我们是 Cupertino 的居民，Cupertino 是我们的家园。对于家园的未来，我们应该有发言权！

然而，在一系列社区问题 （学校天线，Vallco rezone， Cupertino 社区规划）问题上，我们发现拥有发言权不是一件容易的事情！

Vallco Rezone 可能不可避免，加在APPLE 新总部，附近的交通将会是噩梦！

Marina Food （永和）的未来命运如何， 更是与这里的华人日常生活息息相关！

Target 的地盘被他人高价收购了，这里是否又会出现许多 Apartment?

这里抛砖引玉，呼唤一个类似 CBC 的组织，Cupertino-West San Jose 为Base, 以社区活动为核心。这个组织需要关心政治，但是以社区发展和服务为首要目标。

这里推荐 介绍 CBC 的一段聊天，供大家参考借鉴。

**  We need an organization based on Cupertino-West San Jose to get our voice heard ****************

时间:   Jun 21, 2014
地点:  微信 SVCA 义工群
小结：APAPA Bay Area Chair Albert Wang 谈论参政体会， 包括 CBC， Fremont Weibel 学区重划, 支持候选人的标准。 他的分享受到热烈赞许，这里加以整理和补充，奉献给大家。

（Revised on Aug 13, 2014 and Aug 2. 2015)

Some background on CBC （华人权益服务社，简称华益社）, Citizens for Better Community (http://www.cbcsfbay.org/), a Fremont based Chinese American organization. CBC’s forefather was a “breakfast club”, a group of Chinese Americans (mostly from Taiwan, some from Hong Kong and ABC’s) getting together to network for business and also learn about subjects of interest.  Members (very informal, anyone can come and go any time) would talk about their expertise, such as CPA about tax law changes, etc.  Around 1989, Henry Yin ran for School Board, and was close but didn’t win.  People started to learn a little about politics.

CBC’s original mission was to get Chinese American involved in local affairs, related to Business, Health, and Education, something most Chinese cared about.  After I joined, we added Community Involvement as the fourth focus.

In 1992 CBC held its first event, a fundraiser for Asian American Donor Program (AADP, 美亚骨髓捐赠协会), a bone marrow match program for Asians. There were very few API potential donors of bone marrow at the time. It’s extremely hard for cancer patients of our race to get a good match.  Dr. Chiu, CBC’s first President and a dentist, had a friend whose child needed a bone marrow transplant but could not find one.  He started, together with others, and formed AADP.  Today, it’s a very successful ongoing program and has gotten probably 100,000′s of people registered. It is now linked to Taiwan’s 慈济bone marrow bank, benefiting people around the world.  BTW, Dr. Chiu is actually from Shanghai, but left for Hong Kong at age 6 and came to the US for college.

In my, and other CBC founders’ mind, the purpose of CBC is to have “our people” in every aspect of Fremont’s life.  One of the goals is to have elected officials at every level.  But it’s also important to have Chinese Americans in Rotary, Lion’s club, PTA’s, various charity board and foundations (hospital, college, library, women’s shelter, kids’ services, etc), as well as being staff in government.

It is meant to establish good working relationship and trust during “peace time”. When something happens that affects our community, there will be channels of communication where trust has been built already and our voices can be heard.

Around 1995, a Fremont school board member resigned due to personal reasons.  We promoted the Fremont Chinese School Vice Principal Anna Muh 乔台云 to apply, not expecting her to be selected since she hasn’t done much at the local school.  However, school board members realized the importance to have a Chinese American representative, given the rapidly growing student population, and they appointed her.

Knowing that she’ll face election soon, I decided to learn about campaigns because we didn’t have that expertise in our community and I didn’t know who to trust to help.  So I actively participated in a school bond campaign, learning the basics of campaigning, and managed Anna Muh’s campaign next year.  We were fortunate that, Bill Harrision (current Fremont Mayor), the campaign manager for then retired police chief running for city council (later mayor) Bob Wasserman, has a Chinese wife who ran for the Sanitary District board and I had supported her.  Bill helped me and taught me most of what I know about campaigns.  We were very successful together and both won with highest votes.

Winning one election for an incumbent, albeit appointed incumbent, was viewed as an anomaly and luck.  It’s not until Steve Cho （曹业云，共和党） won a city council seat in 2000 with a native campaign without outside help, in fact running against the Democratic party machine plus the more independent Bill Harrison, that CBC’s people (CBC is 501c4, does not engage in campaigns) began to gain respect for its political influence.

