 San Francisco is struggling to find new Asian American leadership in local politics. What is going on and who's gonna step up? You know at one point out of 11 seats, the Asians, they make up five of them. Now it's looking like it's headed towards zero. Whoa. Um, yeah. This is an article that just dropped on NBC America Andrew Long story short. San Francisco for a very long time had a ton of very prominent Asian American politicians. Now the numbers are dwindling and a lot of people are speculating what are the reasons because the amount of Asians in America or in that area is only going up. Right. Right. So everybody, we're going to go into some theories. We don't really, I don't really know exact reasons. I don't think anybody has done the research, but we just got some ideas here. So please hit that like button. Check out other episodes of the Hop Hop Boys. Hopefully this discussion, it's not to like just dump on SF. I don't really have anything personally against San Francisco, but I obviously, this is, that is an Asian American stronghold for, for a century, centuries. I mean, like over a hundred years ever since Asians have been coming to America in large numbers SF San Francisco. But let's be honest, specifically Cantonese, Chinese, Southern Chinese, specifically people from Toisan. Yeah. More so like disproportionately. Specifically Chinese populations have been heavy in San Francisco, not to mention the rest of the Bay Area. The Bay Area in general is very Asian. But different pockets, more Taiwanese and Silicon Valley where Jeremy Lin's from in Palo Alto. A lot of South Asians and Southeast Asians in the rest of the Bay Area. We're talking about stuff in from the Gold Rush days. We're talking about paper suns. We're talking about San Francisco. Also, we're talking about SPALA from Sichuan Assistately Guys. What a segue, guys. Check out smaller sauce sold out right now, but check out smaller sauce. San Francisco is the most Chinese city in America. It's 22% Chinese. It is the largest group of single origin in SF because you can't count like white as having a single origin. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's a lot. I mean, that's a significant of just Chinese people literally other Asians. We're talking about just Chinese San Francisco proper is 22% but they wield way less than 22% of the power. Okay. So basically what is the situation right now that there's not a lot of young Asian American leaders that are stepping up. Now, whether they're getting blocked like like the people on power right now, we don't like these young Asians. But basically there's not that many young Asians that are stepping up just a handful. I mean, there's there's this guy, right? Right. He is a hopper named Rigel Robinson who recently actually dropped out because he was trying to become the mayor of Berkeley. He was getting so much heat from, you know, he was very progressive, but some progressive people don't think he's progressive enough. Of course, the moderate liberals, they don't think he's moderate enough, let alone on the Republican side. They got a ton of things to say about him. And he got so much scrutiny from him and his family Andrew. He just dropped out. Wow. I actually believe he's hopper, but he does look Asian. So I think there was a quote that said that just the climate of politics in SF has become so toxic and the civil dialogue has become a lot more pointed and personal. And that's what Phil Ting, who's also an elected leader. You know, like there are some Asian leaders still around by the way, but there's just there's two remaining out of 11. Where there used to be five. There's not a lot of young guys stepping the young men and women that are Asian. You know, for me, I was just looking at the environment. I was thinking about becoming a leader and that comes on San Francisco. And I just look, it looks so unappealing. Why would I want to enter that war zone? How about some theories here, guys? Because I think there's no explicit reasons why, but there's kind of reasons that are alluded to in the article. Well, there's a lot of reasons. There's a lot of reasons. There's internal reasons, Andrew. Within the Chinese American community. There are external reasons. What do you think is an internal Chinese American community reason? What do you think? Well, by the way, the articles focus more on the external reasons. They didn't get into like feudalism, Confucianism. Okay. So like, so you think inter-provincialism, et cetera, et cetera, inability to build self-governance, et cetera. So you think it's partially that. I think that that's the most unspoken part, because obviously NBC Asian America is not going to address that. Okay. That part. You got to really know. Explain it. Explain it. So basically, Chinese in America really, really, really, really struggle more than any other Asian, more than Korean Americans, more than Vietnamese Americans, probably even more than Filipino Americans to self-organize. Because there's no history of self-organizing even in China. Okay. Outside of rebellions and things like that. Okay. So basically there's no context for self-governance. And then there's this already, this system in place. So even though Chinese make up a disproportionate amount of San Francisco, they've never been able to wield an equivalent power to their numbers or economic power. Okay. Because equivalent to their population. Yes. Yes. Yes. Because it takes a concerted effort. It's almost like just because you have the economics and you have the voting population, it doesn't mean that you'll actually have commensurate representation or actual power. It doesn't mean