February 15th is the Lantern Festival, the last day of the Chinese Lunar New Year Celebration. It also marks a new beginning for Asian Americans in San Francisco because it is an election day. A grass-roots campaign led by Asian American parents urged the city’s residents to recall three leftist school board members.
Parents’ main grievances against the school board included: extended school closure in the name of COVID19 responses and the board’s focus on performative social justice activities at the expense of education. For instance, rather than focusing on school reopening last spring, the board voted to rename 44 high schools with historical names such as Abraham Lincoln and George Washington.
The board also eliminated the academic performance-based admission process to Lowell High school, one of the best high schools in the city. Board president Lopez claimed grades and test scores were “biased towards Whites and Asians,” even though non-white students make up 75 percent of Lowell’s student body. Asian parents are worried that eliminating merit-based admission will result in fewer admissions for qualified Asian students.
Asian Americans are often known as the silent minority, meaning unlike some other ethnic groups, most Asian Americans are not politically active and usually avoid announcing their political opinions publicly. Running a political campaign is unthinkable to many Asian Americans, and this is why this recall campaign has surprised many outsiders of San Francisco, including myself.
On the election day, I decided to go to San Francisco’s Chinatown and find out why these Asian American parents are so passionate about the recall and their motivations.
On the sidewalk of Stockton street, next to a busy bus stop, I encountered three Asian Americans, Bayard Fong, Laurance Lee, and Kit Lam. All three gentlemen are fathers, long-time San Francisco residents, and dedicated volunteers for the “Yes” to recall campaign.
This video documents a portion of our interviews.
The recall campaign has won by a landslide and has been widely covered by mainstream media. Let’s not forget these fathers, volunteers, and concerned citizens. They are the unsung heroes of this movement.
If you like to know more about the SF school board recall, please see my op-ed in theFederalist.com here and here.
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