warning Hi, we've moved to USCANNENBERGMEDIA.COM. Visit us there!

Neon Tommy - Annenberg digital news

Chinatown Residents Largely Undecided In L.A. Council District One Race

Evie Liu |
February 22, 2013 | 3:22 p.m. PST

Staff reporter

 

Chinatown's first-ever City Council Candidate's Forum. All seats occupied.
Chinatown's first-ever City Council Candidate's Forum. All seats occupied.

For the first time in a dozen years, L.A. city council candidates debated in a forum tailored toward the Asian American community Thursday. The forum was organized by the Asian Pacific American Legal Center (APALC). Four of the six candidates for Council District 1 - Gil Cedillo, Jose Gardea, Jesse Rosas, and William Morrisonor - participated.

“We are gonna have a new council member for the first time in 12 years, it’s very significant,” said An M Le, the Community Engagement Project Director of APALC.

According to a survey conducted by UCLA urban planning students, the top four key issues in the Chinatown community are job opportunity, public safety, healthcare and housing. With a renter rate as high as 91% and half of the households living with less than $20,000 income per year - much lower than the city’s average, development and investment are the most mentioned words during the forum. Voters threw questions to candidates, asking for their solutions to create more jobs and boost the local business. 

Yeraldin Gama from Pasadena said this was her first time being in this kind of meeting. She is considering voting on March 5 since “this is where I live, this is my backyard”. Gama has a love-and-hate attitude toward the development process in District 1.

“There is a lot going on, I want to know how it is going to affect us, what the aftermath is gonna be?" she said. "Will it benefit us or just drive everybody out?”

She expressed worry about the possible higher housing cost and life expenses. 

Despite large Asian population in District 1, no Asian candidate stands out in this election. It seems that former Assembly member Gil Cedillo and First Council District Chief of Staff Jose Gardea are leading in this race so far, but most voters interviewed said they hadn’t made up their mind yet.

The air between Cedillo and Gardea turns out to be very tense.

Endorsed by the Chamber of Commerce and Central City Association of L.A., Cedillo tried to persuade voters that he is very trustable by business developers and will bring investment and prosperity to this area.

However, Gardea is strongly opposed to the development model of downtown LA, claiming it is not community with affordable housing and will eliminate the living neighborhood. “The CRA (California Redevelopment Association) treated us as tourism destination. But we are not museum, we are community, we live here,” said Gardea.

He also pointed his finger at Cedillo by criticizing his opponent’s vague positon on the Walmart dispute, which has been a great concern for most residents in Chinatown. Diana Tan, a retired law staff, is actively involved with the Chinatown Community of Equatable Development’s effort to oppose the opening of Walmart in Chinatown, “It will hurt small businesses, create traffic problems, affect the community’s health, welfare and safety and hurt the community’s historical and cultural integrity.”

She is suspicious that Walmart will bring jobs to residents in Chinatown as it claimed.

“You know, it depends on their job requirements, as far as language skills and abilities. Right now I am not very positive about it," she said.

Other discussed issues were the pull-back of parking meters in front of businesses, the L.A. river revitalization plan and the culture preservation of Chinatown. 

Sign at entrance in both Chinese and English language.
Sign at entrance in both Chinese and English language.

There is a large group of Chinese, Korean and Southeast Asia community living in Chinatown, but the forum was not limited to Asian community. There were many Latino faces at the scene as well. According to the UCLA survey, 69% of the population in Council District 1 are Asian, followed by 17% Latino, 12% white and very few African-Americans It is a very diverse community with the highest foreign-born rate of the whole city - a stunning 72%.

There has always been a lot of attention paid to Asian American community about whether they vote and how they vote due to the low turnout. For this generation of residents in Chinatown, there is not much memory about government voting.

One of the reasons that Asian voters have a relatively low voting rate is the language access barrier. Many residents in Chinatown still have limited English proficiency and heavily rely on translated materials. Le quoted a survey that 70% of Korean voters actually need language assistance. Right now the city provides nine kinds of language assistance at targeted ballot spots. Voters can also request written translated forms by mail. 

Sarah Tseng is an UCLA student who has moved to Chinatown only 2 years ago. She was helping APALC at the event in providing translation and interpretation to voters.

“Here we have a lot of immigrants with limited English proficiency, it is harder for people to participate civically in the typical way, like in the neighborhood council and hearings at city hall," she said.

Sarah hoped to have more opportunity in the future to engage the community into public process through language service.

Another problem for Asian American voters is the different voting procedure and culture here from their home culture.

“People are not familiar with it, sometimes they have fears to be engaged (in voting) in their home country and bring some of the fears with them to the U.S., ” said Le. Some people gave living in the U.S. for decades, but still don’t know how voting works here. “They feel very intimidated by all the issues,” said Le. But she doesn’t agree with the prevalent assumption that Asian people are not interested in politics. “If you look at our home countries, Asian communities are fighting for the right to vote. They are very politicized.” 

This is the first time that the candidates for CD 1 have a public opportunity to communicate with voters and understand their concerned issues. Le thought it is important to educate people through community-based efforts and help them to understand issues and care about their own interests. “We can’t demand these candidates pay attention to us if we do not step up and take ownership of our community, ” said Le, claiming this is the main reason for this forum - to make sure the community voice in heard.

“We are soaring to build our community power, and others are gonna start listening to us,” Le said.

 

Reach reporter Evie Liu here or follow her on Twitter @Evie_xing.



 

Buzz

Craig Gillespie directed this true story about "the most daring rescue mission in the history of the U.S. Coast Guard.”

Watch USC Annenberg Media's live State of the Union recap and analysis here.

 
ntrandomness