, and demonstrating that San Jose's Vietnamese-American community has achieved an importance in local races that candidates for the city's highest office cannot ignore.
Vietnamese-Americans are ``getting into the mainstream,'' said mayoral candidate Chuck Reed, and ``elected officials are paying attention.'' Reed certainly is, along with fellow Councilman Dave Cortese and Vice Mayor Cindy Chavez, the candidates whose campaigns for the June mayoral primary are the most organized and best-funded to date.
At recent events celebrating Tet, the Vietnamese festival of the Lunar New Year, Reed, Cortese and Chavez participated in the same ways that candidates have at other ethnic festivals in America for decades.
Saturday, at the Tet Friendship Festival at the fairgrounds, the three joined other elected officials in a flag ceremony and then in the tradition of feeding dollars to a dragon for good luck.
All three appeared in the Tet parade in downtown San Jose on Jan. 29, as they have done for the past half-dozen years, where elected officials rode in convertibles. Reed and Cortese donned multi-colored traditional robes. They ventured a greeting in Vietnamese.
At both events, Reed, Cortese and Chavez each set up campaign booths in an exhibition hall and passed out fliers in Vietnamese and English.
The political attraction is mutual.
``Vietnamese organizations are sending out invitations to all the mayoral candidates,'' said Madison Nguyen, whose election in September to the San Jose City Council was a milestone for the Vietnamese community. ``We're starting to take the initiative to reach out to political candidates.''
Since Vietnamese immigrants began arriving in San Jose in substantial numbers in the mid-1970s, their population in San Jose has grown to 100,000. But as with every immigrant group, it took a while to become politically active and influential.
Eight years ago, the last time there was real competition for the office of mayor, Vietnamese-Americans were about 2 percent of San Jose voters, political consultants reckon. They were a political footnote.
No longer. Consultants peg them at 10 percent -- some 35,000 voters.
The mayoral candidates assert that they have been attentive to the needs of Vietnamese-Americans for years. When Reed was first a council member, he said, ``I was often the only elected official at some of their events.'' Reed has had a Vietnamese-speaking staff member in his council office since he was elected seven years ago.
Chavez said she was working on behalf of Vietnamese immigrant workers as a labor organizer in the early 1990s.
Cortese said his introduction to the community came when his family's real estate business established a partnership with a Vietnamese immigrant to operate a gas station in the late 1980s.
H.G. Nguyen, founding president of the Vietnamese American Chamber of commerce, says her community's increased political participation is easy to understand.
``More and more people live longer in this country, so they become U.S. citizens more and more,'' she said. And when they take citizenship classes, she said, ``a lot of us realize how this wonderful American system works.''
In the past few years, Vietnamese-Americans have seen the benefits. In 2002, Madison Nguyen was elected to the board of the Franklin-McKinley School District, the first Vietnamese-American woman to hold public office in California. Vietnamese-Americans make up a majority of the district's student body.
In July 2003, the community was galvanized when a San Jose police officer shot a disturbed Vietnamese-American woman, mistakenly thinking she was threatening him with a weapon that turned out to be a vegetable peeler.
In November 2004, Lan Nguyen won a school board seat in the East Side Union High School District, which Vietnamese-Americans saw as significant because they are a minority in the district.
But last summer is seen as the real breakout. In May, the city council, responding to community pleas and a well-organized campaign, passed a resolution recognizing the flag of pre-communist Vietnam as the flag of the Vietnamese community abroad.
That victory was followed shortly by the election that really put the local Vietnamese-American community on the political map.
In a special election to fill a vacant council seat, the two candidates who topped the field of five serious candidates -- and went on to the runoff -- were both Vietnamese-American women, Madison Nguyen, the eventual winner, and Linda Nguyen, no relation.
``People got the sense,'' Linda Nguyen said, ``that the Vietnamese community catapulted the two Vietnamese candidates into the runoff.''
What Vietnamese-Americans want from City Hall doesn't differ much from what other San Jose residents want, they say. Safe streets. Nice parks. The business community would like to have a neighborhood business district designated as Vietnamese, with banners, as in Japantown.
It's not apparent this early in the mayoral campaign whether any of the candidates is a favorite of Vietnamese-Americans -- or whether Vietnamese-Americans will vote as a bloc.
In the first fundraising report of the campaign, Chavez had raised the most money from Vietnamese-American contributors, more than $10,000, estimating from Vietnamese surnames. But Vietnamese names appeared on all three candidates' reports and those reports covered only three weeks in December.
The support flows the other way as well. Reed contributed $2,000 toward this year's Tet parade, and Cortese helped with $1,000.
Chavez has donated $500 from her ``officeholder account'' to the Viet Heritage Society.
At the Tet events, Reed's booth was staffed by Khoa Nguyen, a political science graduate of the University of California-Irvine.
He said his generation hears from parents who battled communism in Vietnam that having a voice in politics is ``what they fought for.''
``The Vietnamese youth have come of age,'' Nguyen said, ``and understand the need to participate.''