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New York’s Chinatowns Deserve, and Need, Their First Asian Congressional Representative


Yuh-Line Niou & others at a Lunar New Year celebration (photo: Darren McGee/Governor's Office)


No one said it better than Congresswoman Grace Meng when, after the 2021 elections, she tweeted of Democrats, “our party better start giving more of a shit about #aapi [Asian-American and Pacific Islander] voters and communities. No other community turned out at a faster pace than AAPIs in 2020.”

Meng, the first Asian American elected to Congress from New York, was reacting to significant swings by Asian-American voters toward Republicans in the 2021 mayoral and other city elections. Even districts represented by an Asian Democrat, such as that of Queens Assemblymember Ron Kim, saw the shift.

In New York City alone, Asian Americans now make up 17.3% of the population, and New York State’s Asian population grew over 37.6% in the past decade. As reported by Asian American Federation, Asian voters also turned out in a record high (27.1%) in this past citywide election surpassing Black (26.5%) and Hispanic (17.4%) voter turnout. This is an 11-point increase from 2013, when Asian voters only turned out at 16.3%.

And while those who organize in Asian communities are well aware of this shift in voter turnout and power, it feels as if those in national and especially New York City politics are resisting fully recognizing this paradigm shift and failing to invest in Asian candidates and outreach strategies for this growing electorate.

This comes at a grave cost to the progressive and Democratic ability to foster what will become a new political force. To be a progressive Asian in New York City politics feels like being a canary in a coal mine right now: recognizing that there’s a window to capture AAPI voters but seeing Democratic Party leaders and other electeds miss the mark repeatedly. This is especially the case as a voter in the new 10th Congressional District of New York, which was drawn to include both of the city’s Chinatowns, in Lower Manhattan and Sunset Park.

It is paramount that with this new and open congressional seat, Democrats seize the opportunity to place an Asian American elected official with a strong record as an advocate at the top of political power for these under-served Asian-American communities. Right now, Meng is the only Asian in the New York congressional delegation and based on representative demographics alone, New York State should have at least two Asians as members of Congress.

Especially given how long elected officials often hold congressional seats, there might not be another window of time more critical than now for Asian voters. It’s why Democrats and the media cannot ignore Yuh-Line Niou and her campaign as the only viable Asian candidate in the NY-10 race.

While NY-10 unites both Chinatowns, Brooklyn’s quickly growing Chinatown, located in central Sunset Park, is on a different political trajectory than its Manhattan counterpart. Whereas Manhattan’s Chinatown overwhelmingly went for Democrat Eric Adams in the general election, Brooklyn’s Chinatown actually voted for Republican Curtis Sliwa over Adams. In fact, outside of Manhattan, Sliwa performed better in majority-Asian districts, especially in Brooklyn and Queens.

Even in the City Council race in Sunset Park and Red Hook, while Alexa Aviles won easily with both labor and progressive support, the runner-up was political newcomer Yu Lin, who won close to 35% of the vote. He was virtually unknown before his political campaign, and while rumblings in Chinatown showed many Asian community leaders were aware of his apparent lack of political education or acumen, he ran a pro-police, pro-safety, and pro-Asian messaging campaign to secure supporters and was backed by conservative business leaders in the neighborhood.

In February, Republican Reps. Nicole Malliotakis and Lee Zeldin, the GOP nominee for Governor in this year’s election, held a public safety rally in Sunset Park that was well-attended by Asian residents. This came at a time when there was a massive spike in hate crimes against AAPI communities and especially women and seniors were injured or killed.

Granted, it is important to note that Asian Americans in New York City also overwhelmingly voted for Democrat Joe Biden over Republican incumbent Donald Trump in the 2020 election. But some of those very same areas voted Republican in the following mayoral race.

Donald Trump’s sinophobia and “China virus” comments fueled anti-Asian attacks in New York City and across the nation, which likely soured even conservative Asian voters. It might also be true that Asian voter disillusionment with Democrats reflects unique frustrations around New York City politics, especially education policy under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, but certainly on public safety too.

It’s important to acknowledge that the conservative energy in Asian communities in New York City has been fueled and amplified by elected officials who have deep ties to white supremacist movements, such as Malliotakis and Zeldin. Often, these views and rhetoric work to fracture Asian communities away from Black and Latino ones. There’s also a growing movement of business leaders and conservative bloggers, many with ties to real estate interests and China, who are smartly organizing to seize power on the right while there is an opening. Building through fear is expeditious and, oftentimes, easily exploitable.

In order to begin to turn the tide, it’s just not enough to have sympathetic elected officials show up once a year at Lunar New Year and attempt to pronounce Gong Xi Fa Cai or Gong Het Fat Choy, or to employ one or two dedicated Asian staffers. We need Democrats and progressives fully throwing down for Asian candidates, Asian voter outreach, language justice and accessibility, and ensuring that we’re testing messaging and framing for Asian voters.

