I spend the middle of my weeks at Assmblymember Mike Fong’s office in Monterey Park.
With three private office spaces, three additional desks, a board room, and a refrigerator chalk-full of La Croix, the office is home base to Assemblymember Fong, District Director Jennifer Tang, and Field Representatives Fion Lam and Marcial Romero.
My third week, though unconventional due to a COVID-19 exposure, was nonetheless informative and eye-opening. As an avid consumer of national news, the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade and their new restrictions on the FDA in regards to climate change alongside reports of severe gun violence and mass shootings world-wide contextualized my worries and thoughts as I walked into the office on Tuesday. As a governmental office, we are not allowed to discuss anything overtly political (remember that episode of Parks and Rec where Leslie Knope was campaigning and had to run from her office, down the stairs, and outside the building before she could pick up the call? This is that) so regardless of the news, “Team Fong” continues to aid its constituents and communities. I started the morning as usual and scanned the LA Times, Whittier Daily News, Pasadena Star, and San Gabriel Valley Tribune, collecting articles and op-eds of interest for the office to skim. I recorded bill comments from parents concerned about children’s agency over their own vaccination status, I took calls from students concerned about their nearly expired visa, and I learned how to request unemployment checks on behalf of constituents who had yet to receive theirs. My internal anxieties about the grander fabric of American life seemed almost existential and counterproductive in comparison to aiding constituents in their immediate, everyday endeavors.
When reflecting upon the week, I thought about the tension between local/state and national politics. I wonder (and will probably continue to wonder) how the conflation of national politics affects local governance. At what rate does national political news draw attention away from local issues and discussions. How true are binary notions of identity politics particularly in an Assembly District with such diversity and nuance? As a civic communication major and a national news consumer, I’m fascinated by these questions, but as a resident of 11th Assembly District, I came to the uncomfortable reality of my ignorance regarding the work being done in my own community in particular regards to Asian American empowerment and mobility.
My brief time in this office in conjunction with workshops like Godfrey’s “Root Cause Analysis” has grounded me in the reality of local and state government. Not everything is Proud Boys, vaccines, Critical Race Theory, or gun violence. People need EBT, they need translated information into Spanish or Mandarin, they want a new community center in Alhambra, or they want to ban single-use plastics in their cities. Of course, national politics is inextricably intertwined with that of the work of Assemblymember Mike Fong and other local and state officials, but the extremist narratives of our two party system are not as prevalent here. Thus, locating people within their upbringing and experiences rather than locating them within one of two parties can perhaps ease the notions of identity politics especially within our local spaces.