May 7, 2025 • 44 mins
Pattie Fong, former YOLO County District Attorney, tells stories of her barrier-breaking aunt, March Fong Eu, whose biography was recently published. “Eu had the reputation for fighting the status quo and injustices…” Born in the back of her parents’ laundry business, she graduated from high school & was told “to go back to China and help her people,’’ that most careers were above her & to expect only to be a secretary. She did become a secretary, California’s secretary of state, elected 5 times
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It's Your Voice Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:20):
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Speaker 2 (00:21):
Radios in lot, Thanks and lots and.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Lott Hello, and welcome to It's Your Voice, the show
that hosts enriching conversations in diversity.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
My name is Bihia Yaxon. I am a core alignment coach,
which means I support organizations and individuals and identifying their
core values and watching for patterns of bias that are
causing harm to them or others so they can develop
new habits that are far more beneficial to them and
(01:23):
everyone else, far more inclusive, and help them align their
actions with their values. I'm also a diversity educator and
I have a wonderful guest today, Patti Fong The title
of today's show is The March Loong You Story. I've
recently published biography about an amazing woman who just dissolved
(01:46):
barriers before there were even organizations to help people dissolve barriers. Patty,
thank you for being here. Marchfong was your aunt, right.
Speaker 5 (01:58):
That's right. She and my mother were sisters and they
both married Pong. So that's how we end up with Pong.
And here, okay, here's the book.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
Wow, and it's it is called what's the subtitle? I
know it's called the March Pong You Story and what's
the sub attack line?
Speaker 5 (02:15):
And unauthorized and authorized biography of an unauthorized woman because
she really was the first when she was elected. She
grew up in the Versaid County. She was born in
the back of her father's hand laundry. This is like,
(02:36):
you know, basins of water boiling water, and you washed
things by a hand and iron them for people. And
that was in Oakdale, California. And then the family moved
to Richmond and did hand laundry there and they lived
behind the laundry at all these locations. And she grew
(02:57):
up and graduated from Richmond High School and there weren't
a lot of opportunities. Then she was told by people
that being a teacher was not a possibility, that being
a scientist. She wanted to be a soil scientist, they
said that wasn't a possibility. An adult told her, why
don't you go back to China help your people, but
(03:20):
she ignored them all and all her siblings went to college,
and she went to UC Berkeley and finished up at
UC San Francisco with a degree in dental hygiene, and
she became the first dental hygienis hired by the Alameda
County schools. She went into classroom taught little kids how
(03:42):
to brush their teeth, amazing that they had money in
those days. She married her first husband, who was a dentist,
and when he went off to war, joined a Chinese
young women's society that was sort of Likeless through Our
but not connected to a university. But they did dinners
(04:03):
and entertained gis and tried to support the war effort.
She worked as a dental hygienis only in the schools,
and she managed to become the division chair of the
UCSF Dental Hygiena Dental Hygiene Department. Because the chairman had
(04:26):
died and they just invited her. And so when she
was like in her mid twenties, chair of a UCSF
division while she's working in Alameda County, and she went
on to get her master's degree from Mills College and
went on to get a doctorate in education from Stanford.
(04:48):
Not bad for our little girl who grew up on
a laundry and was told that she couldn't get anywhere
in the inner world. She started dabbling in politics with
the Alameda County Board of Education, and it was a
special year in that all the Board of Education trustees
were being elected before they were appointed, and they enlarged
(05:11):
the number of seats. So she won in the Almiya
County Board of Education. But she realized right then in
that first elected position that the girl boy system. She
was going to have to face that because the superintendent
already had his hand pit candidates for his board and
(05:31):
she wasn't one of them, but she won, but she
had someone else was who was in that same situation,
and so they would the superintendent would think that they're
ganging up on him and being mean to him, but
she was just being independent, not being the superintendent yes man,
and so she did county Almia County Board of Education
(05:55):
for ten years and then she and during that time
she started lobbying in Sacramento for the boards of education statewide.
They didn't have a presence in Sacramento, so she would
drive up with other people to go testify before legislative
(06:15):
committees and she started to learn what the legislative process was.
So she did Almia County Board of Education for ten
years and then when a seat came open in the
Stay Assembly, she ran. She had a real nasty run
in though. When she was a dental hygienis, she at
some point became the president of the Association of Dental Hygienis,
(06:39):
the nationwide organization, and they piped in on different issues.