Someone like Yuh-Line Niou, who has been working incredibly hard in the trenches for Manhattan’s Chinatown, especially during the worst of the covid crisis, and has the experience of building and supporting an Asian district, can build trust far more quickly than a non-Asian elected official.

Perhaps most importantly and impressively, Niou has been able to organize Asian youth, many who come from Sunset Park. Her campaign has been one that invites and excites young Asians who come from across the city to make calls, knock on doors, and hang up posters. As someone who was raised by a conservative father, it wasn’t his friends of 40-plus years who convinced him to vote Democrat, but his very stubborn and effusive daughter instead.

And as population growth and redistricting of legislative maps continue to create Asian-plurarity seats in Brooklyn (including new State Senate District 17, which will hopefully see progressive Iwen Chu successful this fall) and other parts of the city, it’s critical that we do that work now while there’s still a large window of opportunity. In NY-10, both Chinatowns would benefit with an Asian representative in Congress — and would be able to provide real backing and support in fostering Asian candidates from the community to run on Democratic and progressive ideals up and down the ballot.

Asian voters are by no means a lost cause for Democrats, they are untapped potential. APIAVote did a national survey showing that the majority of Asian voters do support many popular policies long-held by Democrats, including on gun control, affordable child care, paid leave, and even affirmative action. It will take invested organizing and resources for this to also reflect locally in New York City.

But showing up for Niou’s field shift in Sunset Park on a sunny Sunday afternoon and seeing over 20 young Asian volunteers, many second and third generation Americans like me, made me hopeful.

***
Whitney Hu is the political director of Churches United for Fair Housing Action and organizer in Sunset Park. She is Asian American and a NY-10 voter. On Twitter @whitney_hu.

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Frontline Nurses are Ready to Fight for Reproductive Rights in New York and Beyond


Gov. Hochul makes an abortion access announcement (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Governor's Office)


Since March 2020, health-care workers in New York have been on the front lines. Resilience, service, and a fierce commitment to delivering high-quality care to our patients guided us through the darkest days of the pandemic.

Due to the heroism of my co-workers and with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul’s administration, two years later we now stand ready to continue providing abortion care and set an example for the nation after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Today, women in America find themselves in a time of new crisis. In the aftermath of Dobbs v. Jackson, eight states have already massively rolled back women’s reproductive rights by banning abortion entirely, while several other states have severely restricted abortion access.

The public health consequences of this legislation are grave: Women undergoing high-risk pregnancies will be put in an untenable position where they will be forced to decide whether to seek illegal care or put their own lives in danger. Because of these draconian policies from the far right, New York providers will pick up the slack, and they deserve to be supported, not vilified by extremists like Lee Zeldin, the congressman and Republican nominee for governor. Democratic organizers, legislators, and voters across the country know this, and they are taking a stand.

A few weeks ago, Kansans voted in droves against removing the right to abortion from the state constitution. Their overwhelming rejection of this attempt to disenfranchise women should serve as a wake-up call for the nation: voters are ready to stand up against the ultra-conservatism of the Republican Party.

Here in New York, Governor Hochul announced a nation-leading $35 million investment to support abortion providers. In concert with Democratic state lawmakers, she has pushed to codify the right to abortion in our constitution, helping medical providers give the best care we can by budgeting for the recruitment and retention of nursing professionals while also allocating bonuses for frontline health-care workers.

Zeldin, on the other hand, is hostile to women’s autonomy and reproductive rights. He has said that if elected governor he will look to appoint an anti-abortion health commissioner and promised “open-door” access to anti-choice advocates. In Congress, Zeldin voted for abortion bans and co-sponsored legislation that would ban abortion without exceptions for rape, incest, or the life of the mother — placing him among the most extreme, fringe members of his party.  

Voters in a swing state like Kansas flatly rejected these policies, proving that the national right-wing GOP and its acolytes like Zeldin are woefully out of touch with the American voter.

Abortion providers and health-care workers in New York will not be intimidated by Lee Zeldin and his extremist views on who can and cannot receive reproductive care in New York.

The right to choose abortion is a matter of basic bodily autonomy and health.  As a frontline nurse, I see every day just how important it is for this right to be upheld and for reproductive services to be provided legally and safely.

With a woman’s right to make her own health-care decisions on the ballot, we must mobilize to protect New Yorkers and vote for Democratic candidates statewide.

***
Nordia Baxter Rivers is a nurse practitioner at a reproductive health center in New York City and a member of 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East.

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Ryder's Collapse Must Be The Turning Point to Finally Fix the Horse Carriage Crisis


 
(photo: centralpark.com)


On the afternoon of Wednesday, August 10, a carriage horse named Ryder collapsed at 9th Avenue and 45th Street in the heavy traffic going to the Lincoln Tunnel. Images of this painfully thin horse struggling to get up, still tied to his carriage as his driver whipped him to comply, were picked up by the media and attracted a large, horrified crowd. Down for about an hour, Ryder finally managed to get up after being hosed down by the NYPD.

