With less than one week until the election, San Francisco’s mayoral candidates are stepping up their campaigning and targeting the Asian Pacific American population, particularly the Chinese.
According to the Chinese American Voters Education Committee (CAVEC), an estimated 78,000 APAs are registered to vote in the city, with Chinese Americans making up 70 percent of that number.
Honing in on the voting bloc, mayoral frontrunners Angela Alioto, Susan Leal, Matt Gonzalez, Tony Ribera and Gavin Newsom have made numerous appearances in Chinatown and the Sunset and Richmond districts. Storefronts and restaurants in these neighborhoods are plastered with campaign posters, signs that the mayoral hopefuls have passed through.
Out of the frontrunners, one candidate is slowly making a mark and leaving an impression with the Chinese American community. For many Chinese American voters, this candidate is an unlikely representative for the community, which has a lot of conservative and small business owners.
But Board of Supervisors President Gonzalez is slowly gaining ground with the Chinese American community, garnering support from both conservative, small business owners in the Sunset and new immigrants living in single-room Chinatown dwellings.
Gonzalez received the endorsement of the Community Tenants Association, a nonprofit organization formed by tenants representing low-income and working-class people. On Oct. 22, Gonzalez spoke with a group of elder Chinatown residents at a senior housing complex on Broadway, addressing affordable housing issues and listening to concerns from the tenants.
Tan Chow, a supporter of Gonzalez and a Chinatown community organizer, said more and more of the newly arrived Chinese immigrants are gravitating toward Gonzalez because Gonzalez is from an immigrant family and believes that politics is a tool to help improve peoples’ lives and to give power back to citizens.
“I believe Matt Gonzalez is the peoples’ mayor who may not have all the solutions, but he has the sincerity, passion and accessibility to work alongside people and bring solutions to the table,” said Chow. “I think mayoral platforms are like a paper tiger. However, his past records demonstrated his strong support for working immigrant families who are struggling to make a living in neighborhoods across the city.”
Chow added that Gonzalez’s strong position on protecting small family businesses from chain stores demonstrate his passion in always fighting for the “little guy.”
One of the “little guys” is Francis Wong. Wong, who owns a small Hong Kong-style café on Irving Street in Gonzalez’s supervisor district, said over the past years, he has seen a lot of change in the city, one of them being the gradual closures of mom-and-pop stores.
“There’s been so much gentrification in the city, and that brought it a lot of chain stores, which is forcing these small businesses to shut their doors forever or to relocate,” Wong said. “It’s a loss of culture. It’s not only happening in my neighborhood, but look at the Mission. If you go to the Mission now, they have restaurants that serve $7 burritos.”
But Wong said it is not only American chain stores that do harm to small businesses.
“There are Chinese chain stores too that harm small business owners like me,” Wong said. “Supermarket franchises or bubble-drink establishments with five stores threaten mom-and-pop stores.”
Wong said he supports Gonzalez because he feels Gonzalez can bring integrity to the city. Wong believes Gonzalez can understand concerns of regular citizens because Gonzalez is from a working-class family, rents an apartment and takes public transportation in the city. That, Wong says, makes him more credible when he addresses affordable housing for immigrant families and elders.
“In a recent story about Gonzalez published in Sing Tao, a Chinese-language newspaper, the article’s headline had, ‘Voice of the poor,’ “said Wong. “This is a powerful message. Other candidates talk about homelessness and affordable housing, but meanwhile they’re living in multi-million dollar homes.”
Wong said some Chinese Americans may view Gonzalez as too progressive, and cannot relate to many of his stances and issues; however, his stance against chain stores does attract voters.
“We’re conservative and we’re small business owners, but we’re trying to give him a chance,” Wong said. “From an immigrant perspective, he has a connection with us. And I see the genuineness and sincerity in him. He’s not just a politician to be a politician. And I know that many candidates show up at events to just get votes, but I feel that Gonzalez has truly made himself available to the Chinese community and other minority communities as well.”
Chow said he thinks it’s unfair to portray Gonzalez as being “too left or radical” because of his Green Party affiliation.
“I am a Democrat, but I see many of Gonzalez’s ideology carries the same Democratic values that the Democratic Party stood for in the past before the Democratic Party since the President Clinton years shifted to the center,” Chow said.
David Ho, a community organizer with Chinatown Community Development Center, also shares Chow’s sentiment. Ho says that Gonzalez’s belief of a clean government is something San Francisco desperately needs.
“Matt represents what is supposed to be good politics,” Ho said. “He gave up a lot of money being a public defender, and I really respect that and some of the personal choices Matt has made in his life. I think this is a really big attraction to people because it shows that he doesn’t do things for show.”