Keith Kamisugi

A gang of AAPIs for Obama attended the California Democratic Party state convention yesterday in San Jose.  We were there specifically to attend the Asian American Pacific Islander caucus Friday afternoon and the caucus reception that evening to ensure that Obama supporters were visible at both.

In addition to Obama supporters Hacienda-La Puente Unified School District (LA) school board member Jay Chen, Curtis Chin of APA for Progress and Wayne Nishioka (who were both already attending planning on attending the convention), our group included Angelica Jongco, Brian Wang, Riya Kuo, Roger Hu and Arnold Kawano.

The AAPI caucus meeting — attended by a who’s who of AAPI electeds and activists in California — included short speeches by state Controller John Chiang, Assembly speaker-elect Karen Bass, Lieutenant Gov. John Garamendi, Board of Equalization member and Obama supporter Betty Yee and San Francisco supervisor candidate David Chiu.

The convention is dominated by primary battles by state candidates and presidential candidate visibility yesterday was limited to Obama and Clinton supporters holding signs outside the main convention floor.

The evening reception attendees included Democratic Party vice chair Congressman Mike Honda and featured remarks by new Assemblymember Warren Furutani and San Francisco City College Trustee candidate Steve Ngo, who is also an Obama supporter.

I also got a chance to see newly minted Superior Court judge Lucy Koh and meet Cupertino city council member Gilbert Wong. Yul Kwon and Mountain View city council member Margaret Abe-Koga came in to the reception just as our group was exiting.

Both the caucus and the reception showed how successful California AAPIs have been in achieving the political representation that our communities deserve, while at the same time highlighting how far we still have to go.  Assembly candidate Arlie Ricasa, for example, would only be the first Filipino American elected to the state Legislature, despite Fil-Ams being in the top four AAPI populations in the state.

Thanks to former Chico (Calif.) city council member Dan Nguyen-Tan for driving Angelica, David Chiu and me down to the convention and to Riya for driving us back to SF.

In photo: (front row, left to right) Brian Wang, Angelica Jongco, Riya Kuo, Karen Chang, Jay Chen, Clark Lee; (back row, left to right) Keith Kamisugi, Levin Sy and Curtis Chin.