that you can wield the political power. Yes. Because that takes a concerted plan and execution of that plan over a long amount of time. I'm not saying in the past they haven't 20 years ago, 30 years ago, but the environment has changed and it has changed away from like, Asians will continue to live in San Francisco, continue to open up boba shops, businesses, sushi restaurants, of course, Cantonese restaurants, et cetera, et cetera, all across the bay, but they will just never really wield commensurate power. We have talked about this in a past video about how Asians proportionally don't even have the political power that they should have based on their economics. Right. Right. But so I think there is some truth to that. I will agree. You guys let us know in the comments down below what you think about David's theory. Some other reasons that I think is that just these are just general reasons for Asian Americans. I think a lot of Asian Americans are moving out of SF. Even though there's a lot that are moving in, I think a lot of the ones that grow up in the city that can move out to the South Bay or other suburbs outside of San Francisco, still in the Bay area, but outside of the city are going. No, they're no longer an SF proper. They may move to Sacramento at the furthest north. They may move to Fremont. Fremont, Cupertino, Milpitas, Santa Clara, Mountain View. Well, all these Sunnyvale, these are all growing. Every year they're getting more and more Asian. So here's what I think. Depending on how much bread you got to, right? Yeah, depending on the job, a lot of tech jobs. So I think that even though maybe the leadership in San Francisco of Asians may get smaller, which we can still prevent or you people can step up and prevent that. But let's say it just continues to get smaller. The amount of Asian leadership in surrounding cities will increase in years to come because more and more. Traditionally white suburbs or something like that, which is where Tom Brady is from. Yeah. Right. Chamberlain is also from the Bay. She don't strike me as a Bay person. Right. Right. Also, I think a lot of Asian Americans politically, if I had to guess, Asians living in San Francisco fall more on a middle left kind of like, I guess. Middle, middle even. Yeah. Like politically speaking, like they're all, you know, they are not the most leftist people and not, not the right people on the right side. So they don't feel as comfortable. They don't feel like they represent the two extremes that you may need to run. Like you might need to run. Especially obviously SF has become so far left. The debate now is simply between moderate left and far left. Right. Right. Got zero. Right. Right. And if you're moderate left or if you're moderate, you almost feel like you're almost pegged in the narrative. The narrative is that you're almost right. Yes. But it's, I think Asians more represent what possibly Democrats were 20 to 30 years ago, more than a 2024. Yeah. So considering that you could probably have a less stressful career and make better money in a different industry, why would you go into politics? Right. So that's what I think. I think a lot of Asian Americans are opting out. Right. And I do think a lot of the newer Chinese, they're not like super concerned with the health of Chinatown. It's not that they don't care about being Chinese in a macro sense. Right. But they just don't care about SF Chinatown. Right. You're talking about like, I don't play nine man and stuff like that. To be honest, I newly arrived Chinese immigrants or Chinese immigrants, just not necessarily newly arrived. They're not going to connect with Chinatown and SF proper as much as something that they need to represent. Chicha Sanchen, which is considered the number one boba chain in the world, Andrew. It's the highest quality traditional boba from Taiwan. It's good. They're not going to open up in SF proper. They're going to be opening up in the South Bay and the East Bay. Right. The newer Chinese immigrants are chasing the Chicha Sanchen and the Dintai fangs. I mean, I hope that some young people find incentive to step up. But I also do think that they're going to be faced with a lot of the older systems and people who may not like what they stand for and stuff like that. So I think it's going to be tough. Well, they said, Andrew, that a lot of the Chinese community is possibly just going to vote for the white moderate Democrats now. Basically, the Chinese vote will go to whoever is the most moderate Democrat. That's what the NBC article says. Interesting. Okay. Yeah. Ultimately, let's get into the comments section. Andrew, some people are saying, you know, you can do a lot of ish towards the Asian community and have them pretty much stay complacent. But once you start messing with the ability to send their kids to good schools based on merit such as Lowell High School, that's when Asians get activated. Dude, Asians are low key kind of simple man when it comes to voting in politics, man. They want the four things. What are they? Academic, not in any order, safety. Okay. Economic freedom to make as much money as they can. Academic fair admissions that if their kid tests high that they get into the best. Don't punish my kid for being a nerd. Okay. You're saying my kid is not cool so he cannot go to the school, but school is not to be cool. School is for studying. And actually I would just say those are the by far the top three. There might be two other ones, but homeland politics I would say. Sure. But that doesn't even come into play on a domestic level. Sure. But the top three, security, school, shmoney. Some people were saying, hey