U.S.A.
November 5, 2018
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 7
More diverse Orange County,
California, morphs from GOP past
By Michael R. Blood
The Associated Press
ULLERTON, Calif. — Pushy
midday shoppers nose their
carts through the Korean
market, stocking up on bottled
kimchi and seaweed spring rolls. A
few doors away, customers grab pho
to go at a Vietnamese takeout
counter. Across the street, lunchtime
diners line up for tacos “al pastor” —
spit-roasted
pork
—
at
a
Mexican-style taqueria.
It’s a snapshot of how much Orange
County, California, has changed.
For decades, the county southeast
of Los Angeles represented an
archetype of middle-class America, a
place whose name evoked a “Brady
Bunch” conformity set amid free-
ways, megachurches, and Disney-
land’s spires. The mostly white,
conservative homeowners voted with
timeclock regularity for Republican
candidates like Richard Nixon, whose
getaway from Washington, the
Western White House, sat on the
coast.
The Korean barbecue shops and
Mexican bakeries along Orange-
thorpe Avenue in Fullerton are a
signpost of the shifting demographics
and politics that have emboldened
Democrats eager to flip four
Republican-held U.S. House seats in
Orange County. The districts, partly
or completely within the county, went
to Hillary Clinton in the 2016
presidential election and have
become closely watched national
battlegrounds as part of Democrats’
strategy to retake it in November.
In an election season shaped by
divisions over President Donald
Trump and the #MeToo movement
against sexual misconduct, perhaps
the most telling evidence of the
changing county is in the 39th
Congressional District.
The seat is held by long-serving
Republican representative Ed Royce,
a
pillar
of
the
Washington
establishment who, like most of his
party’s nearly all-male leadership in
congress, is older and white.
The contest to succeed the retiring
congressman is between two very
different candidates: Young Kim, a
South Korean immigrant Republican
woman, and Gil Cisneros, a Hispanic
Democratic man.
The racially mixed ballot has
opened questions about the relevance
of party labels, race, and the
inclination to embrace one’s own. It
comes as Hispanics and Asians
together now make up the majority of
Orange County’s 3.2 million people.
In 1980, about 80 percent of the
population was white.
The once-dominant Republican
Party also is clinging to a tissue-thin
edge over Democrats in voter regis-
tration numbers — a dropoff that
reflects not just the arrival of new
faces but their more liberal politics.
Kim is trying to become the first
Korean-American woman elected to
congress. She represents the kind of
candidate the state GOP has been
trying to cultivate for years to reflect
a more diverse population.
F
BELOVED RESIDENT. This undated photo shows Asian elephant
Sujatha at the Santa Barbara Zoo in Santa Barbara, California. The zoo
said it had to euthanize Sujatha, one of its most beloved and oldest resi-
dents, after experiencing declining health for the past few years. (Santa
Barbara Zoo via AP)
California zoo
euthanizes beloved
47-year-old elephant
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (AP) — A California zoo had
to euthanize one of its most beloved and oldest residents, a
47-year-old Asian elephant named Sujatha, officials said.
Sujatha was euthanized in her enclosure surrounded by
her caretakers at the Santa Barbara Zoo.
CEO Rich Block said in a video posted on Twitter that
Sujatha’s death “is perhaps the most difficult moment” in
his 20 years at the facility.
“And I know for the people that care for the elephants
this may be the toughest moment in their entire career,”
Block said. “There is no way to describe the sadness that is
felt.”
Sujatha had been in declining health for the past few
years but was able to live comfortably with treatment,
Block said. Her wellbeing declined precipitously in the
past couple weeks and she stopped responding to
treatment, he said.
Sujatha and her female companion, Little Mac, arrived
at the zoo from India in 1972, when they were just
one-and-a-half years old, and they’ve lived together ever
since.
After Sujatha was euthanized, zoo officials said they
allowed Little Mac to visit her in hopes of helping the
grieving process.
Zoo officials say elephants are known to grieve for their
companions and that if Little Mac is too distraught, she
could have to be moved to another facility.
