张昭富访谈(1)
anonymous-114 05/01 6528
4.5/37
[donate]http://www.barry4ca.com/donate[/donate]
April 17, 2014
1. Introduction, Social Value and Parties
LY: Barry, could you please introduce a bit about yourself too as a person?
Barry: I have been married for 32 years and I’m a proud father of three. My wife and I came to Cupertino in 1985 and raised all our children here. They all went through Lincoln Elementary, Kennedy Middle and Monta Vista High school. Two of them graduated from UCLA and the youngest graduated from UC San Diego.
More information on our family can be found at http://www.barry4ca.com/about
Here are pictures of us, then and more recently.
Barry on the far right with father, younger brother and sister
Aileen’s graduation from UC Berkeley, School of Optometry: From left, wife, Sue, Barry, Mom, son, Howard, daughters, Aileen and Alice
LY: How’s your social view, a “conservative” or rather a “liberal”?
Barry: Although a family man with lots of good personal friends as social conservatives (laugh), I’m not really a Christian. However, I do study and like the Diamond Sutra (金剛經) and other Buddhism literature. The wisdom in Buddhism does help me to better understand religions, humanity, sacrifice, and tolerance of differences in people.
I’d call myself on the socially progressive side. I believe in Civil Rights, Women’s Suffrage, Disabilities’ rights and equal protection for LGBT. Government shouldn’t get in the business of perpetuating institutional discrimination or dictating choices of individuals as well as families. All forms of discrimination are simply wrong.
LY: How do you feel about “Bathroom Bill”?
Barry: It is wrong. Boys go to girls’ bathroom or girls into boys’ bathroom? It is very awkward even for the ones self-identified as the other gender. Above all, it is against the interests of equal protection of all. There are other far better solutions like gender neutral personal or family rest room we see in airplanes, airports and other public places and every home!
We cannot sacrifice everyone’s best interests to score a political stunt.
LY: Rumor has it that you were a Republican before?
Barry: Yes. I’m still very conservative in fiscal matters even though I don’t think it has to be exclusive of Republican. All of us should have fiscal responsibility. I became a citizen in 1985 and followed the party of Reagan. In 1995 I ran and won a seat on the Cupertino Union School District (CUSD) Board of Trustees. Like a lot of people, I eventually chose the Democratic Party after mid-1998. The main reason is the minority rights and representation issue in the Republican Party at that time. It started to improve now as we started to see Chinese Americans like George Yang being noted. At that time though, being minorities, especially the first generation immigrant means that you are more or less automatically excluded from various considerations.
Learning from the best ideas of the two parties, I am also able to see merits in both parties and work with everyone for the community I represent. For example, I do champion for civil rights, better education and better environment for everyone besides the ideas of maintaining better fiscal planning and better environment for business. I’m against special interests.
LY: How do you feel party line voting and Democratic Party?
Barry: I have never and will not (be interested in party line voting). It is an abuse of our democracy. I see the values and extremes in both parties. I will be responsible for AD28 residents and California. I really care about getting the job done. Whenever needed, I do appeal to my colleagues, Democratic, Republican or independent.
Creating more jobs, reforming education, protecting the environment, security matters, and tax are all difficult issues that need bi-partisanship. I would like to get people together to improve on and fix all those issues. I wish we would all set aside party line differences and stand with the people, just like we set aside our skin colors, ethnicity and national origin differences, etc. I fully understand, if we stay with our party lines, then those special interest groups would heavily influence us and we won’t solve the problems with the right solutions.
I chose Democratic Party and I like its focus on Civil Rights, Women’s Suffrage, Minorities representation, education as well as environment. I don’t regret being a Republican before or my fiscal conservativeness. When I see the partisan politics that’s wrong, I speak out and work with everyone to help stop them.
