For Asian-Americans in Southern California and beyond, this year’s election season has

For Asian-Americans in Southern California and beyond, this year’s election season has served as a demonstration of how far they have advanced in political representation.

Around the region and the state, Asian-American candidates have legitimate shots at winning several offices never held by members of their community before, from congressional seats to statewide office.

And that’s why it is all the more surprising that Los Angeles itself — which has one of the nation’s largest concentrations of Asian-Americans — continues to buck that trend. The city of Los Angeles has had exactly one Asian-American hold elected office in its history, while the county has never had an Asian-American on the Board of Supervisors.

“It’s a decent, significant showing” for Asian-American candidates this election season, said Raphael Sonenshein, executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at Cal State Los Angeles. “It’s not the end of the discussion, but things are moving decently in Sacramento, in a decent direction for Congress, but what sticks out like a sore thumb is L.A. city for the absence” of Asian-American representation.

State Sen. Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, who emigrated from Taiwan as a toddler and has also served as a state assemblyman, is facing Elan Carr, a Republican prosecutor, in the November race for Rep. Henry Waxman’s seat in Beverly Hills. California state Controller John Chiang, whose parents emigrated from Taiwan, is competing for the state treasurer’s office against Greg Conlon, a Republican CPA, on Nov. 4. Betty Yee, a member of the state Board of Equalization from the Bay Area, is campaigning for state controller. And in Los Angeles County, retired undersheriff Paul Tanaka, who is Japanese-American, will face Long Beach Police Chief Jim McDonnell in the sheriff’s election.

There are more than 4,000 Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders who hold public office in nearly 40 states and U.S. territories. In California, they include five federal representatives, 15 state representatives, more than 90 council members and more than 100 judges, according to the National Asian Pacific American Political Almanac 2014-15 published by the UCLA Asian American Studies Center.

Asian-Americans have not only fared well at the local level in the San Gabriel Valley, where there is heavy concentration of Chinese-Americans, they’ve also been increasingly successful at winning state offices and congressional seats representing that area, the South Bay and Los Angeles, Sonenshein said.

Los Angeles County — the nation’s largest with about 10 million people — has never had an Asian-American member of the Board of Supervisors despite the community making up 15 percent of its population. The L.A.-Long Beach-Santa Ana region has about 1.8 million Asian-Americans, the highest concentration of any metro area, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

None of the candidates in the June 3 election who ran for two open L.A. supervisor seats were Asian-American. And the city of Los Angeles, which has an Asian population of about 13 percent, has had only one Asian-American serve on its City Council or in any city elected office. Michael Woo served on the council from 1985 to 1993 and lost a bid for mayor against Richard Riordan in 1993.

“It really stands out,” Sonenshein said. “Over 400,000 Asian Americans in L.A., no City Council members, no citywide elected officials and only one in the history of the entire city…. It’s phenomenal trying to figure out.”

http://www.dailynews.com/government-and-politics/20140705/asian-americans-face-election-hurdles-in-los-angeles-despite-population-but-that-may-be-changing