And the issue that came up during her term as
president was whether the Texas I mean, this is a
national association. They're looking at Texas Dental Hygienis. Texas Dental
Hygienis like dnal Hygienis all over the They were being
(07:00):
controlled by the Dental Association, and the Texas Dental Association
had a clause that would not let Black Dennis join
their association. And the Texas Dental Association wanted their dental
hygienis to adopt that same language in their constitution, and
anti March took them on, and she had the backing
(07:23):
of some of her compadres in the dental hygien dental
hygiene area, but not enough. So she took on the
Texas Dental Association, and her association actually blackballed her. They
censured her, and they tried to hide it.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
And that's let me let me, let me ask at
this point in her career about how old she was
and went about what year was this, and about how
old was she?
Speaker 5 (07:50):
The nineteen fifty nine was when she was censured by
her own dental hygiene association, So she was born in
twenty two. She was was thirty seven years old. And
what's really interesting is that the association, the Dental Association,
tried to clean up their record. They destroyed their minutes,
(08:12):
they denied that they had censured her. They were actually
denying the meeting had happened. But what was really cool
is we found the original censure letter blue ink and
Awe in the regular It was really important for her
because somehow it passed down to my stuff and I
was like, oh, here's the letter and so we have
a piece of history where that was her first dabbling
(08:34):
into civil rights because she saw that the dental hygiene
Dennis they wouldn't let guys become dental hygienis. There was
something in the law where they could not enter the field.
So it was like a male dominant dennis profession dominating
dental hygienis, which are all win anyway. So that was
(08:55):
her first taste of politics at the professional level. So
he ran for Assembly and won it and served starting
in nineteen sixty seven. So how old was she then?
She was forty five. She was forty five years old
at the time. There were three women in the Assembly,
(09:17):
a body of eighty and it was here when von
Brathwaite Burke, the African American woman from la and Pauline
Davis who took over her husband's seat, and she was
from northern California, like Plumus County or something like that.
They were the three women in the Assembly. And they
were and when once a year they take pictures on
(09:39):
the Capito steps, and they always put the women in front,
and satan Ty Marsh always made sure that they gave
him flowers, so you can really pick them out, but
you can really see that everyone else is in black
suits and there's three women in front. And so he
went through. He took on the misogyny of the Assembly.
(09:59):
At the time, it was a good old boy's atmosphere
for socialization. They would do golf golf games. He'd sign
up and then they say, oh, you can't come. They
would have parties and the leadership would have delivered to
(10:19):
Anti March and Yvonne Brathway Burke a case of liquor
and say you can't come to our party, but here
have your own party. And they've got this case of liquor.
She took it in goods good. She handled it well
because Anti March had good, good sense of humor and
she could turn things to her advantage. Like once when
(10:42):
she was in an Assembly, uh she she was. The
Assembly at that time was dealing with environmental protection, consumer protection.
The first Women's Commission, the Commission on the Status of
Women was formed. Those sort of new issues were coming
were coming to, you know, into the public arena. And
(11:06):
there was one issue where she tried to get the
South the Peninsula air quality guys to come to a
hearing and they refused to come to a hearing and
there would be a press comment in the news saying, well,
the guy who refused to come, he used to be
a forty nine er linebacker. And the press coverage would say,
(11:29):
if they were to take a bet on whether March
bomb would win over this guy from the air Quality
Control Board who used to be a football player, they
get on her Anti Marches.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (11:42):
Antie March is best known for that paid toilet thing.
Speaker 4 (11:45):
Do you remember those tell us about that?
Speaker 5 (11:49):
In the old days, Nickel Locke was the company that
sold toilets dolls and you had to stick a nickel
in before the handle would open up the door, and
they were in public and she it took five years
for this legislation to get through, to make it out
to outlaw Nikolock or pay toilets in buildings that had
(12:12):
government funding. And what's interesting is someone that asked me
because women really backed on this issue, but it was
actually a guy, a military guy who was returning from
his deployment at the airport, who didn't have the change
to go into the toilet and he messed his pants
(12:34):
and he told Anti Marsh about that problem, and so
she ran with it for five years to get the
law changed so that they're no longer pay toilets in
public building. But you know, on one hand, he was
embarrassed that she was known as the pay toilet lady.
