 The Nation of Immigrants here on Think Tech. I'm Jay Fiedel at 10 o'clock on a given Monday. And we're talking about David Maeda who is running for director of elections in the state of Minnesota. And he's here joining us. We're gonna talk to him. But Chang, you're my co-conspirator on this. I wonder if you could really give a proper introduction to David. I will try. Good morning, Jay. Good morning, David. It is a privilege to be with Jay and hosting David Maeda. David Maeda is a director of elections in the state of Minnesota and a former chair of council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans. Mr. Maeda is a second generation Japanese-American. David Maeda graduated from Maclaster College in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1987. In addition to serving as Minnesota city clerk, Mr. Maeda served as a chair of Minnesota council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans, a charter commissioner of the city of St. Paul and a former chair of legal Minnesota city's election task force. Mr. Maeda previously also worked as a Hanaman County election supervisor. I worked with David for the past two years on the council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans and under his leadership and the council took a lot of initiative. I'm really grateful for his leadership and guidance. It's our great honor and privilege to have you here, David. Thank you. Welcome to the show, David Maeda. It's great to have you here. Did I mistake that you are already director of elections in the state of Minnesota? Is there an election coming up by which you would be continued in that spot? Hi, Jay, thanks for the invite to this. I'm honored to be a guest on the show, but to answer your question, it's an appointed position. I report to the secretary of state who is Steve Simon in Minnesota and he's actually on the ballot in November. All right, got it. And so I have a recollection that Minnesota is one of those states where you have a Republican legislature that does the kinds of things that the GOP does in various states, which is not necessarily constructive. And that makes the secretary of state at risk, doesn't it? Well, we actually have a variant. I think we are the only state in the country that has a split legislature. So the Republicans control the Senate and then the Democrats control the House and then we have a Democrat governor. And it makes, it's particularly for elections, law changes, it makes it very hard to get anything through because of that divide. We have to have, we have an unwritten rule in our state that there has to be bipartisan support for any election related changes and reaching that has been a challenge to name it. If the secretary of state doesn't win in this upcoming election, then you lose your job? Not necessarily, no. I could be continual under the new secretary, but hopefully we won't get to that point. We won't, hopefully we won't, yeah. So, yeah, so why do you do this, David? I mean, this is, it's an interesting position to occupy in these times. Well, it's something I actually kind of accidentally fell into when I graduated from college, I got a job with the state of Minnesota and I happened to get a job in the secretary of state's office in the corporations division. I immediately gravitated towards elections because it seemed like the most interesting part of the office and then I started a career and I've worked with as Chang mentioned in my introduction, I was a Hennepin County's election supervisor. My last job was with the city of Minnetonka, which is a suburb of Minneapolis and I was a city clerk and I ran elections for the city. So elections, I strangely stumbled upon into it, but it's been my entire career. And I think to your question, the past couple of years have been extremely difficult to be an election administrator just because of all the misinformation and disinformation that are causing people to really question the integrity of our system. That's really my focus this year is to make sure we get good transparent information out about voting in Minnesota. You know, there's been news reports in various states around the country of threats made to election officials. Have you received any? I personally have not. We are tracking that in the state. There have been some of our county election officials that were somebody I think has crossed the line. We are in touch with both the Department of Justice and FBI on this issue. They actually stood up a task force where we can report any threats that are made against us. Recently a county official did report something that I thought crossed the line in Minnesota, but yes, it makes it very difficult to try to operate in this environment. The possibility, does it in any way limit your passion for the subject? It's a very good question. I don't think it necessarily limits my passion for the subject, but I will name that. I never saw this coming. I always thought people would trust us as election officials that we knew what we were doing and doing our job correctly. So it doesn't necessarily decrease my passion for this career I've led, but it does really, I guess, depress me that we are in