The reason for the long history is that it takes time and multiple efforts to “get somewhere”. It won’t be a one time, one year event.  Subsequently Ivy Wu (吴苇，无党派，current CBC President) won school board seats in 2004 and 2008, retiring in 2012.  Lily Mei （高叙加，无党派）won in 2008 and 2012 for school board seat (I did not run her campaigns) . In 2014,  Lily Mei won Fremont city councilmember seat and Yang Shao (邵阳）won the school bard seat. Yang Shao (邵阳）is a CBC board member and long time volunteer.    Steve Cho won another council race in 2004, terming out in 2008 and failed at two mayoral campaigns, one against Bob Wasserman and one against Bill Harrison, both ran by me against my former mentor.  But Bill and I remain good friends until today and regularly communicate on city issues.  So PLEASE do not be a single issue or single candidate group. Long term relationships continue and respect is earned by doing good community work, even if we may be on opposite sides of a campaign.  Standing on opposite sides of a campaign with friends is unavoidable unless we want to be patsies for some political machine (either party or some prominent political figure).  We Chinese must seek out our own path and build on that. Yes, Anna Muh has remained very active in the community and runs the CBC Youth Internship and Toastmaster programs.  Ivy Wu is CBC President and also founded her own non-profit, FUSS (Fremont Unified School Store), working with a diverse group of parents (many Indo-Americans and whites) to support Fremont schools. Today’s CBC has mostly achieved its goal of having “someone everywhere”.

Seeing that CAPA, Chinese American Political Association (美华参政协会，CAPA) of Walnut Creek, had a youth internship program in the World Journal, I started the CBC program in 1994, consulting CAPA.  Subsequently, CAPA and CBC both helped Vision New America (VNA) start its own internship program, then APAPA’s program after that.

Toastmaster was initially a Fremont Chinese School program. But it was losing steam and CBC took it over and ran it for the last 15 years or so.  Seeing the importance of public speaking, CBC started its own adult toastmaster’s program too, to help mostly immigrants (not just Chinese at this point) to improve public speaking skill so critical in this country.  And many other worthwhile programs and organizations were formed by CBC active members – the FUSS and AADP mentioned above, and FCSN (华人特殊儿童之友，Friends of Children with Special Needs).  The relationships built within CBC have been extremely helpful in forming these groups, both in terms of connections (political and otherwise) and financial support.

As to the Weibel school re-boundary issue, I was one of those living in the Weibel district and with my older daughter about to go to Junior High that year, directly affecting me more than anyone else.

It has some parallel to SCA5 of today, although at a more local and direct level.  Whether SCA5 will affect anyone’s child specifically isn’t clear.  But moving Weibel attendance area to Horner Jr. High and Irvington High has exact and direct effect on those living in that district.

CBC was, as I mentioned above, beginning to have some political influence at that time （1999）, although very minimal.  Dr. Chiu and I both were directly affected and we joined the spontaneously formed group.  Unfortunately, most participants, largely immigrants from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and India, were not politically aware. Their inflammatory and aggressive tone angered the whole Fremont before we even had a chance to organize.  Statements made in public, like “we can’t send our kids to Irvington, it’s like going from Palo Alto to East Palo Alto”, offended not just Irvington residents but the rest of the city.  I upset a lot of people by telling them not to say such things, much like my honest advice to you on SCA5 recently.  But with the tide of public opinion turned against “all these rich Mission San Jose Chinese and Indian elitists”, it was a losing battle from the very beginning.  A small Chinese/Indian voter base with nascent political involvement taking on the city with a long history of old-timer control was not going to get too far.

But, like it is now with all of you, I got to know a lot of good people and a few remained active and have helped me in many of the later campaigns, or have helped their own candidates.  A few have become more politically involved.  That should happen here too, for those who can think longer term and can see beyond one issue, one candidate, or one party.  Believe me, parties have their own interest and it’s not the same as Chinese American interest.  As a small minority, the only way we can be effective is to have good communication with both sides (actually “every side” as there are usually more than two sides) and maintain our independence.  Once we “belong” to someone or some party, surely they’ll give us some crumbs like appointment to ceremonial positions without real power; we will lose our influence and be taken for granted.

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