But you know, in politics, it's what gets you name
(12:56):
recognition and positive name recognition.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
And for commitment and follow through, not stopping until it
was achieved.
Speaker 5 (13:03):
Well, that's actually what always happens, So it takes a
lot of years for legislation to make it through. Anyway,
after being in the Assembly for like eight years, Jerry
Brown was going to run for governor and the Secretary
of State position was opening up, so she ran for
that and me and my cousin went. We took off
(13:24):
this quarter from college and went to LA to run
the LA headquarters. She won the election. It was a
statewide election. She was only known in northern California. Most
of the votes are in southern California. But the theory
was is that most of the people running against her,
most of the Democratic candidates who were running against her
(13:45):
were LA people, so they split the LA votes among themselves.
She carried northern cal picked up some of the LA votes,
and she made it onto the ballot for the Secretary
of State. Race in seventy four and.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
One and she can oh, oh my gosh. Then as
you go, I just want to interrupt again to ask, like,
what was her superpower? Because I mean, at one point
you said, well, she ignored them all, like she ignored
people saying no, you can't, and like I think in
the press release about the book, it says she was
told you can't do this, that you could just be
(14:21):
a secretary. Then turns out it becomes a secretary of
the state. But what was it like it was her
ability to just ignore and not take in people saying no,
you can't, and her humor and what kept her going
because so many people, how does she get to know
people and win their trust?
Speaker 5 (14:39):
You know her when she campaigned, her role was always
to not not near her opposition, but to build on
and let people know what she's managed to get done
in her career. That might have been part of it
because she always had a good left of good feeling.
(15:01):
She was really good at namesoff, she remember everyone's name,
and when it was came to making a presentation to
an ethnic group that had a specific language, she'd learned
how to do an intro in the language of their
native language. And and you know that kind of stuff
really impresses people, do he was always fighting for the
(15:23):
small guy. He didn't. She was fighting against big power,
big money. And you know it's sort of bitter in
the butt though, because she never was a great fundraiser,
so she ran statewide campaigns on very little money, but
her name recognition got to the point where she only
was the top vote getter on those state wide campaigns.
(15:45):
I mean she'd be she'd be far ahead of you know,
governors and and all the treasurers and attorney generals. She
was the top vote getter, and that's probably why no
one ran against her. Well, they ran against her, but
she kept on win and she held the position for
twenty nearly twenty years. And then after that she started
(16:08):
getting interested in federal stuff. So she worked on presidential
campaigns and got appointed to the ambassador by Clinton to
the Federate States of Micronesia, which is like two days
away from here because you have to island hop to
get there. Wow, and so, and some of those islands
are not I mean, their runways are like ten inches
(16:30):
above the sea level, so you know, their global warmings
really affecting them. So she really he was the first
Asian woman to be elected in a constitutional level position
in the whole country, in the whole country, and when
(16:51):
she was the first Asian Assemblyment person woman in California.
He was the first Asian secretary of State. But you know,
they're not that that many people run for a secretary
of state. So she really she she was quite remarkable.
(17:11):
She had Okay, you guys have a big ego to
do this. Right to be in politics, you've got to
do it. And she managed to stay away from the controversy. Members.
Remember when we had that problem that it was called
the Asian donor gate or something like that. We're big.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
I think I was in California at that time, was
not familiar with it.
Speaker 5 (17:33):
No, it was affecting Clinton and Gore too. Big money
was coming in from Asia and oh yes, and and
and frankly Asian overseas. Overseas Asians don't know how to
follow the federal campaign rules. You know, they just think
they're going to wash it. It doesn't work that way.
So yeah, anyway, anti March, thank god he hired he
(17:58):
wrote a contract with Tim van to Hey, a ghostwriter.
So if you ever want to do your own biography,
and you don't want to write it. Hire someone. He
took twenty eight boxes of stuff, which was organized by
the co writer, Aaron Daniel Meet, and wrote this book.
He said he didn't have to do a lot of
(18:18):
research beyond because everything was in these boxes, and he
kept everything. There were greeting cards in these boxes. I thought,
I think I sent that and it was still there.