Block praised Sujatha and Little Mac for being
“ambassadors for Asian elephants in Santa Barbara for 46
years.”
“Children who first met them in the 1970s have brought
their own children, and some even their grandchildren, to
meet these wonderful creatures,” Block said in a
statement. “We are grateful to Sujatha and Little Mac for
how they have enriched all our lives.”
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DIVERSE RACE. Young Kim, a candidate running for a U.S. House seat in the 39th District in
California, talks to volunteers working an evening phone bank at her campaign office in Yorba Linda,
California. Kim is trying to become the first Korean-American woman elected to congress. A sign of
the change is in the 39th District, where the Korean immigrant Republican, Kim, is running against
Gil Cisneros, a Hispanic Democrat. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)
Kim, 55, was born in South Korea block in the modern conservative
and grew up in Guam, then later movement and the rise of the Reagan
came to California for college. She revolution.
became a small-business owner and
Fullerton, like Orange County, was
was elected to the state assembly.
once known for groves of Valencia
She’s running as Royce’s preferred oranges that blanketed its landscape
successor after working for him for and oil fields that lay beneath it. That
years, but her path is complicated by changed with the development of
Trump, who is unpopular in a state California’s freeway system, which
where
Democrats
hold
every created the transportation arteries
statewide office and a 39-14 that gave rise to a vast Sunbelt
advantage in house seats.
suburbia.
Kim talked up the robust economy
After World War II, jobs in defense
at a recent campaign stop, but she’s and manufacturing were plentiful.
also emphasizing her independence The population boomed, and many of
from the White House on issues like the new arrivals were from the
trade. She’s not in favor of increased Midwest, and conservative in their
tariffs imposed by the administra- outlook.
tion.
Those voters, alienated by the rise
She never mentioned the president of national liberalism, “ended up
in a brief speech.
building the Ronald Reagan move-
“I’m a different kind of candidate,” ment,” said Raphael Sonenshein, exe-
she said.
cutive director of the Pat Brown Insti-
As a Democrat, Cisneros, 47, knows tute for Public Affairs at California
he’s the face of change in the State University, Los Angeles.
long-held GOP district, anchored in
Several trends have been making
northern Orange County and the county more favorable for
running through slices of neighboring Democrats over time, said Paul
Los Angeles and San Bernardino Mitchell of Political Data Inc., a
counties.
He
sees
shifting nonpartisan research firm. Among
demographics as an asset: the district them: more Latinos and Asians are
has grown about equally divided registering as independents and
between Republicans, Democrats, fewer as Republicans.
and independents, as it is with
Much of that can be attributed to
Asians, Hispanics, and whites.
the
preferences
of
younger
Cisneros, a Navy veteran and Californians,
who
have
been
one-time Republican who won a eschewing major-party labels.
$266-million lottery jackpot with his
Another big change is with the
wife, describes his candidacy as the voting habits of Asians. A surge in
next step in a life committed to public immigration from Southeast Asia in
service, which started with his time the post-Vietnam War years brought
in the military. He has said he left the in a wave of strongly anti-communist
GOP because it became deeply voters. But younger Asians grew up
conservative, adding in a recent in a different era.
interview that voters are eager to see
Millennial Asians “are some of the
a change in gridlocked Washington.
most liberal voters in the state,”
“This is not the same district that it Mitchell said.
was 15, or even 10 years ago,” he said.
On a recent afternoon outside a
Orange County might seem like an library in Yorba Linda — the city
unlikely battleground in the fight to where Nixon was born and where his
control congress. In popular culture, presidential library was built —
it is a place often reduced to initials, 76-year-old
retired
computer
“the O.C.,” and a stereotype: a programmer Don Jacques of Brea
wealthy enclave of buff residents said he welcomes the diversity on the
living in conspicuous excess on hill- ballot. The registered Democrat and
sides overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
Cisneros supporter has lived in the
Overlooked is the county’s political county since childhood.
pedigree:
Its
Republican-rich
“It’s about time for this kind of
suburbs are seen as a foundation change,” Jacques said.
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