Sam Yoon and Family
Today I had a podcast with Sam Yoon, Candidate for Mayor of Boston. Intern Sagar Sane, who made all the arrangements for the podcast and who is helping with internet publicity, was also present. The podcast is 46 minutes and 13 seconds long. For those who are following my ridiculous ongoing battle to get GarageBand ’08 to import large files directly to mp3, this time I WON, and the podcast is a sleek and slim 21.2 megs. Download it here, or listen to it here:
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Sam Yoon was personable, open, and fielded all his questions in an open manner. He didn’t shy from ethnicity; he embraced it. It’s rare to see a candidate address issues of race and culture in such a forthcoming manner. Listen to this podcast. Even if you support the opposition, you’ll be glad to benefit from his insights and experience.
I was very impressed with Sam. For those who have followed my blogging career at newexcursion.blogspot.com, the Fighting44s, RiceDaddies, and bigWOWO, you all know that I almost never publicly endorse candidates for office, Asian American or not. Actually, with the exception of Barack Obama, I don’t think I’ve ever asked anyone to go out and vote for a particular candidate. However, when a great candidate comes along, I’d be crazy not to endorse that person. And so I am recommending that you ALL contact friends, family, and acquaintances in the Boston area and ask them to vote for Sam Yoon. If you don’t know anyone in Boston, or even if you do, you can also help by donating money through Sagar’s page. Sam Yoon was the first Asian American to run for public office in Boston, the first Asian American politician to win public office in Boston, and now the first Asian American politician to be endorsed by bigWOWO.
A large majority of bigWOWO readers lives in California, followed by NY, Oregon, Massachusetts, and then Washington, which is just right behind Massachusetts. Most of us won’t be able to vote. I’m not a Bostonian, and I can’t vote in this election, but I will contribute $ to Sam’s efforts, and I will do my best to use my network to get people to vote. Let me tell you why.
1. Sam has thought about ethnicity and the future. Like Councilman Liu from New York, he’s proud of who he is, and he is actively supporting Asian Americans. Check out his Asian Political Leadership Fund. It’s obvious from the podcast that he has taken time to consider his role as a leader in the community, and he’s not afraid to step up. More importantly, he wants us to be leaders, not followers. Check out the podcast around 34 minutes. It’s not the ol’ listen-and-follow-and-vote-for-me that some other Asian American politicians preach (ooh..speaking of listen-and-follow, blast from the past here, here, and here).
2. I love his idea about linking the elite Boston colleges to secondary education (around 15:50 in the podcast). We need that link. America has the best colleges in the world, but our secondary education leaves lots to be desired. With Boston being perhaps the most prestigious college town in the world with Harvard, MIT, BU, and Wellesley (slightly outside?), we need a Boston mayor who will take charge. Even though I don’t live in Boston, the use of America’s best schools affects the entire country.
3. Sam believes in transparency and balance. One of the great things about the new world of social networking is that we all get to contribute. A 100% mayor appointed school committee just doesn’t fly. Nor does the closed door politicking that prevents newcomers from using their talents.
4. In researching this podcast, I learned that the current mayor Menino has been there for 16 years. I’m sorry, but that’s just way too long. Term limits. There needs to be limits to enable a meritocracy, especially in a city where old boy networks are the norm. If Dubya weren’t restricted by term limits, do you honestly think that Rove would’ve allowed us to vote for Obama? He would’ve tapped our phones till the whole CIA had blisters on their fingers. For any city, country, or public organization to remain vital and fresh, we need term limits.
5. I’ll just come out and say this–Yoon is an Asian American leader who is aware and will use his platform as Mayor of Boston to help all of us. In this day and age of media saturation, political figures are more important than ever. Who else can stand up for us and really make that big impact? As I mentioned in the podcast, John Liu came through by speaking out against the JV and Elvis Show when they used their airwaves for racist pranks. We need someone who is not afraid to take a stance on issues like this.
Anyway, that’s me and my long winded opinion. Enjoy the podcast. Tell all your friends via Facebook, email, etc, and if you share my excitement, go to Sagar’s donation page. Any donation helps, even if it’s only $10 or $20.
Links:
Magnetic North (music=”Drift Away”)
Sagar’s piece at SEFTRE’s site
Sam’s announcement:
Yul Kwon’s endorsement:
Related posts:
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That was an impressive interview. One of your best I think. I like that he has a deep understanding of how the media has changed in the past ten years, and how blogs have become the new spot for alternative media OpEd outside of mainstream media. “One is ADD, the other is OCD” Like that one.