So he managed to She commissioned him to write this biography.
She didn't want it published in her lifetime. He died
(18:42):
in twenty seventeen, which was eight years ago. And I
think what she didn't want to do is deal with
this promotion stuff, because when you promote a book and
want to distribute it, there's a lot of ego in there.
And she was really very conscious of not looking very
self promoting and egotistical. But you know, two years after
(19:05):
she died, they dedicated the whost Secretary of State building
complex to her because she fought for that. No one
wanted to put money into the archives and she and
her offices of the Secretary of State were scattered all
over the place. So the whole complex, which includes the
California Museum, which is a great museum of California History
(19:30):
was dedicated to her in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 6 (19:33):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (19:34):
But let me tell you about growing up with Anti
March please. I was lucky because I was close in
age to her two kids, and so when she was
in the Assembly and she didn't have daycare, he took
us to work. We spent summers in Sacramento running errands
for the office, going using the copier that's in the hallway,
(19:59):
going to the bill room to get copies of bills,
and then we'd explore the place. And you know what's
really crazy is like, you know, I'm here. I was
probably twelve thirteen years old. We were not scolded at all.
Of course, you know, little Asian kids probably aren't as
rambunctious as the other ones, but no one they got
used to us just being around the state capital wandering
(20:22):
and doing our thing. So she broke down that barrier too,
take your kids to work. And my cousin Kip. People
may know him as Matt Fong because he ran for
treasure and he ran for Senate. One summer. I remember
he went into the typing pool so to keep him busy.
Sometime to the place where all the typists are. So
(20:45):
we were really we grew up with privileges that I
just am trying to recognize I learned. I didn't learn
until a lot later that these guys who took us
out for dinner were lobbyists. But you know, you got
you got two kids, a fee hit the lobbyist, the pam.
Speaker 4 (21:05):
You know, okay, my children are coming with me.
Speaker 5 (21:10):
Yeah, you got two morounds or three or miles to feet.
You know. The Capital got really used to us too,
because I remember when I was just getting my driver's license.
I was the oldest of all three of us. So
I got my driver's license first. They actually let me
check out her car from the state capital garage. We went.
(21:32):
I think it was a Cadillac. It's like the little
kids to a driving this car out let. No no
questions asked. They didn't even ask my driver's license. No,
we just because underneath the Capitol is a cool garage
valet system for all the legislatures. So there's parking space.
You just drive up the driveway and leave the keys
(21:53):
in the car and they put it away. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
I love that image. I love that image. I can
see the valley kind of Okay, here's the keys.
Speaker 5 (22:04):
Then I have to tell you what, really what happens
sometimes though, I mean in the winter, you know, if
we wanted to go skiing, they managed to find someone
to drive us to the slopes. It was really I mean,
there were some privileges there, but yeah, somehow they found
resources to get us get our day up there.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
Well that, yeah, that's something else to like step back
and recognize privileges you had. I'm also I appreciate that,
But I also am wondering how much you think your
own career, because you were the Yolo County Deputy District Attorney,
and you you edit a current newsletter and you've had
(22:49):
quite a successful professional career yourself, how much or just
in what ways do you think your aunt March influenced
your like confidence and your drive to decide what you
wanted to do and go for it and succeed.
Speaker 5 (23:05):
You know, what's interesting is that he never told me
to go to law school, but she told other people too,
which is interesting. I did. After I graduate graduate from
UC Berkeley. My first job was in civil rights an
organization called Chinese War from of Action in San Francisco,
and we actually did head ons with Anti March because
(23:28):
when the nineteen seventy five Voting Rights Act brought in
amendments requiring things be translated. Anti March's office not saying
it's going to cost too much, We're going to tear
down too many trees. We can't do it. And from
our perspective, from the Chinese community, the Chinese language community,
(23:49):
is like, it's the spirit behind it. It's not whether
you're going to translate every darn word. It's the spirit
of getting people to be more knowledge being feel more
welcomed on voting. And so yeah, we actually had head
ons because Anti March's office was saying, oh, this cost
a few million dollars and we're going to you know,
waste all this paper, and it's just and not that
(24:11):
many people are going to ask for this. But the
thing is is that her father, our grandfather, he didn't
speak much English at all, but he voted every time.