the state we are in. May I just jump in? I just want to jump in and thank David personally and thank all the Secretary of State in the United States. And I was teaching a constitutional courses last semester and when we analyzed the state of the union and together with the students and we finally reached the conclusion that the United States democracy was not saved by the check and the balances, was not saved by separation of powers, was not saved by all the mechanism that founding father put in place to protect the Republic. Instead, the democracy was indeed saved by civil servants like David, saved by the Secretary of State, saved by the professionals who diligently counted and accurately counted the votes and reported to the votes. And it was not pressured by any new influence. So I have with this utmost respect to our civil servants and a particular Secretary of State and election officials. So here I just want to shout out to David and his office, Secretary Steven Simon and all the Secretary of State in the United States. I want to add to that if you don't mind. I think the distinguishing point about democracy is the peaceful transition of power from one administration to the next and the next of course is determined by voting. If you don't have voting, you don't have a democracy. If you don't have representative government, you don't have a democracy. And if you don't have a peaceful transition of power, you don't have a democracy. As a matter of fact, Think Tech is doing what we call the Super Show on April 1st and we're examining how this works in seven continents around the globe. We'll talk to people in many, many places and ask about their brand of democracy or their other brand, which is not democracy. But that seems to be a fundamental point. So I would like to ask you about your interest in voting and what you think it means to the country, to the democracy as we used to understand it. That's a very good question. I think, I mean, I often hear when helping a voter, a voter will say to me, well, I've done my part, which is true. I think voting is a crucial part of democracy as both you and Jayne just said, but to me it doesn't stop with voting. It's to continue to hold your elected officials accountable, make sure that they're doing what they said they would do to get you to vote for them. And so I think it's the beginning of the process but it's not the end of the process. I think we all need to stay involved to hold our government accountable. Yes, I certainly agree. So there have been these baseless claims of voter fraud around the country. And as the director of elections, you would know about voter fraud in the state of Minnesota. And I wonder if you could comment on whether there has been any significant voter fraud or irregularities in voting during your tenure, in the state of Minnesota? Well, that's a very easy question to answer. The answer is no. I mean, in every election, an ineligible voter, one or two might vote. I mean, whether they're a felon that shouldn't vote in our state, if you're under a felony sentence and not off paper, you're not supposed to vote. Whether it be someone that's not 18, I mean, occasionally somebody can vote that is ineligible but that all gets turned over to our law enforcement and those people are investigated and often charged for doing that. But as far as widespread fraud, no, I've seen no evidence of that during my 25 plus years in elections of Minnesota. Let's talk more about Minnesota. Minnesota, to me, I'm from New York and Hawaii. That's my background. I never thought much of Minnesota was somewhere near the Canadian border, as I recall. I hope that's right. And, you know, I didn't think of it in terms of diversity, but it would seem to me when I've learned in recent years, there's just plenty of diversity in Minnesota. How is diversity doing in Minnesota? Well, same question, Lai, may I just add that whenever I see David, I feel proud of to be a Chinese Minnesotan. And we have a Japanese-American to be our election official. And so we have these council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans and about no more than a dozen by senior minority group represented on the council. David, obviously representing Japanese-American myself, representing Chinese-American. And I always curious, I never really asked David about this question. How you guys settled in Minnesota? You know, Japan is cold, but not this cold. And why your parents decided to settle in Minnesota? I know you were born in Minneapolis, you're local, but how come your parents decided to settle in Minnesota? To tell us about your story and also the question about the diversity in the state of Minnesota, please. Yes, please, David. So all four of my grandparents were the ones I immigrated to the United States. So my dad was born and raised in Seattle, Washington. And my mom was born and raised in Lingo, Wyoming, which is a very tiny town in Wyoming, not a farm. My dad's family actually was incarcerated during World War II and was sent to a camp in Minidolta, Idaho. And so my dad experienced firsthand the incarceration that occurred to Japanese-Americans during World War II. My