Afina Chenmei Liang (Editor's note: Afina Chenmei Liang is a high school student from the Class of 2026 at The Canyon Crest Academy. Afina is a recipient of 2024 API Internship in Journalism. ) SAN DIEGO — In 2022, Kent Lee was elected to San Diego City Council with over 60% of the votes, becoming only the fourth elected official in the City of San Diego’s history. In becoming the representative for District 6, which includes heavily Asian American communities like Convoy and Mira Mesa, he succeeded in keeping Asian political voices heard. However, the story behind his campaign is unconventional—he had never planned to run for office. Lee was born in West Covina, Calif. to ethnic Chinese immigrants from Vietnam and Myanmar. Now, Lee and his family have resided in San Diego for over 15 years. Lee’s journey started in 2007, when he completed his undergraduate studies at the University of California San Diego, double majoring in economics and biology. Throughout his college years and career, Lee worked with numerous non-profit organizations such as the Pacific Arts Movement (which promotes Asian and Asian American cinema), the San Diego API Coalition, and the Asian Business Association of San Diego. Although Lee was deeply engaged with his local community through volunteering and non-profits, he said that he “never considered running for politics.” Being a son of immigrants, he said, politics was not something natural for him.
Growing up, Lee did not see many people like him in politics. For example, there was a four decade gap between the first and second elected officials of Asian descent in San Diego; Tom Hom was elected to the City Council in 1963, and now-Mayor Todd Gloria achieved the same in 2008. On top of that lack of representation, many immigrants came to America in part to escape negative experiences with the governments in their countries of origin. Naturally, as late as 2020, Lee had never thought of running for office himself. In 2022, the previous District 6 Councilmember Chris Cate, who is also Asian American, was term-limited from running again, leaving the seat up for grabs. With no other Asian American candidates running, Lee found himself wondering who would step forward. With more than a decade of leadership and volunteering experience in the local community, Lee’s peers said it should be him. Most of Lee’s life has been about what he calls “service in some ways.” When people came to him with a series of conversations urging him to consider running, they were able to convince him. After all, serving on the city council is an act of service. Even when Lee did not envision himself running at the beginning, the community was already envisioning it for him. But even with strong support, Lee still faced personal and logistical challenges. His two children are now four and six years old, and during the campaign, they were still toddlers. Running for office is never an easy task, and on top of it all, Lee had to sacrifice time with his family. “It can literally be your entire life, and every single hour of every day,” Lee said, alluding to the complexity of his work. Many that serve in local office, according to Lee, are part-time workers who are almost like volunteers, and they need a lot of passion and grit to take on the job. As someone who is deeply rooted in the community, Lee also has his fair share of frustrations about working in City Hall. “We have streets that we know are broken, but we don’t have the ability to fix every single one of them,” Lee said. Realistic constraints such as funding, time and resources mean that there will always be more problems than Lee can fix. Sometimes, Lee said, he has to be the bearer of bad news to people that the city cannot do all the work that has been requested and is needed. On the other hand, there is hope too. When asked about the aspirations he has for his children, Lee replied, “I would hope my kids, if they wanted to, can stay in San Diego.” One of Lee’s top priorities includes ending homelessness and creating solutions for housing. For example, Lee supports the “Bridge to Home” program, which creates much-needed affordable housing. “Most of the time, we are talking about issues that are truly intersectional,” Lee said when describing how his identity affects his work as a councilmember. As a son of ethnic Chinese immigrants from Southeast Asia, a father of two young children and a resident of San Diego, Lee always has multiple groups in mind when making decisions. Everyone that lives in the community, whether they are seniors, Asians or middle-class, Lee’s policies have a wide range of focus. Lee described his work as “not selling a product, but helping people.” Through policy impacts, Lee believes that he can make a difference to real people. In fact, realizing tangible results for local communities is the biggest motivator for his work. Besides the frequent and sometimes tedious City Hall sessions, Lee spends the rest of his time engaging in conversations with the community. Like a true multi-tasker, Lee is handling many responsibilities and passions at once. Lee continues to encourage and cultivate civic-minded youth. For example, there is a youth commission in the City of San Diego and young interns in each office as well. These youth ambassadors are able to voice their opinions and values to the city to try and make policy changes. “For us, the empowerment of youth voices is really important,” Lee said. “There are a million ways that you can get involved. There are so many programs within communities hosted by non-profit organizations that allow people to get a sense of how to get politically and civically engaged.”
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