Last summer, I spoke with a reporter on the growing number of Asian American who are winning top elected positions. A few months later, I ran across The Hill’s finished product, which profiles Congressmember Judy Chu’s rise to power:
Judy Chu was sitting down on Dec. 18 to what she describes as “a nice, quiet breakfast” at her desk at the California Board of Equalization when word spread that President-elect Barack Obama would nominate Rep. Hilda Solis (D-Calif.) to be Labor secretary.
Chu, a political veteran from Solis’s district, had an immediate, almost reflexive reaction.
“It dawned on me that it was possible to run for Congress,” she recounts.
Nearly seven months later, Chu, a Democrat, was sworn in as the country’s first female Chinese-American federal lawmaker. Her ascent to Congress, however, had a much longer buildup, one that early on earned her a place in the coterie of Asian American politicians.
She now joins Sens. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii), Rep. David Wu (D-Ore.) and eight others to make up the largest contingent of Asian Americans in Congress in history.
This group of 12 still far under-represents the Asian American population, but Chu and other experts say the ethnic group’s political maturity has reached a critical point. The trailblazers have now set an example for others to follow and proven their ability to maneuver in an arena that many Asian Americans used to shy away from, they say.
Your humble blogger even got a word in on how Asian Americans are building their political capital:
Gautam Dutta, the executive director of the Asian American Action Fund, a political action committee, says the Asian American community is just now building a “farm team” of leaders who can get elected to Congress.
“Asian Americans as a political group are relatively young,” he says. The AAA PAC has been in existence for 10 years, and Dutta predicts Asian American politicians’ continued success, especially considering what he sees as their prowess in netroots organizing.
Asian Americans have come of political age.
– Gautam Dutta
