Leland Yee. Fiona Ma. Ed Jew. Carmen Chu. Katy Tang. Gordon Mar.
Since 2001, these six Asian American officials passed the torch to one another, representing San Francisco’s majority-Asian District 4 on San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors.
But now for the first time in more than 20 years — and the first time since San Francisco began electing supervisors by district, rather than citywide — a non-Asian elected official will represent its electorate.
Joel Engardio is now supervisor-elect. The incumbent, Mar, conceded the race to Engardio on Wednesday.
“For the Asian community and other communities of color, marginalized communities, it’s extremely important to have representatives that share their lived experience and have the depth of understanding not only of their shared concerns but their hopes and dreams,” Mar said in an interview, Friday. “It’s been a great honor for me to represent District 4, a majority-Asian district, these past four years, as someone who does share that deep connection and experience with working-class Asian American families in the Sunset.”
For his part, Engardio also represents a number of firsts. He’s the first openly gay legislator to represent District 4, and he’s the first challenger to topple an incumbent elected San Francisco supervisor in a district election.
But Mar’s defeat is a cause for concern among some Asian leaders in San Francisco — regardless of their politics. The usual tribalism in this city pits left-leaning progressives against centrist moderates. In that framework, Mar is seen as a progressive and Engardio a moderate.
Most Asian supervisors in San Francisco have leaned progressive, and often found backing among Asian communities. Yet a moderate-leaning faction of Chinese voters may have found their voice during recent recalls in the city — which could change the calculus of whom Asian voters send to office, no matter their ethnicity.
Still, longtime Asian American leaders see a benefit to having Asian elected officials in City Hall.
Mabel Teng, a former supervisor who won her office during citywide elections in the 1990s, noted that Mar’s defeat leaves only one Asian member of the Board of Supervisors — Connie Chan — in a city that’s 37% Asian.
She also bemoaned the defeat of Ann Hsu, who would have brought an Asian immigrant’s perspective to the school board.
“The Asian community is hurting deeply with the defeat of Gordon Mar and Ann Hsu. This is the first time in decades, since my tenure on the [Board of Supervisors], there is one Asian elected on the [board] and Board of Education,” Teng said.
Engardio says he wants to represent all of his constituents, and is committed to keeping an ear to the needs of Asian communities in his district.
“As a candidate, I did a lot to do Chinese-language outreach. And many people on my staff and many of my volunteers spoke Mandarin and Cantonese,” Engardio said. “I will do a lot to make sure that we’re communicating with and connecting with every resident in the Sunset.”
District 4 encompasses the Sunset and Parkside neighborhoods, and is majority Asian (PDF) and nearly 40% Chinese (PDF), according to city data. Those neighborhoods — more than many dense, urban San Francisco locales — resemble a suburban utopia, with single-family homes and higher rates of car driving versus transit use. It’s a slice of the proverbial American dream for families who emigrated here and the generations that came after them. It’s also home to retail corridors with many Asian anchor businesses, like 25th Irving Market, a popular grocery store.
The Chinese community is so interwoven into District 4 that Supervisor Mar helped create the Chinese Cultural District in the Sunset in 2021. During the initial planning process, some of the groups involved with its formation planned a march against anti-Asian hate on the Great Highway in April.
“This is an example of the types of community activities that could be organized on a regular basis through the Sunset Chinese Cultural District,” Mar said at the time, in a statement.
David Lee, politics lecturer at San Francisco State University, noted that Asian American leaders tend to be more in tune with the needs of that community. And those issues are many: Rising anti-Asian hate stemming from the pandemic, related but separate hate crimes and violence against Asians, and the health of Asian-owned businesses rank among needs Lee says are top of mind.
“I think that is a concern for many people, including leaders in the Asian American community,” he said. “And it puts more pressure on the mayor to — through appointments, should openings come forward — to appoint Asian Americans to the Board of Supervisors so that we have a board that looks like the people of San Francisco.”
That lack of representation disproportionately affects the Chinese community in particular, which makes up a majority of District 4, said Malcolm Yeung, director of a prominent Chinatown nonprofit, the Chinatown Community Development Center.
“For the Chinese community, this is a blow. You know, it’s decreasing our representation quite significantly,” he said.
There’s been an ongoing narrative since the recalls of District Attorney Chesa Boudin and three school board candidates of an “emerging Chinese moderate vote,” Yeung said, a more vocal sector of the Chinese community that leans more centrist in their politics. Notably, with some exceptions, many previously elected San Francisco supervisors who are Asian were progressives: Eric Mar (brother to Gordon), Sandra Fewer, Jane Kim, Norman Yee and Connie Chan, for instance.
But that newly activated electorate isn’t backing the usual Asian candidates in San Francisco, who have sometimes tacked toward progressive politics.