Koreans want Flushing Council seat

Photographs by Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times - At least two Korean-Americans are running for the City Council seat of John C. Liu in Flushing, Queens: Ronald Kim, left, and S. J. Jung



May 6, 2009
Korean New Yorkers Hope for Council Seat in Queens, Their First
By KIRK SEMPLE

You hear it a lot these days among New York’s Korean-Americans, a heady declaration of political entitlement: “It’s our time.”

Korean-Americans number more than 132,000 in the state, according to the latest census figures, and have become a significant economic force in the New York region. Yet none have ever been elected to the New York City Council, the State Legislature or any statewide office.

But now that John C. Liu, a Chinese-American who represents Flushing, Queens, on the City Council, is running for city comptroller, many Korean-American civic leaders and political operatives say this is the opportunity they have been waiting for.

Two Korean-American candidates have announced they will run for Mr. Liu’s seat: S. J. Jung, a community organizer, and Ronald Kim, Gov. David A. Paterson’s regional representative for Queens. A third, John Choe, Mr. Liu’s chief of staff, said he might also jump into the fray, and there has been talk of still others.

The growing field mirrors the increasing visibility of Koreans — not just in Mr. Liu’s ethnically diverse district, where a Koreatown of restaurants, shops and other businesses thrives, but also across the region, where the contest is drawing interest and money from Korean-Americans. Chung-Wha Hong, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, said this could be “a decisive moment” in the political maturation of the Korean-American community.

“They’re exploding onto the scene,” said Ms. Hong, who is Korean-American. “I think the Council race is only one manifestation of that.” (Ms. Hong has thrown her personal support behind Mr. Jung, though her organization is nonpartisan.)

For all the excitement, victory for a Korean-American candidate is far from guaranteed. With the primaries still more than four months away, the contest to succeed Mr. Liu in the overwhelmingly Democratic 20th Council District is already shaping up as one of the season’s most dynamic and intriguing local races.

The field is crowded. Three Chinese-Americans — a community activist and former teacher, a Queens Democratic Party district leader, and a businessman who is the only Republican running so far — have announced their candidacies, as have a Greek-American college student and a civic activist and retired cancer researcher of Sephardic Jewish heritage.

The ethnic diversity of the district, which covers a swath of northeast Queens, is reflected in the voice-mail greeting on Mr. Liu’s office phone: “Thanks for calling,” Mr. Liu, who was born in Taiwan, says on the message. “For English, press two; Spanish three.” He then cycles through options in Korean, Chinese, Russian and Greek.

The Asian-American population in the district has grown rapidly over the last three decades, to more than half of the total population. Residents of Chinese descent are by far the largest ethnic group, composing about 32 percent of the population and outnumbering Korean-Americans by roughly 2.5 to 1, according to calculations by Andrew A. Beveridge, a Queens College demographer, based on the latest census statistics.

The election of Mr. Liu, in 2001, was hailed as a watershed for the Chinese-American community, which had long been shut out of the political mainstream. Mr. Liu, the only person of Asian descent ever to sit on the City Council, easily won re-election in 2003 and 2005.

The number of Korean-Americans in the district has actually declined slightly over the last decade, but the number in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut has increased by about 19 percent, according to census data.

Korean-American leaders say that larger community is now politically mature and organized enough to elevate one of its own.

Ms. Hong said that in recent years, a variety of Korean-American advocacy groups around the region had become more politically active and sophisticated, learning how to mobilize their community and lobby elected officials on welfare and immigration matters. They have forged ties with more-established civil rights and immigrant rights groups.

Yonghwa Ha, president-elect of the Korean-American Association of Greater New York, said a record voter turnout in late March for the association’s presidential elections reflected the increasing political participation of the community. In that election, more than 15,000 people voted in New York City and New Jersey.

Though anyone of Korean descent was eligible to vote, regardless of legal status, Mr. Ha said he hoped to harness that enthusiasm and register more Korean-American voters in time for the City Council election. “I want that fever,” he said.

Community leaders say Korean-American money from around the region has already been flowing into the candidates’ campaigns in District 20.

But political analysts say it is unlikely a candidate can win without cobbling together broad support spanning various ethnic and racial groups. According to Evan Stavisky, a Democratic political consultant who lives in the district, about 35 percent of the registered voters there are Asian-American, a roughly equal number are white, 20 percent are Latino and 10 percent are African-American.

“In communities like Flushing, there’s no one single group that’s capable of delivering an election to their favorite son or daughter,” Mr. Stavisky said. “Instead, you not only must galvanize your own constituency but you need to be able to break through to other groups, putting aside any historic differences or tensions between the communities.”

In interviews, some Korean-American candidates took pains to distance themselves from ethnic labels.

“I’ve been a bridge builder,” said Mr. Jung, who showed up with a multiethnic, multidenominational group of supporters to celebrate his campaign’s start in April. “I’ve worked with diverse communities.”

Mr. Kim, Governor Paterson’s representative, said he was “not just running as a Korean person.”

“I’m just a local kid from Queens,” he said. “I just want to represent the district and want to represent everybody in that district.”

Still, they will have to win Korean votes. And community leaders intent on electing one of their own admit that the more Korean-Americans in the race, the less likely it is that any one will win enough of that natural base to prevail. Indeed, if the field still remains crowded come Primary Day, Sept. 8, the Korean-American community may well find that it has been too successful in spurring political involvement.