mom's family was not, they were allowed to continue to live on their farm in Wyoming. My dad ended up here because my aunt, his sister, got a scholarship offered from Bullock McAllister, which is my alum, I'm an alum in McAllister in Hamlin, which is another university here in Minnesota. So she ended up going to Hamlin. And that's why my dad ended up in Minnesota. I'm thankful for that because the other place she was looking at was Atlanta, Georgia. And I don't think I would have done as well. I'm a Minnesota twins fan. I couldn't be an Atlanta brave fan to tell you the truth. There it is, right there it is, there it is. But my mom, my mom got her nursing degree and she got her first job in, she didn't want to be a farmer's wife. So she went to the University of Wyoming and got a nursing degree. And she ended up working in a hospital in Minneapolis. Yeah, it's a, well, sorry, I was mistaken. I saw the second generation, obviously a third generation. And have you been to Japan yourself? Yeah, so one of my first jobs out of college was working for a record store here in Twin Cities. And the owner happened to be somebody whose dad was in the army in Japan during World War II. So the owner of the store actually spoke more Japanese than I do. And he looked at it in the late 1990s, he looked at opening a store in Tokyo. And so he asked me if I'd like to come along and I did. And it was an interesting experience because he being a white person, everybody, all the Japanese assumed I was his interpreter. And like I said, he spoke much more Japanese than me. So they would come up to me and start speaking in Japanese and I couldn't answer. So that was my one time in visiting Japan, we all went to Osaka. I was just really happy with that visit. I want to go back so badly. Yeah, I went to Nagoya and Kyoto. I was so impressed. But same time, when walking in the temples of Japanese temples, most of them are not Buddhist temples, obviously. And I feel a little bit sad. I can feel the emphasize with Japanese people when they have this heavy history on their back. But I'm sorry to hear your grandparents incarcerated during World War II. And we all familiar with FDR's exact order in 1966, the Japanese internment and Khromasov versus United States. And in recent years, some Chinese American began to fear similar treatment from the US government should US China tension escalate. So what's your comments or what's your advice to us? Well, I will name that the Japanese American citizens, which is the largest Japanese American organization representing Japanese Americans. The focus of that organization since 2001 has really been making sure people are aware of the parallels between what happened to the Japanese Americans in World War II and Islamophobia. I mean, they've done a lot of great programming around tying what happened to Japanese Americans to what occurred in the early 2000s and continues to occur with people of Islamic faith. But to your point, I think we saw some of that change in 2020 with the pandemic where unfortunately, we had people calling the COVID the China flu. And I think that really put a target not only on Chinese Americans, but on all Asian Americans. And I would agree with the premise of your questions of things continue to deteriorate between our country and the Chinese government than it is going to make things. I think it's easy for people to find targets to blame things on. And I think it will put a target on the Chinese American community if that continues along the lines or on. Well, good to know. Well, you're going through the question of diversity. You know, how has Minnesota done on diversity? Well, if I walk down the street, am I gonna see a rainbow of people? And are those people all gonna be able to get jobs? Is there social justice among the various elements of the diversity? Is the diversity increasing? Do you think staying the same? Is there bigotry? Is there bigotry against one group or the other or all? All minority groups? How is Minnesota? Well, Jay, to answer that question, I think it would take me about five hours to come back or just ask. I'll say a couple of things. And tying it back to my career and elections, we have a very large Hmong American community here in St. Paul and Minneapolis primarily, but in other parts of the state as well. It's so large in Ramsey County that for the first time ever in our state, we fall under what's called Chapter 203 of the Voting Rights Act where the Hmong population has enough in Ramsey County that Ramsey County and our office are required to translate things into the language for them. And that's a first in it. So the Hmong community, I think is growing and thriving, particularly in Minnesota, but I think in other areas, particularly our newer refugee groups, I think they're struggling with things like housing and employment. And then of course, Minneapolis is where George Floyd was killed. And so I think we're at various stages on the continuum, but I will name, I grew up in a suburb of St. Paul and I was one of two Asians Americans in my class. That happened to be Japanese American too. And to see the community that I grew up would have substantially