He was one of these guys who claimed that he
was born in America and couldn't prove it because of
the nineteen six six earthquake. I mean, there's a whole
generation of Chinese who took advantage of the earthquake. But
(24:34):
he read Chinese newspapers all the time, So why shouldn't
he have access to more official stuff and be a
more knowledgeable voter. So we you know, we we had,
we had head ons.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
Did you ever talk about the head ons like at
the at her house or your your mom's house. Did
you ever talk about that when you were in personal settings?
Speaker 7 (25:00):
You know what, we avoided it, but you know what
it was.
Speaker 5 (25:02):
Really it was really significant because her right hand person,
Tony Miller, he brings it up still today.
Speaker 7 (25:10):
I was like, oh my god, that's about forty years ago.
Speaker 5 (25:16):
But yeah, no, it must have really hurt. But but
in the other ways, she made voting much more available
and unlike what's going through this Trump administration where they're
kind of require id and and starting to challenge everyone
to vote. Auntie Marsh in her career had to had
(25:38):
to hire someone to investigate alleged voter fraud. And in
the book it says yes, she hired Richard Needle to
and there was no work for him to do, so
he signed him to other things because they just didn't
find voter fraud. And she is told, you know, if
she was alive now and thirty thirty years younger, she
(26:00):
had been at her prime, she would have head ons
with Trump because you know, Trump doesn't like Asian women
and he doesn't want people to vote, and she wanted
everyone to vote, and she wanted to encourage people. They
even had when she was Secretary of State, which is
the chief election officer, he did voter camp, a voter
registration campaign. She started voting postcard voter registration, and that
(26:25):
evolved into this whole thing of reregistering when you go
to DMV and change your address. She was totally opposite
of what the Trump administration is doing in terms of
discouraging people from voting. And yeah, no, it's just totally
It would have been interesting if she was alive in
this time, but she's turning over in her grave, I know.
Speaker 4 (26:48):
So she was helping actually expand voting access.
Speaker 5 (26:52):
She took on the networks because there was one campaign,
I can't remember which one it was where the East
cost declared projected who's going to win and so it
made our voter turnout fall on the West coast and
there was no law. She pointing out any law to
keep the networks from doing that projection other than embarrassed them.
(27:17):
And so she she was good at media. She worked
her hardest to embarrass the networks. To restrain themselves to
not call call the election from the west coast or
from the east.
Speaker 4 (27:31):
So sheenced that, yeah, because they're three hours ahead. Yeah,
so she had an influence.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
Well, you know what, So the influences doesn't last real
long because the networks, forget right, they get so excited.
So it's a pressure that you have to keep on
doing because yeah, during those campaigns, it affects our affects
our elections on the statewide things and propositions and such.
(28:00):
She really battled with the networks.
Speaker 6 (28:04):
Sounds so courageous, yep, she was pretty And so she
wanted this book written because she wanted people to be
encouraged to do public service and to be honest and
upstanding politicians and leaders.
Speaker 5 (28:18):
And so whenever she would run into a young kid
who says, I just want to be like you, she
was so tickled because that was her goal. And she
definitely wanted this book printed. And so right now we're
in the process of promoting, you know, getting it out there.
The State Library's working with me right now. We've done
(28:39):
events in Oakland and Sacramento. I've got one in la
on the twenty ninth of May, and we've we're you know,
we're trying. We're on the Amazon. We've got on Amazon,
we've got a bookstore that hearing it. So no, she
her life is something, it's it's her playbook. This book
(29:02):
is her playbook of how she did it and what
people can learn and that you can't get scared off
by the money and the bullies. So she was She's
special in that way and.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
Was taken a lot of stamina.
Speaker 7 (29:19):
You know.
Speaker 5 (29:22):
Another thing that though she wanted people to know, in
her later years, she took up Chinese brush painting and
she's actually pretty good at it.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
Wow. So there are some of her paintings in the book.
Speaker 5 (29:36):
Yeah, these are big paintings. These are like probably five
feet pall.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
Wow. Where are they?
Speaker 5 (29:45):
Those are in China at some university in China. But
she also did like landscape and and so she because
she was famous Chinese painters from Asia, the old master types,
she would meet them in Asia or they would come
visit here and tutor her. And so she had the
(30:07):
privilege of being tutored by some of these great masters.
