Asians in Politics: Tale of two cities

Ed Lee wins re-election in San Francisco.

THE RESULTS of the Nov. 3 off-year election put two Asian/American politicians from opposite coasts in the spotlight for entirely different reasons.

Ed Lee was easily reelected as Mayor of San Francisco, the propositions that he supported passed and the measures he opposed were rejected by the voters; so you would think he'd be riding high. His victories were offset by his single loss. One of his supervisors, Julie Christensen, lost to long-time critic and former president of the board of supervisors, Aaron Peskin. Peskin's victory could make Lee's next term a little rocky.

Peskin's upset of Christensen for the District 3 seat gives the progressives a 6-5 edge on the board of supervisors. During the campaign, he lost one of his top allies, power broker Rose Pak, who wanted him to endorse another candidate. 

The new majority among the 11 supervisors is more likely to temper Lee's efforts to woo more high-tech firms. It is also more likely to take positions that would slow or halt the gentrification of working class neighborhoods like the SoMa, the neighborhood where thousands of Filipinos have made their home, and Chinatown, supposedly Lee's base but where his candidate lost to one of his harshest critics.

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Both those neighborhoods, along with the predominantly Latino Mission District, are under siege by developers and landlords who are eager to raise their rents, driving out the very people who make those neighborhoods unique.

The importance of affordable housing was evidenced by the passage of Proposition A, the affordable housing bond strongly supported by the mayor. It provides up to $310 million for below-market-rate housing for low- and middle-income residents.

RELATED: Chinatown fights gentrification

Lee, despite his personal history of fighting for tenants rights, was backed the traditional power brokers including the developers, the high-tech industry, Democratic Party, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom. Peskin drew his broad-based support from organized labor and tenants' unions.

With the new Board of Supervisors, Lee will find it harder to find approval for his megaprojects that bring in loads of revenue to the city coffers. But a stronger emphasis will be put on protecting existing affordable housing, building more low-rent units. So expect developers to put up a howl when stronger conditions are put on them to add affordable housing to their projects.


The hurdles ahead for Lee can be in this quote, from Peskin: “It’s really about whether we are going to have a Board of Supervisors that is independent, that’s willing to stand up to the tech billionaires.”

Lewiston, Maine received the attention of Asian Americans when its mayor's race turned nasty.

Meanwhile, three-thousand miles away, in a city about as different from San Francisco as can be, mayoral candidate Ben Chin garnered the most votes but he didn't get enough win the mayorship of Lewiston, Maine. Underlying the mayoral contest was the question of race.

Chin, a Democrat running for mayor in Maine's second-largest city who was targeted last month with signs viewed widely viewed as racist, will face a runoff with the GOP incumbent on Dec. 8.

The 30-year-old, who is half-Chinese, was one of five candidates for mayor. As of early Wednesday morning, Chin had received 44 percent of the vote, according to the local newspaper, the Sun Journal. Incumbent Mayor Robert E. Macdonald received 37 percent. 

The Lewiston city charter says a runoff is needed when no candidate receives a majority of all votes. The runoff election is scheduled to take place on Dec. 8.

The mayor's race in Lewiston, (pop. about 36,000) grabbed national headlines when a McDonald supporter put up racist posters on buildings asking voters to "Don't vote for Ho Chi Chin," along with an image of a hammer and sickle. 

Ben Chin

Joseph Dunne, the property manager of Sullivan Property Management, which owns the buildings, told the Portland Press Herald he put up the signs because Chin had labeled him a "slumlord." when, as political director for Maine People's Alliance, issued a report last summer calling Dunne and two others "three of the city's worst landlords." 

Dunne later apologized and took down the signs saying the signs were intended to oppose Chin's policies.

Lewiston, a former mill town with a dying economy, is a small city undergoing a dramatic demographic change with the arrival of immigrants from Africa. The new residents are changing the complexion of the city with an Anglo-French heritage. By some estimates, 4,000 new immigrants have moved to Lewiston since 2001, and dozens are still arriving every month. Downtown still has the traditional pawnshops and bars, but scattered between them are stores catering to the immigrants. The public schools which were losing students for years saw a sudden spurt in enrollment. Local colleges like Andover College saw its enrollment increase  because incoming students preferred the diversity of the town over predominantly white college towns.

Lewiston, like several other small cities in the Northeast, are seeing their cities revived by the arrival of immigrants. And because they are relatively small, the immigrants' impact is greater than, say, in a city like San Francisco, which likes to tout its diversity.

Sure, change in cities like Lewiston is inevitable but the way its older residents react to the newcomers, will point the direction America will likely take in handling the growing diversity of its people.