New Chief at Asian Law Caucus

Photo by Jason Doiy

New ALC Executive Director Joe Lucero: "We will continue to see new issues emerge. Immigration laws keep changing that it forces us to be on high-gear all the time."

BY BERT ELJERA

When a group of attorneys and law students formed the Asian Law Caucus (ALC) in the summer of 1972, Joe L. Lucero was barely out of kindergarten. Now, at 31, he has taken the reins of the oldest Asian Pacific American legal organization and hopes to lead it into the next millennium.

"It's pretty overwhelming," said Lucero, the newly appointed executive director of the San Francisco-based nonprofit. "You can't take it without being nervous. It's a tremendous responsibility."

Following a nearly year-long search, the ALC Board of Directors hired Lucero in January, replacing Angelo Ancheta, who resigned after serving as executive director since 1994. Lucero started his new job last Monday.

Lucero, the son of Filipino immigrants, has extensive experience in strategic planning, development, and fundraising--areas the ALC considers critical to sustain its ability to provide legal services to low-income Asian Pacific Americans.

Before he was appointed executive director, Lucero was manager of program services at the Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy in New York City and associate director of the Poverty & Race Research Action Council in Washington, D.C.

He has worked closely with members of the philanthropic community in New York and elsewhere, helping to develop strategies to improve funding and services for APA communities.

"We were looking for certain strengths, particularly in fundraising and strategic planning," said Ancheta, who is staying on as a part-time attorney. "We were looking for someone who could develop new directions for the organization."

Lucero is the second non-lawyer to head the ALC after Peggy Saika, who served for eight years and left in 1992. Being a lawyer is not a requirement for the job, according to Ancheta, though several lawyers applied.

Lucero's age is an added bonus. "He's relatively young, so he has the ability to put in the long hours," he said. "It's a very demanding job."

For a quarter century, the ALC has been in the forefront of the civil-rights struggle of Asian Pacific Americans in the Bay Area. It broke ground with a landmark 1970s case that ended discriminatory arrests of Chinatown youth by the San Francisco Police Department.

In recent years, the agency was active in the fight against Proposition 187, which sought to deny undocumented immigrants certain benefits, and Proposition 209, which dismantled most affirmative-action programs in California.

The ALC provided a critical voice in the welfare reform and immigration debates, and articulated the urgency of restoring benefits to legal immigrants. It has also been an advocate in the areas of public housing, employment, and education.

Lucero said those issues will remain on ALC's radar screen this year. "The debate on immigration is far from done," he said. "We will continue to see new issues emerge. Immigration laws keep changing that it forces us to be on high-gear all the time."

Aside from the old battlegrounds, there is also the looming issue of the 2000 census, and its impact on the APA community, which may yet undergo another transformation when Pacific Islanders are classified as a separate racial group.

In addition, in California there is the Unz initiative, a measure to prohibit bilingual education. The ALC is expected to play a prominent role in opposing the initiative in the weeks leading up to the June ballot.

All of these efforts are coming at a time when the organization's funding seems to be dwindling. The ALC has a budget of nearly $1 million this year, with about half of the money coming from public and foundation grants, and the other half from corporate and individual donations.

Lucero, who holds a degree in economics from the University of California at Berkeley, said one of his first tasks is to put the ALC's financial house in order, mainly by diversifying its funding base.

"There should emphasis on more donors," he said. "In strategic planning, we got to find out the [legal] needs of the community and how ALC can meet those needs."

He said the key to donor development is to reach beyond the APA community to people who want to see progressive change in society. Civil-rights supporters are a natural constituency, he said.

Lucero admits that fundraising is always problematic for nonprofits serving the APA community. For one, studies have shown that APA community organizations are receiving just a fraction of the grants that foundations make each year.

Even with public agencies, APA nonprofits are also on the short end of public grants. In San Francisco, for instance, APA organizations receive less than a nickel for every dollar the city allocates to community organizations.

Moreover, there is the perception that the APA community does not have a history of organized giving, although mutual help and benevolent societies have always been a part of the Asian experience in America.

But Lucero is undaunted. "I don't think this is a perception we can live by," he said. "If the community is given something they can support, they will be there. There are signs that the perception that Asians don't give is erroneous."

With years of experience in media and public relations, Lucero hopes to raise ALC's visibility within the APA community and mainstream society. "We need to do a much better job of trumpeting what it is we do," he said.

Crafting a media and communications strategy is a high priority, Lucero said.

Coming back to the Bay Area is actually a homecoming for Lucero, who was born and raised in San Diego, but lived in San Francisco for nearly a decade.

In 1987, he became an intern at ALC, and later worked as a paralegal, community education coordinator, and public relations and information officer.

He has volunteered for the Asian Women's Shelter and the Indochinese Community Center -HIV/AIDS Project. He also worked on the legislative subcommittee of the Asian AIDS Task Force between 1987 and 1988.

"It feels comforting and familiar coming back to San Francisco," Lucero said. "It's so nice to come back to a community you call home."

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