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Boston’s First Asian City Wide Candidate, Elections, and Coalitions of Color
by Tracker
October 27, 2005
Sam Yoon, Boston’s first Asian American to run citywide, placed fifth among a field of 15 citywide city council candidates in the preliminary election September 27. In an election with only a little over 15% turnout, Yoon must place in the top four in the November final election to win a City Council seat.
Yoon’s candidacy occurs during a shift in Boston’s demographics and political landscape. In the last decade, the Latino and Asian populations of the city have grown. Boston, commonly thought of as a predominantly white city, is majority people of color. These changes have dovetailed with the painstaking work of minority community activists and progressive electoral activists. They have struggled for years to register people of color to vote in the city. The activists have also built a broader movement for community control of development and residents’ voice in the politics and life of the city's communities and neighborhoods.
Why A Coalition of Color?
The combination of growing immigrant populations and the ongoing work
of community activists have created the possibility of an effective
coalition of people of color in Boston. According to the 2000 census,
African Americans are 23.8% of the city’s residents, while Latinos
are 14.4% and Asians 7.6 %. Each group has significant slices of
the population but is not large enough separately to have the impact
that, for example, African Americans in Chicago have. Despite their
smaller numbers, Asian Americans can play a significant role within
minority empowerment struggles because of the need to build coalitions
that have significant impact. The possibility posed by the new demographics
has given rise to general acknowledgment of a “new Boston” (although
people differ widely in what they mean by that term) and political
collaboration. One such visible collaborative formation is the New
Majority Coalition, a people of color coalition focused on community
political empowerment and initiated by former mayoral candidate Mel
King and City Councilor Chuck Turner, both longtime African American
progressive activists.
Recently, a strong showing of Boston’s candidates of color has given minority and progressive activists hope about the potential for increased political power in the city. In the fall of 2004, longtime Latino community activist Felix Arroyo inspired increased voting in minority precincts and won the active support of African American City Councilors Chuck Turner and Charles Yancey. The effect was that Arroyo jumped from a weak fifth place finish in the preliminary to a strong second place in the final, easily winning one of four at-large councilor spots. In the next major local election, Andrea Cabral, an African American prosecutor, beat out longtime Irish politician Steven Murphy for Suffolk County Sheriff. In the at-large city council preliminary that just occurred, Yoon surprised many political pundits by placing a strong fifth, while Arroyo finished second only to incumbent City Council President Michael Flaherty.
However, supporting a coalition of color should not be based simply on “identity politics” or the practicality of alliances with other communities of color. A long-term struggle for real change depends building such a coalition with groups that have the least to lose to change, along with other progressive groups. We, as Asian Americans, must also recognize that many of the gains that we have won have come on the trail created by the struggles of other peoples of color, particularly African Americans.
