Mayors Talk About Running Their Cities
March 29, 2007
CUPERTINO, Calif. — Five Asian Pacific American mayors in Santa Clara county are rare considering how far the community has come since a Japanese American mother actively campaigned against her son, a Union City mayoral candidate, in 1959.
The first mayor of Asian American ancestry in the county was Tom Kitagawa of Union City, said San Jose/Evergreen community college trustee Randy Okamura.
“When he ran for mayor, it was his mother who campaigned against him and didn’t want him to be elected,’” Okamura said. “She talked to anybody and everybody in the community to make sure her son did not get elected mayor.”
Okamura noted, at the March 17 Asian Pacific American Leadership Institute senior fellows forum, that the election was nine years after the Japanese American internment. “The wounds of [internment] were probably so deep in her heart that she did not want to subject her son to public scrutiny.”
This thinking is not unfamiliar to Palo Alto mayor Yoriko Kishimoto, who rejected advice from a Japanese American candidate in 1970.
“His advice was don’t use your Japanese name. Use your husband’s name. My husband’s last name is Collins,” she laughed. “I ignored that advice.”
APA mayors, among them San Jose’s Norman Mineta in the early 1970s, have made inroads in the region. Since the 1990s, APA mayors — elected by city council or direct vote — have led such municipalities as Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Los Altos, Milpitas and Cupertino, where DeAnza College Professor Michael Chang served and later founded APALI.
The five mayors present at the APALI forum were all first generation immigrants. Jose Esteves who represents Milipitas harks from the Philippines; Aileen Kao who leads Saratoga came from Taiwan; Kishimoto emigrated from Japan; Otto Lee of Sunnyvale was born in Hong Kong; and Kris Wang, who governs Cupertino, is from Taiwan.
Although APAs have made strides, Sunnyvale mayor Lee warned, “We barely made it. Our community is still not as strong. It’s great for Santa Clara County, but we are nowhere near what is really needed to be properly represented.” APAs make up one-third of Santa Clara County’s population and occupy five out of 15 mayoral seats.
Lee and his colleagues shared some of their successes, failures, governing styles, and advice as mayors: “Ever since I was elected in 2004, voters ask me, ‘What are your pet projects?’ I have been saying to them, ‘I do not have pet projects.’ I do have a great passion to build this community with inclusivity.”
— Aileen Kao, Mayor of Saratoga
“My role as a councilmember is multicultural. There is an advocate part which is more American. My role as a councilmember and my relationship with staff is much more formal. I go back to my Japanese roots that way. There’s a lot more formality, relationships, relationship building, consensus building. Those are Japanese skills, as well as other cultures.”
— Yoshiko Kishimoto, Mayor of Palo Alto
“People have an image of an older, white person…. Why do we have that thinking? A lot of it is when we play monopoly. When you play monopoly, when you go to ‘Chance’ or ‘Community Chest,’ the mayor is bald when you pick up that card, with a top hat and long tails…. It’s important as APAs, we need to shatter those stereotypes.”
— Otto Lee, Mayor of Sunnyvale
“You’re going to lose your friends from voting. In the end you don’t have any friends. What you earn is the respect, if you show your integrity, your honesty, your passion to your constituents.”
— Kris Wang, Mayor of Cupertino
“My only suggestion that we be more ethical, and be less negative. When we won, regardless of the atmosphere, we should always be civil and show to the whole community. We are professional. The worst is you hate your fellow Asian.”
— Jose Esteves, Mayor of Milpitas
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