October 2022 Newsletter
PAAWBAC News | October 17th, 2022
Greetings PAAWBAC Friends and Supporters,
The General Election is quickly approaching on November 8, 2022. In a time when women's rights are at risk in many states as a result of Roe v. Wade being overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, leaving women's reproduction rights in the hands of the states. Many of which are fighting hard against extremely restrictive abortion laws and initiatives with over 20 million women’s rights at risk.
This newsletter focuses on the details and importance of the upcoming election. We also had the pleasure of interviewing Carmen Chu, our SF City Administrator and former PAAWBAC Monarch awardee for this month’s spotlight.
Sincerely,
PAAWBAC Board of Directors
Election Timeline
General Election - November 8, 2022
Secretary of State's office will mail the Official Voter Information Guide during this period & County Election offices will mail the County Voter Information Guide during this period: September 29 - October 18, 2022
Early Voting sites are open: October 10 - November 7, 2022
All counties shall open ballot drop-off locations for vote-by-mail ballots. To find a location please visit: https://caearlyvoting.sos.ca.gov/ : October 10 - November 8, 2022
Last day to register to vote for the general election. To check your voter registration status visit MyVoterStatus : October 24, 2022
Same Day Registration available. Voters can "conditionally" register and vote a provisional ballot during this time : October 25 - November 8, 2022
Election Day - Polls shall be open throughout the state from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. : November 8, 2022
Key points from the National Asian Pacific Women’s Forum
Eighty-five percent of AAPI women support abortion access and we will take our collective voice to the ballot box during the upcoming midterm elections in November.
Ensuring access to safe and affordable reproductive health care is one of our top priorities. Collectively, we will send this message to our elected officials and decision makers that all individuals deserve to have the personal authority to make decisions about their own bodies.
This is our fight. This impacts all of us.
Our diversity is our greatest strength. As AAPI organizations, community members, along with our allies, we believe in reproductive justice and the freedom to grow the families of our choice, to thrive, and to live healthy lives.
Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) women face unique barriers to abortion*:
AAPI working women are overrepresented in the frontline and service industry, often working without health insurance let alone paid medical or family leave.
Sixty-six percent of Asian Americans and 30 percent of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders speak a language other than English at home and experience difficulties in accessing health care due to language barriers.
AAPI women face an increased risk of criminalization for their pregnancy outcomes because of racial profiling rooted in anti-immigrant sentiments and sex-selective abortion bans.
Nearly two-thirds of Asian Americans and one-fifth of Pacific Islanders are foreign-born and the criminalization of abortion heightens fears of adverse immigration consequences for undocumented individuals, refugees, and other immigrants regardless of their immigrant status.
Spotlight
Interview with Carmen Chu, City Administrator for the City & County of San Francisco
Carmen Chu, the first Asian American woman to serve as City Administrator, has served the City and County of San Francisco for over 17 years. She was Deputy Director of the Mayor’s Office of Public Policy and Finance starting in 2004. In 2007 Mayor Gavin Newsom appointed Carmen to a vacancy on the Board of Supervisors, and she thereafter was elected to the position, serving until 2013, when Mayor Ed Lee appointed her as Assessor-Recorder. She successfully ran for election for that post. In February 2021, Mayor London Breed appointed Carmen as City Administrator. In July 2022, Governor Newsom appointed her to the Board of Regents of the University of California.
PAAWBAC recognized Carmen with a Monarch leadership award in 2012, and she has been a consistent supporter of the organization since then. On September 23, 2022, Carmen took time from her busy schedule to be interviewed via Zoom by PAAWBAC Board members Kathy Lee and Theresa Lee.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
KL: You have achieved so much, Carmen, both personally and professionally. What are some achievements you consider most impactful or meaningful, and why?
CC: Personally, I feel proud that I’ve been able to really push myself to be uncomfortable in situations. As a young girl I was really shy and introverted, and I still am. Being in an elected role previously and in my role now is a very public face. To be able to put myself out there in vulnerable and uncomfortable situations is something I’m very proud of.
Professionally, I’m really proud of the work I’ve put in for public service. Whether I was on the Board of Supervisors, as Assessor or now as City Administrator, I always keep in mind the public purpose, not my own personal gain. I figure out what’s best for the community and remember the people who do not have a voice and might not be as willing or as comfortable coming out to speak. On the Board I set the foundation for physical and capital investments in our neighborhood, like playgrounds, parks, and library services. Those things matter to generations of people to come in my neighborhood, and that’s really important to me.
As Assessor, I turned around an organization viewed as very poor performing in the State of California and turned things around so that by the time I left we were one of the best counties when it came to county assessments in the state. I did that with my team -- these were as much their achievements as they were mine.
I’ve been City Administrator only over a year but it has gone by quickly. Everything that happens in this city in some way or form you touch a piece of it in the City Administrator’s office. I have done a lot of work to set a foundation to do that work effectively and make our processes easier. I’m focusing on core things that may sound incredibly boring but can cause an organization to fail.
