Alan Wong and Han Zou running together for San Francisco City College Board

(SAN FRANCISCO) San Francisco City College with a 40% Asian student body might not have any Asian on its trustee board next year if no Asian candidate is elected on November 3 . Two candidates who have a joint campaign urge the voters to support them in the upcoming election.

There are four seats on the San Francisco City College Board up for election in November. Eleven candidates have filed to run for four trustee positions. Wong and Zou are the only Asian candidates.

Even though Wong and Zou are running for the same positions, they are not competing with each other, instead they run their campaigns together to help each other to get more support from the voters. It is not very common in many races for years between the Asian candidates.

Wong, 33, and Zou, 25, have many backgrounds in common. Both of them are young and first time running for public office. They are the legislative aides for Supervisors. Wong is the education and public safety advisor for District 4(Sunset) Supervisor Gordon Mar, while Zou is also the education advisor for District 6 (Tenderloin) Supervisor Matt Haney.

Among all eleven candidates, Wong is one of the first to file paperwork to run for San Francisco City College Trustee. Zou said Wong was the first one for him to call after he decided to run for the same position. He has Wong’s support.

“San Francisco City College has been very special to me.” Wong said. When Ivy Lee, the only Chinese American trustee on the board, has determined not to run for reelection this year, Wong has made up his mind to run.

“My entire family benefited from San Francisco City College,” Wong remembers that at the early days of his father immigrating from Hong Kong to San Francisco many years ago, his father was able to learn the skill as a chef by taking classes in City College. His father has been the chef in one of the hotels in San Francisco for two decades. His mother also attended the ESL classes in City College to learn English.

Wong took the advanced courses at City College when he was still a high school student. It helped him to be able to graduate sooner from University of California San Diego at the age of 19. He understands the needs for City College from all ages of San Franciscans.

Supervisor Gordon Mar started bringing in City College classes to Sunset early last year . Wong is working on the project that gives him more involvement into the City College system. That opportunity helped Wong to determine to run for the trustee position.

Wong believes that he would be the voices for the Asian community if he is elected to the board. He was raised in an immigrant family. The new Sunset campus classes are very popular. Some of the classes have waiting lists.

Wong has been racially attacked on facebook and social media during the campaign days. He and his father were called members of ” the China Communist” when he spoke to voters on the streets.

The Anti-Asian sentiment has been getting more serious during the pandemic. Wong is very disappointed to see that happened to anyone. He says bias is always targeting the Asian community. For instance, people would feel that one representative is good enough at each city commission or oversight body. But nobody would say anything if a broad or commission has more than one white member. He is hoping that the voters would vote for Zou and himself in the election.

Han Zou is a first generation immigrant from China. He came to the United States with his parents at the age of 6. “Higher education brought me to the United States,” Zou said.

Zou’s mother is a professor at Yale University. He recalls when he was young in China, he didn’t know any English. His mother was the first child in her family to go to college. She studied public health and was admitted to Yale University for the graduate program. She came to the United States with her husband and Zou. She has become a professor teaching at Yale University at a later time up to the present.

After Zou graduated from college with a major in political science, he came to San Francisco and first worked at Asian Law Caucus. Then he worked at Supervisor Matt Haney’s campaign before Haney was elected. Zou was the Executive Director of the San Francisco Democratic Party before he was recruited by Haney to be his legislative aide in City Hall.

"During the pandemic for the last six months, I understand more of the disparities of education resources for the low income families. I hope that I can contribute to education,” Zou said. Many children in poor families are not able to have computers for remote learning. He decided to run at the beginning of the Shelter in Place order to be effective.

If he is elected to the City College Board, Zou says he would keep the ESL classes and art programs running for the community. He would also strengthen the working relationships between Asian and other communities. Zou speaks fluent Mandarin.