more Asian Americans has been really thrilling to me. So I think there are certain pockets in our state that are thriving as far as getting more diverse, but there are others that are not. I mean, it's a very complex question you just asked. Well, you know, there's always a distinction between Ichi and Nisei, Sansei, and a third generation is pretty much assimilated, but not always necessarily to the full extent, especially if you look different. My family of Jewish came from, are you ready? Ukraine. And, you know, settled in New York, but what I found very interesting and I like to ask you about this is there are pockets and communities of religious Jews all over the country in small towns and they do well. They become public officials like you, they become judges, they run for office, what have you, and it doesn't seem to be a big distinction. I mean, sure, some people are gonna be bigoted. That's the way it is in these United States, but in terms of opportunities, in terms of being able to assimilate relatively comfortably, make a living, be middle-class or better, they have been able to do that even in tight little relatively orthodox communities. So how does that play out in Minnesota? How does it play out, for example? I mean, I know I'm asking you a compound question and if we were caught now, the Chang would object, he would say, that's a compound question, Jay. That's what he would say. How does that play out in terms of districts, neighborhoods, redistricting? So again, in Minnesota, we have a more diverse community in the seven, we call it the seven county metro area, which encompasses both Minneapolis and St. Paul most of our larger suburbs. So those are the areas we see the most diverse, racial diversity in the state, but again, there are pockets in other parts of the state like Rochester has a fairly large Indian American community, Asian Indian American community, Southwest Minnesota has a fairly large Hmong population. So I don't know if that really answers your question. Yeah, I think, let me jump in here. So, you know, David is a government official and has to be professional and neutral. I call your attention to the very famous, you know, sayings of Minnesota nice. It's passive aggressive. And we Minnesota hate that word. We don't like to be called Minnesota nice because actually there are some, you know, a negative connotation to that, but it's also, I think that is, I believe the word is neutral. So Minnesota nice means the state very tolerant is have a lot of empathy and we have many different minority groups and it's a very Minnesota very famous for hosting refugees from various parts of the world among Americans and Somalians. And now you walk into any major banks you can see a Somalian clerk and you don't be surprised. You walk into the legislature, you'll see there is a among American caucus, you know, several legislatures among Americans. But at the same time, yes, the ethnic minority groups, even African-American groups, they do not have all the privileges and immunities other, you know, the majority groups enjoying. That is a simple fact. But the state overall is very positive and also have a very strong value system. So when the George Floyd strategy happened, then overnight you'll see thousands and thousands of people on the street and you'll see the public statement from all the government, all level of government official from the governor to the attorney general to the mayor and to the county commissioners. So it's overall, I would say that, I'm not sure David would publicly say that, but I think overall means so there is a very, very good state for diversity. At least we have this very good value system and a potential. And I, sorry to speak too long, but I know David have some very good photos want to show us about his family and career. Please show us and tell us about the story behind these photos. You've seen some of them. Our engineer has been playing them. There's one. You were as a kid, David, yeah. You're talking to your father and my aunt who I mentioned before. That's them, I'm assuming in Seattle. There will be probably 40s, 50s. Oh no, that would be 30s. Oh, 30s. Oh, how about the next one? Again, my dad and my aunt, James. Oh, that's your dad and your aunt. He's a very cute kid as you can see. Oh yeah, I thought it was you. Your dad is cuter than you, David. This is actually me and this is me. That's you. I'm a big music lover and this photo actually shows my favorite things of kids listening to records. Who you listen to? Presby? Be those? A lot of girl lives. I don't know if you know girl lives. Oh, sure. Sure. And that's me as a kid as well. The thing that to note with this picture is I'm sitting on a clown. I still have that in my house. Oh, I took it with me my entire life. Okay, cool. Yeah, I had a theme hat when I was a kid. That's you give me a lecture. This is actually one of my favorite pictures of me because it shows my better side. But this is me in my role as the chair of the Council of Asian Pacific Ministers. We used to have a day at the Capitol. Hopefully we can do it again soon but this is me speaking to a group of constituents of the Council. That's