TL: Who are the key people that supported your career? How have you supported yourself? And how have they supported you?
CC: I can’t name a single person. To do my job you have to have a village to support you, starting with my family – my husband, my parents, and my sisters -- you really need that to have a 3-year-old daughter. They have consistently sacrificed to help give me time to focus on what I do.
There have been a million community members who have been my rock. They lift my spirits and I can’t say enough about them. Then there are the people who gave me a chance and trusted in my ability and intentions: Gov. Newsom, former Mayor Ed Lee, and current Mayor London Breed.
Many in the City family are consummate professionals with a clear public purpose who I lean on because they’re doing just as hard work alongside me.
KL: You have been a consistent and strong supporter of PAAWBAC through the years, having been a Monarch awardee yourself. How can PAAWBAC continue to support AAPI activities that we should undertake?
CC: This is connected to the next question about challenges AAPI women face. Women are not in as many leadership positions as we should. There is a perception, which I believe is wrong, that AAPI women are more docile, or less of a leader, less willing to make bold changes. Speaking from personal experience, we are raised to be humble and don’t talk about our abilities or our accomplishments. We talk more about other people, putting us at a detriment when it comes to career growth, opportunities for leadership, or general visibility. I like the idea of mentorship to connect with women who have been there or who have gone the path you have. We might not be aware of how the way we were raised inhibits our ability to grow.
Also, for seeking leadership positions, how can PAAWBAC find opportunities to put people in roles such as commissions? I have heard that women need to be asked and to be convinced that they have the skillset to do these jobs. Being able to help people through that path and encourage people in our network is something PAAWBAC would be really good at.
As City Administrator seeking leaders in my own organization, I’ve had to convince many women, not just AAPI women, who are now directors, that they would be able to do the job and that I will support them to help them be successful. They’re doing an amazing job, but it took conversation and convincing; investing the time to ask what causes the hesitation. So how do we help our AAPI women? through entities like PAAWBAC, to create that pipeline to encourage people to jump at these opportunities.
It’s very helpful when you reach some level of success, when talking to someone 20 years younger going through the same struggles, you tell them I was scared to take that job and I didn’t think I could do it. It validates their feelings and they realize you were able to get through that; so I can too. Sharing experiences is pretty powerful.
TL: How has being a mom impacted your ability to manage what you do at work and at home as well? And what advice do you have for other working moms?
CC: We should think about why we only ask that question of mothers, and maybe we need to start asking men this same question very consciously: ‘How are you doing work/life balance? How are you supporting your family?’ Because men also have families.
But I will say that it is SO incredibly hard to be a mother and working at the same time. The perception is that there’s always going to be work/life balance and we can figure it all out, but honestly, something takes priority over another and you just have to roll with it. So the advice I have for working moms is - don’t be so hard on yourself, and don’t strive for that perfect thing, because it doesn’t exist! It’s just hard and you will be better off if you recognize that no one else has it perfectly balanced; that there’s always going to be that give-and-take and you don’t have to do it the same way anybody else does it.
KL: Moving to the upcoming elections at all levels of government, what are your thoughts on what we can do to help ensure that the results will support policies in the future that will be beneficial for women and AAPI women?
CC: First, I think we all know the fundamentals in terms of registering people to vote and getting people to vote; to not take for granted their vote and to not think that their vote won’t count, because it will.
The other thing we struggle with in our democracy right now is the toxicity in which we’re having public policy and public debates about the direction of our country and how to solve really tough problems. There’s an intolerance in our cultural fabric right now that anyone who disagrees with you is automatically meritless and evil. We have to be more nuanced because some problems aren’t black and white. This is true for all the hard topics we face, including race. We don't progress because we can’t have honest conversations about race. So aside from the basics of registering and voting, it’s also to create a space for dialogue and honest conversation that is safe for people to express what they don’t know; what they need to know; maybe explore the biases that they have. That’s hard to do but it could be really helpful for shaping the future.
TL: How have you made the City Administrator’s Office more effective one?
CC: I believe fundamentally that the City Administrator’s office can and should be focused on two things: 1) We should be figuring out the efforts we can undertake to help the City run better, period. There is no other organization like us, because this office has 27 divisions and departments reporting to us, so there’s a lot of opportunities to collaborate and break down silos and figure out core government processes that need to run better for us to succeed. This is something unique to the City Administrator’s office – we’re involved with policy from the Mayor and the Board, and we have their trust; and we also have the purview of a whole host of departments and divisions, so we are in a position to leverage cross-departmental change.
2) The other amazing thing about the City Administrator Office is our wide portfolio of work, from running the Moscone Convention Center, to contracting for IT services, to the Medical Examiner, to real estate management, to capital planning. It’s important to me to create opportunities to bring in people who are interested in serving the public interest and want to utilize their time in the City Administrator’s Office to get a broad exposure of how to run an organization well, and help build that next generation of leaders in public service.
KL: Carmen, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us.