New Foreign Relations Chairman Gives Lunar Address
March 23, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO — Congressman Tom Lantos, chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, and wife Annette celebrated the Year of the Boar with a Chinatown banquet with over 200 San Francisco and San Mateo county Chinese Americans.
Lantos, looking forward to continuing his “countless” trips to China, talked about U.S. relations with the country.
“Nothing pleases me more than to see growing, positive relations between the great Chinese people and the United States of America,” he said.
“Although I grew up in a Eurocentric society, three of our grandchildren are fluent in Chinese. Two of them are getting PhD’s in Chinese culture and civilization,” he said to enthusiastic applause.
The 24-year veteran representative is a Hungarian Jew, Holocaust survivor and World War II anti-Nazi freedom fighter who immigrated to the U.S. in 1947.
Recently, China’s foreign minister received him, Annette and his two adult grandchildren.
‘The foreign minister gave each of them a delightful bamboo toy because he expected them to be tiny little children,” said Lantos.
In another gesture, Lantos joshed that “Chinese intelligence is very high quality. Somehow the foreign minister discovered that one of our grandsons has a son of his own — our first great-grandson.”
Lantos’s grandchild and his son were again invited by the Chinese ambassador for a private meeting with the foreign minister. According to “backchannels to the Chinese embassy,” said Lantos, “The foreign minister said ‘another small bamboo toy, this time for my great-grandson. And the age and toy — they’re a perfect match.’”
While foreign relations dominate Lantos’s priorities, he works on behalf of California’s 12th congressional district in San Mateo and San Francisco counties, which includes a constituency that is one-third Asian American as of 2005.
Claudine Cheng, former national executive director of the Organization of Chinese Americans, noted, “[Lantos] understands the struggle of Asian people. The fact that he has on his office staff a liaison to the Filipino community and a liaison to the Chinese community definitely demonstrates that he wants to [represent] people from many diverse communities.”
Representing Lantos’s office, Christine Padilla, program director for the Asian Heritage Street Celebration, works in the Filipino American community, while Jaynry Mak — who worked for S.F. Supervisor Fiona Ma — focuses on the Chinese American community.
David Wong, president of the S.F. Deputy Sheriffs Association and a resident in Lantos’s district, worked with a Lantos aide to help disadvantaged kids with donated school supplies.
“We were able to gather approximately 200 to 250 backpacks [with school supplies] to help [kids] go back to school,” said Wong.
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