pretty cool. This is a picture Secretary Simon, our former press secretary in the office and myself. This is right after we finished the Electoral College Count in 2021, or 2020, I'm sorry. Wow, congratulations. This is me and my dad. This is one of the last photos I have with my dad. This is actually one of my nephew's weddings. The Minneapolis? Yes, yeah. You have a big family in Minnesota? I have three sisters. Two of them are in Minnesota, one's in Los Angeles and then I have a brother who's in Minnesota. Good for you. So if I'm a young immigrant, say an Asian immigrant and I call you up David and I say, look, I'm thinking about moving to Minnesota, to Minneapolis. What's your advice to me? Is it among the top places for me to go? So the first thing I would say to you is, do you know what the weather is like in Minnesota? First clarify that. Yeah, I mean, to me it's been a wonderful place to grow up. I would not trade my life as far as where I've lived with anywhere else. I mean, we do have a diverse community here in the Twin Cities. I've been afforded wonderful opportunities in my career, obviously. I feel very fortunate for the life I've lived. So yes, I would welcome any young Asian American into our state. Now, one thing that's been clear to me over the past couple of years, well over the Trump years actually, so I was not aware of is that we do have a growing diversity in many states, even in the South, you know, where white supremacy reigns supreme. But the country is changing. And many people see it as a struggle, as a kind of extended civil war, as a place where there are those who are qualified to participate in the economy, the society, the democracy, and there are others who don't want them. To participate in those things, who are concerned, who carry fear that those people, those diversity people will quote, replace them. We saw that in Charlottesville. We became aware of that and we found it in other places. And I wonder how you feel about that? To the extent you can comment on it, I'd really like to hear your thoughts. Well, I think you hit upon, I think it really is based on fear. I think once somebody gets to know another individual that looks different than them on an individual basis, some of that goes away and hopefully all of it will go away in time, I think I'll leave it at that. I mean, I think if we look at each other as human beings and that is different racially, I think that goes a long ways to understanding and moving the country forward in a positive way. Well, I mean, the name of the show, which Chang selected is really appropriate. It's the Statue of Liberty. It's give me your tired, huddled masses yearning to breathe free. And it's the strength of the country is in that diversity and we should nourish it. We should cherish it. We should encourage and incentivize it. So Chang, we're almost out of time and I know you would like to summarize and thank David for coming down and put this in perspective for us, okay? Thank you, Jay. And thank you, David, so much for coming to the show. We are honored to hear your story and thank you for sharing the family photos with us a lot of fun to hear the story behind those photos. And I, first I want to thank you as a professional, as a government official. And I always remember this President Obama once said there's no such thing as a vote that doesn't matter. And secondly, and appreciate your interaction with Jay about the diversity and hear your story growing up in Minnesota. And as an immigrant, I couldn't be more proud to be a part of the Asian Pacific Minnesota community. And just one thing I do want to emphasize that we will not replace anybody. Instead, and as far as my 20 years in the United States, my own observation, I see immigrants are much more, not more as equally as patriotic as all the naturally born Americans. But they are much more value the opportunity. They cherish the opportunity. They agree, they're grateful of the opportunity to be here and to be part of the system. So I don't think they will replace, we will replace anybody, nobody going to, and they will replace anybody instead. They just want to be helpful and be useful and be thankful to be part of this great system. Now, David, you get a chance to follow that, okay? To comment on it, to rebut it if you like. Well, I don't think I need to rebut it. I think I appreciate sharing your wisdom during the time I've got to know you. And I really think your point of view is well taken. I think that that's exactly right. Thank you, thank you. Well, thank you, David. It's nice to meet you and nice to talk to you about your story and your thoughts. And may I say, as I said at the outset, it's fabulous that you're doing this work. You're doing it for all of us, not only in Minnesota, but everywhere. This is a critical element. May not be the only critical element, but it is a critical element in our democracy and therefore in our future. And you are at the center of it. And thank you from all of us for that. Thank you for having me. It's been a great pleasure. Thank you, David. Thank you, Jay. Thank you, Chiang. Thank you, David. I appreciate your participation in Zigtek. Aloha.