I left Friday’s CAUSE Leadership Academy session in shock and disbelief. Listening to CAUSE Executive Director Nancy Yap and CSULA Professor Juily Phan recount their experience successfully preventing a plan to gerrymander a local CA district with CAUSE staff Farrah Su brought to life how terrifying these practices and its consequences are; it became especially moving and personal for me because the district/region they saved was the one I was born and raised in: the San Gabriel Valley.
I had always known about gerrymandering, from its history to its purpose and consequences. Despite my knowledge, it never dawned on me as something that could happen so easily in my community as I approached it more as information from a textbook. Truthfully, I never thought the place I grew up in would be the target of something so dire.
The San Gabriel Valley (SGV) is home to a large Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) population, with many ethhnosuburbs spread throughout. When Nancy and Juily described how the commission in charge of redistricting planned to split San Gabriel Valley in half, the idea of a West and East San Gabriel Valley felt unreal and ultimately frightening. While the purpose was to join neighboring areas with similar socioeconomic status to receive more economic care, it didn’t seem right to rip apart an area that has built a strong AAPI culture and elected AAPI representatives in all levels of government. After coming back from my first year of college, I grew a larger appreciation for those factors, especially realizing that that was not the norm in the rest of the United States.
I remember feeling amazed when I listened to Nancy and Juily describe how they and Farrah only had 21 days and ultimately worked about 13 hours each day to make change happen. I remember a CLA cohort member sharing to me how out of the 300 petitions the redistricting commission received, CAUSE submitted roughly 200 petitions.
As I listened to them discuss how they saved my district from gerrymandering, I thought to myself in disbelief and somewhat anger about how I had no clue about this situation. Seeing as the redistricting process ended in December, this was the first time hearing about this story seven months later. It was even more disheartening for me as an SGV native not knowing about this at all. I started to wish more people in my community knew about this not only to spread awareness, but also so that more people could take action.
I remember my first day walking into my host office, which happens to belong to my Congressional representative (and was one of many AAPI representatives whose seat would have been jeopardized with the new redistricting plan), and my supervisors telling me that we were to become the 28th district instead of the 27th. I remember thinking of it as just information for me to know and not thinking much of it afterwards. After realizing how my attitude has been like many other constituents, it dawned on me that the fight Nancy, Juily, and Farrah took on themselves was not as recognized as it should have been. Many people, like me previously, didn’t and still don’t know that that issue existed nor do they give them, the people who saved our community, the recognition they deserve.
Listening to Nancy and Juily made me realize the importance of spreading awareness and taking action when our community needs us.