Christopher Kui Pursues Greater Representation of Asian-Americans in Politics

Christopher Kui, executive director of the community organization Asian Americans for Equality, has long been at the forefront of the battle for Asian-American rights in New York. Mr. Kui, 45, spoke with The New York Sun’s last week about Asian-Americans’ growing political clout, the future of Chinatown, and the growth of his organization.Q. Asian Americans for Equality celebrated its 30th anniversary this year. How has AAFE grown from a small grassroots organization to the city’s largest organization serving the Asian-American community?A. AAFE started in 1974 as a civil-rights organization, fighting and advocating around issues of equal employment, fair housing, and access to social services. It was an organization where a lot of activists from various different movements came together and saw there was a lack of representation of Asian-American issues at the time. The community was growing and beginning to increase in numbers. Over the 30 years the organization has evolved from issues of social justice to a comprehensive community development organization.How has New York’s Asian-American community changed during the same period?Back in 1974 the Asian-American community consisted of Chinatown. Now, 30 years later, you have Flushing, you have Bensonhurst, and there are many other Asian-American enclaves all over the city.In the last 20 years or so, the community has pretty much doubled every 10 years. Now, one out of every 10 New Yorkers is Asian-American. That means there are 800,000 Asian Americans living in New York City. That’s actually larger than the entire population of the city of Baltimore.The community not only grew in size, but also in diversity. When the organization started 30 years ago, the city’s Asian-Americans were mostly Chinese-Americans. Now, you have Chinese-Americans, Korean-Americans, and then the South Asians. These three groups are the overwhelming majority. Then you also have others and new immigrants coming into this country.Chinatown was one of the hardest-hit neighborhoods by the September 11, 2001, attacks. What is AAFE doing to help the neighborhood recover?After September 11 Chinatown was greatly impacted. Thousands of jobs were lost. Tourism was down in Chinatown, and a lot of businesses were on the verge of bankruptcy. We stepped in and helped to really channel the assistance with the government that helped Chinatown to stabilize and recover.Pretty much immediately after September 11 we realized we needed to look at planning for Chinatown. We initiated the Rebuild Chinatown Initiative that brought the community, the elected officials, everybody that had an interest about Chinatown’s recovery, together. We initiated a community-planning project to reinvent and reinvigorate Chinatown – to make Chinatown “America’s Chinatown.”It’s a historic community that in itself hosts a local economy that needs to be linked to the city and the state. It’s a transit hub. There’s infrastructure there, with over 4,000 small businesses and over $5 billion in the local bank branches.We saw that Chinatown could really reposition and reinvent itself. That’s why with the Rebuild Chinatown Initiative we took on projects to develop affordable housing to retain the residents there and came up with an idea for a Pacific Rim office district. For that project we are looking at the Canal Street corridor for an office building for the small businesses trading with Asia.In the aftermath of September 11, Park Row was closed off, and that really isolated Chinatown. We’re looking at linking Chatham Square with Water Street, so that would be a five-minute connection with South Street. By setting up a local development corporation, that will really bring the local businesses together so that we could work with the city and the state and other agencies to really bring the kind of resources and development back to Chinatown and reposition Chinatown to become the Chinatown it can become for the entire United States.We also repositioned on Allen Street, the Allen Street Mall. The street’s been dilapidated for 30 or 40 years. We have co-named Allen Street to become the Avenue of the Immigrants. … We’ve got a group of organizations and community together, to form a new branding for that community and linking Chinatown, Lower East Side, and the seaport area, and we’re working to set up a local development corporation.You have said about your first years at AAFE, “it was new to see Asian-Americans, especially immigrants, fighting for social justice in this way.” How have Asian-Americans changed their political and social voice since the 1970s? When do you think Chinatown will get an Asian-American representative on the city or state level?People are working in terms of doing the voter registration and education, and that’s being done throughout the city. Hopefully there will be more Asian-Americans getting elected, not only in Chinatown but also throughout the city. My goal is Asian-Americans will be elected not only in Asian-American enclaves but also throughout the city, and where people elect them because they’re the best candidate. In Chinatown, part of the problem is it’s a very transitional community, where you have new immigrants come in and then they move into more long-term places where they buy homes and settle down….The election of John Liu [a City Council member from Queens] was a turning point for the Asian-American community. That’s why there is a lot of excitement in the community. It’s emerging and finally coming to a level of maturity. There’s a lot more involvement and participation.I went to polling sites in Chinatown during the election and I was amazed myself at the number of people on line to vote. I’ve never seen that many people.You became involved with AAFE near the beginning, in 1976; what brought you to the organization and what keeps you there?It’s a sense of public service. I came to this country as a new immigrant and I really appreciated the type of support I received, and I felt that I was very fortunate to really get some of the best education that was offered to me. At the same time I felt it was really a community that was still in need and that if I could help to make a better city and a better community then I should do it.I started out as a volunteer, in high school, teaching English classes. I came to this country when I was 10 from Hong Kong. My family immigrated to this country and I grew up mostly in Brooklyn and Queens. I’m pretty much a lifetime New Yorker from Brooklyn Technical High School to graduate from New York University.I feel very much we are seeing real results of my work, whether it’s actual housing that AAFE has built or the businesses that we finance when they can’t get the financing from the mainstream bank. I feel very proud and accomplished in that sense – seeing the actual results in front of my eyes.

Christopher Kui Pursues Greater Representation of Asian-Americans in Politics

Christopher Kui Pursues Greater Representation of Asian-Americans in Politics

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