Anyway, that’s an impressive resume. He sounds like grassroots type of guy that understands the plight of Asian American political activism. Btw, I had no idea there were only a several cities that utilize 311. That’s a must have in Chicago.
We need more John Liu’s and Sam Yoon’s to lead the way.
By the way, this is my first time extending my efforts over the web for a political candidate. I’ve only begun to think about how to best accomplish a victory. If anyone has an ideas, please feel free to share.
Thanks, TMM! I also think it was one of my best. The guy has an electrifying personality, he hits the issues straight on, and I’m glad it came through over my humble podcast. We definitely more John Lius and Sam Yoons to break barriers.
“With Boston being perhaps the most prestigious college town in the world with Harvard, MIT, BU, and Wellesley (slightly outside?),”
Haha, with hundreds of universities and colleges, you pick Wellesley as your number four, “slightly outside”…really? I didn’t know that…haha…
Anyway, yes, yes, support Yoon, the Korean, the Asian, the Korean American, the Asian American, the people’s champ…It will be very hard going up against Menino who has very deep political ties, plus Menino has a Boston accent if you know what I mean. I hope Yoon makes a lot of noise and shake things up a bit though.
Yes, I was also going to ask why Wellesly? Like that small liberal school feel? You left off BC and Northeastern, not to mention a few dozen small prestigious schools.
But, for HS education to improve you need to take it out of the realm of the state government where power hungry individuals try to make political futures and move it into the realm of intellectuals who understand the model of success for American kids. In all honesty, I firmly blame the Bush administration for the education policy that led to the recent HS performance decline in Florida. These are the kids who came through elementary and middle school from his No-Child crap.
I’ve tried really hard to instill in my school a sense of future educational needs. I focus on free thinking and creative solutions rather than a rigid literary formal education. I instill in them the importance of writing rather than test taking. When was the last time you took a scantron test in college, especially in a lit class?
I think Sam can win if gets the students out to vote. See here:
http://thephoenix.com/Boston/News/76665-Can-Sam-Yoon-win/?page=1#TOPCONTENT
Sorry about leaving off all those other schools! I only applied to one school (which was not in Boston), so I totally forgot all the other ones. BC and Northeastern are definitely great schools, and I think I mentioned Wellesley because of Clinton. I should have shot for a Boston school; I’d probably be more cosmopolitan today if I had. Then again, my college years probably taught me what I needed to know before moving out to the Portland suburbs…
P2H,
One thing that struck me about Sam’s idea to link secondary education with the colleges is that a lot of high schoolers may not aspire to be academics or Nobel prize winners. Smart is probably less cool in the U.S. than in other countries at the high school level. I was thinking that if high school kids saw what smart people could achieve, maybe they would be inspired to work harder.
What do you think?
Wow – this guy’s the man. Smart, young, and yellow.
Would be nice to have some more representation around the country, and an elected one, at that. A lot of the higher ranking officials are in appointed positions (Michelle Rhee, Steven Chu).
I think you are absolutely right Jaehwan. I worked with a group of middle-schoolers at a program called 8th Grade Academy that was sponsored by Citizen Schools. The goal of the program was to do exactly what you’re talking about – give middle school kids a vision of what they can achieve with a college education. The program brings in professionals from a wide-variety of fields and has them lead 10-week apprenticeships that teach the students a practical application for the skills they’re learning in school. Apprenticeships range from building solar cars to helping design transit stations, to learning more about the culinary arts.
The group I was a part of was about getting youth involved in the political process. I was blown away at how much the kids excelled once they had an end-goal in front of them. They just needed someone to EXPECT them to succeed. We ended up putting together a documentary about neighborhood gang violence and then Sam actually came on our last day to watch the documentary and listen to how the kids thought local politicians could do more to solve this problem.
After seeing Sam’s interaction with the kids, I was sold. I could tell he really had a vested interest in the things he talks about on the campaign trail.
Awesome podcast Jaehwan. Great to hear such insightful, intelligent discussion, and Mr Yoon is definitely an inspirational candidate with foresight and vision. Society in general needs more political leaders like such as Mr Yoon!!
Thanks, Anna, Sowa, and Amazin!
I started to talk to people here in Portland about how we might be able to help support Sam through donations. It’s a very tough sell because it’s Boston, not Portland, and Portlanders usually focus on Portland affairs. Still, it clearly helps us all if for nothing other than breaking down barriers. I remember Daniel Inouye went outside his local area when he came to Portland from Hawaii to help a Japanese American candidate. I think we all need to cross borders to promote, even if it’s not in our local area.
I’ll keep you all updated on that effort. If anyone has any ideas on how we can promote the support of Sam Yoon to people outside of Boston, PLEASE SHARE.
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