This appalling incident has reignited calls for banning the horse-carriage industry.

Will this finally be the proverbial straw?

Horse-drawn carriages are widely considered to be inherently inhumane and unsafe for both horses and people. Accidents involving urban carriage horses have been a public safety concern for decades, resulting in serious injuries and death to both people and horses. New York City is no exception. But working and living conditions are also quite bad.

For the owners, the drivers union, and their supporters to blindly assert that the stables are “state-of-the-art” does not make them so. The horse stalls are allowed by New York City law to be only 60 sq. ft., which is much too small. Standardbreds need 144 sq. ft, and larger draft horses 196 sq. ft.  Horses receive no regular turn-out to pasture. A five-week requirement for time off is no substitute for essential daily pasture time.

The horses are allowed to work for nine hours each day, seven days a week, between the shafts of their carriages. And they continue to work in punishing hot weather. Even when carriage rides are suspended (mostly) during very hot weather, there is little relief for the horses who remain in their cramped stalls with at most a fan to help them cool.

There is no excusing these inhumanities.

It is time for the City of New York to grow a spine and make some real changes. Carriage horse accidents will continue to plague any mayor and cast the city in a bad light.

Abrasive confrontations go nowhere. It would be wise for the carriage horse owners to stop digging in their heels and at least come to the table for a discussion about electric carriages. In the last few years, two major cities that had carriage horses — Montreal and Chicago — did not offer an alternative to the drivers and simply shut their businesses down.

In late July, City Council Member Robert Holden introduced a bill to ban horse-drawn carriages and replace them with electric carriages. There is no evidence that he tried to work with the carriage owners or the union, a mistake that may well result in the bill’s failure. The bill offers no plan for what will happen to the horses other than to have the owners sign a commitment not to send horses to slaughter, showing a lack of understanding of how this despicable process works. And the electric carriage portion is mostly lacking.

In 2006, I worked with then-Council Member Tony Avella to introduce the first ever bill to ban horse-drawn carriages, then a state bill in 2011 when Avella went to the State Senate. Nothing came of these bills, but I was quickly learning an important lesson: an effective solution can only come about with all players willing to negotiate.

To that end, I put my organization on hold and joined forces with Susan Wagner, president of Equine Advocates, a horse sanctuary and advocacy organization. We undertook a trip to Guadalajara, Mexico in 2019 to see their successful electric carriages, and afterwards formed the Committee for Compassionate & Responsible Tourism.

It was an invaluable experience to learn from the people in Guadalajara – activists, drivers, owners, government officials, engineers, and tourists – who came together to solve the problem. Typically, animal activists and carriage horse drivers do not have good relationships. This was also true of Guadalajara. But things changed there because of collaboration and commitments to make something good happen. There was mutual respect – something that is very clear in the video on our website in interviews of these participants. We saw their success in action and wanted to bring the same thing to New York City. 

The drivers in Guadalajara love the electric carriages. They make more money and don’t have to worry about costly vet care for their horses or losing business in bad weather. And they no longer need to worry about being called animal abusers in front of their families.

Perhaps the New York City drivers will never agree to give up their horse carriages. But the handwriting is on the wall. Besides Guadalajara, Several cities around the world have shifted to electric horseless carriages, including Berlin, Cologne, Dubai, Istanbul, Merida, Motul, Munster, Mumbai, and Santo Domingo. Atlanta is considering them. Maybe even Charleston.

Horse-drawn carriages are not a big tourist draw. Frommers.com, a noted tourist guide, describes a carriage-horse ride as one of the most overrated experiences to avoid in New York City. "Pity those poor beasts of burden," it states. "They get dragged out in the heat and cold with buggy attached..." just for tourists.

To acknowledge the issue of animal exploitation and the need to make changes is called compassionate and responsible tourism.

It is an awareness that is spreading around the world – one that touches on ethics and eco-tourism and a growing concern about the inhumane treatment of animals. We see it in Barcelona where bullfighting – a long tradition – has been shut down; in several cities in California where rodeos have been banned; and in countries that have banned wild animals in circuses. And many cities around the world have replaced horse-drawn carriages with horseless electric carriages for humane reasons.

Almost 200,000 people from all over the United States, Canada, South America, Europe, and Asia had previously signed our petition to end New York City’s carriage horse industry. It’s clear that introducing electric carriages in New York City can be a shot in the arm for tourism.

Pedro Aguilar, President of the Tourist Carriage Association in Guadalajara said it best in our video: “Cities evolve, cities change. And the people, as part of the city they live in, have to also change and adapt. Traditions don’t die. They live on because it’s not just the horse. The tradition is going on the ride, the tour we give, how we treat people, and getting in a vehicle like this, which is simply a carriage without a horse.”

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Elizabeth Forel is co-founder, Committee for Responsible & Compassionate Tourism. On Twitter @CompassionNYC.

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