man, should we just vote Republican? And this person really got downvoted on Reddit. But this person was an Asian being like, I'm ready to swing it the other way. Yeah. Probably, you know, just due to, you know, I think that's the most important thing. And then somebody said, yeah, maybe 20 years ago, I would have voted for like a Mitt Romney type guy. But nowadays they've gotten way too crazy. And then other people said the left got way too crazy too. Because obviously Andrew, these parties are not represented by who they used to be, you know, represented by 20 years ago. Yeah. Everybody's a little too crazy, I think. Ultimately, I will say this, I think that Asians live their lives actually very conservatively in terms of the way the families play out, the families day to day lives. They're very conservative. You will not see Asian parents doing drugs with their kids. I went to high school with some people who did drugs with their parents. Not just weed too, for the more extreme cases. That's not going to happen within the Asian community. Right, right, right. Literally, that is like the most un-Asian thing I could possibly think of. So Asians live conservatively. However, they do not like racism because they have become the victim of racism too. And that is the big thing about really voting for the right, right? That sense of like, man, they're racist. That they're going to perpetuate racism. Yeah, yeah. So a lot of people are really torn because they're like, you know, my values, I work hard for this career, it's getting taxes. Maybe I would like the lower taxes that the right is offering, but then there are racists against me. Yeah. So then what happens, Andrew, is they end up apolitical and that is why Asian-Americans in general, not just Chinese-Americans, yes, it does vary a little bit, community, community, but essentially all Asian-Americans are politically neutral in America. So they don't even vote. So what is your, do you have a suggestion or do you think Asians need to get more political? I don't even know because they wouldn't agree on what to value because yes, most Asians are apolitical, but there's ones being like, no, no, no, the racism matters more. And then there's other ones going, no, no, the racism is bad, but the money and the taxes and the distribution of the dollars matters more. So how can you, I don't know, yeah, I guess if everybody voted, but it's not really gonna matter because it won't be a unified block on the demographic chart. Yeah. It'll just be super-split based on, you know, individual ideologies because everybody has different priorities for themselves and some people, even brothers in a family might disagree, right? I will say this, as far as Chinese go though, Andrew, let's circle back because SF is Chinese. It's not just Asian. Yes. It's predominantly Chinese. It's particularly Cantonese, particularly Toisani. Yes, yes, yes. Do you have any hope for them? Particularly Cantonese. Go get in the fervor of the old days or it's just, it's a wrap-ma-glap. They move into Melpitas to eat Cantal food. I think I envisioned San Francisco kind of like one big, I don't want to say it's one big Chinatown, but like that's how it's kind of viewed. And I always said that like Chinatowns will shrink and expand and diffuse and some of them will shrink and go away. Some of them will get a little stronger but no matter what happens, like the representation, the Chinese people are even moving out to more places all around the Bay Area. And that happens around all of New York too. So it's like in a way the Chinese migration doesn't stop, you know. There's like Chinese who've been in SF for multiple generations. Five generations, right? And then there's Chinese who have been there only for two generations and there's Chinese who are coming on their first generation. I just got here. What happened? I missed it. I missed the golden times. But they might all leave San Francisco for another city 30 minutes away. But it'll be more of the suburbs. Yeah. And they might set up shop and gain political power in those neighborhoods. They still cheer for the Warriors, still cheer for the 49ers, Sonny Val, Santa Clara, Fremont. How many more cities do you want me to name? Cupertino, San Mateo. Burley Game. Daily Cities, very Asian. You know, a lot of Filipinos. And it's like the leadership in all those cities is going to become more Asian. Okay. So you're just saying this dispersion theory is just going to go? I think an overall still Asian representation across the Bay increases, although in San Francisco itself might decrease. So I don't know. Right. You're saying that it's all good because this is the way history goes. I don't know. It's all good. I'm not saying it's all good. But you're just saying it is what it is, right? I'm just saying that it's like San Francisco was this mountain. And it was just dense. And then now it's just getting spread and spread and spread. Listen, guys. Anybody who's really worried about this, you have to understand at a point in time, people felt like they were living in these like ghettos or these enclaves that were hyper confined. And no, could they have maintained the power a little bit better, you know, shoulda coulda woulda is a little bit too much, too little, too late. It's all good because I do think Asians in America, especially when we play our cards, right, can have a better life overall. But yeah, as far as wanting to have political power in San Francisco, I think it's a wrap. All right. Let us know what you think, guys. Please hit that like button. Check out other episodes of the Hop Hop Boys. And until next time, we out. Peace.