 |
| Common Cause director Jonathan Mehta Stein |
By Akemi Tamanaha
ASAM NEWS
On Friday morning, armed with a cup of homemade lemongrass chai, Jonathan Mehta Stein began his first day as executive director of California Common Cause.
The non-partisan political advocacy group announced Stein as their new executive director on Thursday, April 30. The announcement was followed by a conversation between Stein and outgoing executive director Kathay Feng on Facebook live. AsAmNews spoke with Stein about his work as an advocate and his plans for California Common Cause.
Stein, who currently lives in Oakland, considers himself a “California kid through and through.” He grew up in Cupertino, California from the late 80s through the 90s when much of the area was still filled with orchards.
Stein’s father was White and his mother was an Indian American immigrant. She came to the US without money and access to networks. Her experience, according to Stein, was what “one might expect for an immigrant woman with an accent in the Midwest in the 1970s.”
“In many ways I do what I do because of my mom and her experience as an immigrant,” Stein said.
His mother taught Stein and his brother from a very young age that every voice matters. She also made sure that he and his brother understood that as two American White men they would have opportunities she never had.
“I took from that a sense of service that I had a responsibility to use the relative privilege that I have,” Stein said.
Stein attended Lynbrook High School, a school in Cupertino near San Jose, whose student body is majority Asian American. After high school, he spent eight years on the East Coast after graduating high school. He attended Harvard University and earned his BA in English literature. He said that transitioning from a diverse place like Cupertino to the Northeast was a big adjustment. He knew that he would eventually return to California.
After graduating from Harvard in 2005, Stein spent four years working as a journalist before he decided to pursue a career in political advocacy.
“Over time I grew tired of writing about people who were making social and political change and wanted to be someone who made social and political change,” Stein said.
The best way to pursue a career in political advocacy was to be as prepared as possible. For Stein, that meant going to graduate school and law school to acquire the “credentials needed to take on the world.”
Stein enrolled in a public policy program at University of California, Berkeley. The program allowed him to concurrently earn his Masters in Public Policy and his JD. After graduating from law school in 2013, Stein was hired as a staff attorney for the ACLU where he worked as a voting rights attorney. In 2016, he continued his work in voting rights at the Asian Law Caucus. When Stein arrived, the Asian Law Caucus’ voting rights program had been dormant for several years. By the time he left in 2020 to work with California Common Cause, the program had grown into a state-wide leader in ensuring language access for limited English or non-English speaking voters.
On Friday morning, armed with a cup of homemade lemongrass chai, Jonathan Mehta Stein began his first day as executive director of California Common Cause.
The non-partisan political advocacy group announced Stein as their new executive director on Thursday, April 30. The announcement was followed by a conversation between Stein and outgoing executive director Kathay Feng on Facebook live. AsAmNews spoke with Stein about his work as an advocate and his plans for California Common Cause.
Stein, who currently lives in Oakland, considers himself a “California kid through and through.” He grew up in Cupertino, California from the late 80s through the 90s when much of the area was still filled with orchards.
Stein’s father was White and his mother was an Indian American immigrant. She came to the US without money and access to networks. Her experience, according to Stein, was what “one might expect for an immigrant woman with an accent in the Midwest in the 1970s.”
“In many ways I do what I do because of my mom and her experience as an immigrant,” Stein said.
His mother taught Stein and his brother from a very young age that every voice matters. She also made sure that he and his brother understood that as two American White men they would have opportunities she never had.
“I took from that a sense of service that I had a responsibility to use the relative privilege that I have,” Stein said.
Stein attended Lynbrook High School, a school in Cupertino near San Jose, whose student body is majority Asian American. After high school, he spent eight years on the East Coast after graduating high school. He attended Harvard University and earned his BA in English literature. He said that transitioning from a diverse place like Cupertino to the Northeast was a big adjustment. He knew that he would eventually return to California.
After graduating from Harvard in 2005, Stein spent four years working as a journalist before he decided to pursue a career in political advocacy.
“Over time I grew tired of writing about people who were making social and political change and wanted to be someone who made social and political change,” Stein said.
The best way to pursue a career in political advocacy was to be as prepared as possible. For Stein, that meant going to graduate school and law school to acquire the “credentials needed to take on the world.”
Stein enrolled in a public policy program at University of California, Berkeley. The program allowed him to concurrently earn his Masters in Public Policy and his JD. After graduating from law school in 2013, Stein was hired as a staff attorney for the ACLU where he worked as a voting rights attorney. In 2016, he continued his work in voting rights at the Asian Law Caucus. When Stein arrived, the Asian Law Caucus’ voting rights program had been dormant for several years. By the time he left in 2020 to work with California Common Cause, the program had grown into a state-wide leader in ensuring language access for limited English or non-English speaking voters.
No comments:
Post a Comment