“If three Koreans come out, you have no chance,” declared Fred Fu, a prominent Chinese-American member of the Flushing business community. “When you say this is the year for a Korean, you say ‘Korean,’ not ‘Koreans.’ No ‘s!’ ”

Few forces could break a logjam of candidates like an endorsement from Mr. Liu. The councilman said in an interview last Wednesday that he would probably “weigh in,” but would hold off until the roster of candidates crystallized, perhaps at the beginning of June.

“It’s definitely fever pitch among the Korean-American community to once again make history in Flushing,” he said. “The community is organized and galvanized.”

Plan to Redevelop Willets Point

A blight, this place. I went there this past Monday; it really is disgusting.

The city has deals to acquire about a third of the privately owned land in an enclave in Queens.

Let the Meals Begin: Finding Beijing in Flushing

Just around 9.30 this morning I went to downtown Flushing, and got breakfast before going into Macy's to shop for new shirts (got four). I bought a dozen steamed pork buns from a little railroad store (literally under the LIRR tracks); 4 for $1.25, or 3.75 for the dozen. I also went to the corner shop on 41st and Main, and bought this concoction I first ate last week: a little dollop of pork meat (they also have beef and shrimp) put on a flat metal plate, a mixture of what seems flour is poured, and the entire thing is put inside an oven for a minute or so; it is then sliced, and put in a styrofoam container, soy sauce added. A buck fifty. Delicious. Also got an iced coffee from a Korean bakery shop. (That flour might be potato flour.)

Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times. Putting toppings on shaved ice sold at a food court inside Flushing Mall.

SEATED at a rickety table, saltshaker poised above a bowl of delicate chicken-and-ginseng soup, the young Taiwanese woman considered a question: why not use soy sauce?
“Soy sauce is so American,” she said finally. “It makes everything taste the same.”

Agreed. What you taste ius soy sauce, not the food. Ditto for putting salt on food.

Everything tastes different in Flushing, Queens, the best neighborhood in New York for tasting the true and dazzling flavors of China.

The number of stores is amazing. Traffic is awful, and the streets are crowded, too. (Yuk, yuk. Truly, both the streets and sidewalks are jam-packed.

“From the 1970s until recently, the Taiwanese dominated Flushing, along with Koreans,” he said. “Now it is people from all over mainland China.” Fujian, on the southeast coast, is still the primary source of immigrants to New York, he said, but many who arrive from there actually have roots in the north, center and west of China.

He being Pyong Gap Min, sociology professor at Queens College.

Another bicycle ride

After watching the final game of Euro 2008 (Spain defeated Germany 1-0), after buying a few groceries in Han Yang Market, and after waiting for a thunderstorm to end, I went out for a bike ride. It was muggy.

Starting off at Northern and 149th Street, I went north on 149, turned east on Willets Point Boulevard, weaved around a bit, and wound up by Utopia and the Cross Island, about 2.5 miles.

Getting on the Greenway that runs along Little Neck Bay, beginning by the Throgs Neck Bridge, I pedaled past Fort Totten, and continued south, parallel to the CIP. The wind was against my face, and made riding difficult. That stage was about 2 miles long.

Crossing over the CIP on the 28th Avenue foot bridge, I rode the last 2.5 miles back home.

Cellphone Data Track Our Migration Patterns

Fascinating story highlighting the efficacy and ease of using available data, as well as its dangers and potential abuses. I particularly enjoy that the focal point is Flushing.

The one stat that jumps out at me is how significant the percentage of calls to Porto, Portugal is: 9% of calls from Flushing.

Cellphone users are spiders of the electromagnetic spectrum, spinning intricate, invisible threads of data about themselves as they walk and talk throughout the day.

Physicists, urban planners and social scientists are eagerly weaving millions of these electronic threads into patterns of people on the move, through studies that until now were all but impossible.

What makes things possible is that all calls are in the phone companies records: number dialing, number called, minutes spoken. The phone company also knows who owns the calling number, and might known the called number, too.

More than 3.3 billion wireless-phone subscribers world-wide have, in effect, voluntarily adopted devices that record their daily movements in the same way satellite sensors monitor migrating birds, whales, bears and other wildlife. Such precise positioning data, automatically collected by cellphone companies, makes privacy advocates queasy but has social scientists dazzled by the research possibilities.


3.3 billion people voluntarily, perhaps unknowingly or oblivious or indifferent to the consequences of their calling habits being known, allow their privacy to be available. It does, surely, also provide intriguing possibilities.

South Korea: Outcry Over Beef Imports

Street protests continued over government plans to resume beef imports from the United States. The police estimated that 65,000 people rallied in central Seoul on Friday night, after about 25,000 people staged a candlelight demonstration the previous evening. American beef was banned by South Korea for most of the past four and a half years over fears of mad cow disease. The government had said it would begin allowing imports this week, but then delayed the resumption. Organizers said protests would continue all weekend.

Living in Flushing amidst a Korean plurality, perhaps even a majority of denizes of my immediate neighborhood, I just don't get it: Koreans eat a lot of beef, and it's US beef, so seeing protest in Korea against US beef is confusing.