What are we … APAs [Asian Pacific Americans]? APIs [Asian Pacific Islanders]? APIAs [Asian Pacific Islander Americans]?” rallied actress and activist Tamlyn Tomita. “Foremost, we are Americans! Shame on us if we don’t kick out the current administration!”
Identity politics and activism were the running thread for APAs at the opening of the 44th Democratic National Convention in Boston.
“Power is taken, not given,” exclaimed John Chiang, member of the California Board of Equalization and candidate for state treasurer in 2006.
Over 200 APA delegates and alternates, including those representing Guam and American Samoa, were charging their political batteries to galvanize support at home in the next 100 days before the presidential election. California, the de facto APA hub, boasts about 25 percent of the delegates.
Bill Lann Lee, the former U.S. assistant attorney general for civil rights in the Clinton administration, touted Kerry as the man who will build “a strong American community” and protect civil liberties. Lee, now a San Francisco law firm partner at Lief, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein, and San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris are two APAs who serve on the Democratic Platform Committee.
The gavel-to-gavel activities pulled in prime time across the nation. A glutton of galas and private parties until 2 a.m. has conventioneers drawing on caffeine and adrenaline. Delegates and alternates numbered about 5,000. Add in guests and media, and the number jumps to about 35,000 stuffed in and near “convention central” at the Fleet Center.
The APIA Gala — “Profiles in Courage: Uniting America” — drew in over 500 guests. Gala chair Vida Benevides was “tired but energized.” Political veterans were heartened to see throngs of high school and college students on the volunteer rosters.
“I find politics fascinating and intriguing,” said Jameson Lam, a 17-year-old volunteer from Sunnyvale, Calif. He has taken on the first-hand civics lesson under the tutelage of mentor Randy Okumura, the Northern California chair of the APA Caucus.
“APAs need to speak up,” Okumura said. “We can ask for commission spots and cabinet positions, but first we need to get Kerry in office.”
Okumura surmises that Labor Secretary Elaine Chao is playing Republican party politics and believes that there is room for political differences among APAs.
“The APA community has matured enough to have political differences,” Okumura said. “But issues like civil rights should not be a partisan issue.”
James Fang, AsianWeek president, was on hand to greet guests.
“We’re very honored to participate in this host event celebrating APA participation,” Fang said. “The numbers have doubled from the 2000 convention. This is an important benchmark for APAs and Democrats.”
Keith Umemoto, chair of the DNC Asian Pacific Islander American Caucus, asked for a mid-program moment of silence to honor APA political pioneer Mary Miyashita who passed away earlier this year. Star Trek star George Takei recalled that when he was a delegate in 1972 along with Miyashita and Umemoto’s late father, Kazuo, one could count the number of APA delegates on two hands.
The recipe for a successful campaign still points to the dollars. A highlight on the first day of the convention came with the news that Dr. Stan Toy, a Los Angeles-based emergency-room doctor, was just named deputy national finance director for the Kerry campaign.
“We have arrived,” said veteran public affairs consultant Catherine Matsuyo Tompkison-Graham, vice chair for Kerry’s National Finance Committee and an at-large delegate.
Otto Lee, a patent attorney and Sunnyvale City Councilmember, was a star fundraiser for the Kerry campaign. He noted that there still weren’t many APA faces among the VIPs. He shared his favorite quote of the first night from Al Gore’s speech: “Let’s not have the Supreme Court determine the next president. Let’s not have the president determine the next Supreme Court.”
Paul Igasaki, a former EEOC commissioner, acknowledged that historically APAs have only been tapped for their donations, but said the APA dialogue with Democratic Party leaders and the Kerry campaign has been positive.
‘There are three M’s in a campaign — money, message and mechanics,” said California’s Chiang. “Everybody has a message, but in the absence of the other two M’s, you can’t be effective in the political process.
“Clinton did well in APA policies but not in the number of APAs in the administration; Bush has done well in the number of APAs but not in policies,” Igasaki summarized. “I am hopeful that Kerry will do well in both policies and numbers.”
Julie D. Soo, staff counsel for the California Department of Insurance, was elected as a San Francisco district-level delegate for John Kerry. Sam Chu Lin contributed to this story.