And you know, painting side by side in the I
think it's a traditional way of of uh learning how
to do this. And remember when I told you that
she wasn't a great fundraiser gender using her paintings to
(30:27):
raise money for campaigns, because you know, come out with
the original painting marchball you painting Wow was her?
Speaker 4 (30:37):
Was the last position she held, being the ambassador? That
was how long? How long was she an ambassador?
Speaker 5 (30:47):
Just two years? Yeah? And a funny story about that
is that did you know that ambassadors are are higher
than four star general?
Speaker 4 (30:56):
I did not some thing.
Speaker 5 (31:00):
Yeah, apparently because he retired to this place in Fullerton,
Morning Star, Morning Side, and there was a retired general
there who she befriended. And once they sort of pulled
rank on each other and he acknowledged the ambassador outranks him.
Speaker 7 (31:20):
She had more stars than he did.
Speaker 5 (31:23):
Anyway, you know everything that she stood for, I mean,
because she was a dental hygienis. He was behind that fluoridation,
you know, the early days of inducing florid to the
the water system. And here under Kennedy, we've got this
the same old arguments, and we've got and and so
(31:44):
we're just going backwards and and and she would be
the way that Trump is whitewashing history. Now they probably
blank out her name and blank out her pictures on
everything because they she she's de up, you know.
Speaker 4 (32:01):
Up and down, so that that's entirely possible that they're
trying to erase her as well.
Speaker 5 (32:07):
We had this one We had this one question at
one of the book events was was she more of
an Asian advocate or a women's advocate? And I think
the writer Tim Vanda Hay's misogyny was what affected her
more than the racial the ratio being Asian. But because yeah,
(32:32):
the whole bat all the early battles that she had
was whether she got the respect, whether she was respected
as a woman. So yeah, anyway, her politics makes is tough.
And so she she divorced her first husband, the Dennis husband,
early on and married Henry You around the time she
(32:56):
became Secretary of State. That was sort of awkward because
Henry You was a wealthy came from a wealthy family
in Asia, and so when Auntie Marsh was interested in
running for Senate, the whole issue about the husband's wealth
was becoming an issue, and he was a very private person.
(33:20):
That was one way of bowing out of that campaign.
Another real testing thing was when her son, matt his
name was Matthew Kipling funk. We grew up calling him Kip,
but when he became a political person, he took on
the name. He's Matt his first name. Anyway, he became
a Republican at some point.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
And how does she feel about that?
Speaker 5 (33:44):
It's in the book. Yes, he described the meaning that
she called with all her political advisors to test him,
to try to tell him out of it.
Speaker 4 (33:56):
One like like an actual like almost an intervention. Uh
huh uh huh wow. How did that go?
Speaker 5 (34:04):
Well? He stayed Republican, and the Republican Party would use
him to try to use him against her. He disclosed
that he was asked to be surrogate for the Republican
Party at some events that he would be profiled at,
and she they were he was asked to debate his mom.
(34:26):
He says, no, I'm a military man. I'm not going
to brace up against a woman. I'm not going to
do it against my mom. But when when he agreed
to run against Barbara Boxer, that was a real test
because he was criticized for using some of Empty March's
image in the early part of his campaign. And then
it got down to did she just endorse her or not?
(34:49):
You know, is it what what's loyalty to family or
to party?
Speaker 4 (34:53):
Oh, tell us how that went?
Speaker 5 (34:56):
She and m endorsing him. He didn't win. He didn't
win Barbara for one. But you know what it destroyed,
destroyed her political career. And I think he asked for
her to her endorsement because he figured she was at
the end of her political career. After she was done
with micro Nicia. She came back and she was bored,
(35:16):
and she actually ran again for a secretary of state.
But you know, the Democratic Party was not going to
forgive her for that Boxer Barbara Boxer thing.
Speaker 4 (35:25):
Wow, that's that's very interesting and painful and understandable. Also
that yeah.
Speaker 5 (35:33):
She lost that. Yeah, she lost that two thousand and
one primary to Kevin Shelley, who ended up resigning with
some sort of campaign finance problem. But it was worth
it because they became closer.
Speaker 4 (35:47):
In her Yeah.
Speaker 5 (35:49):
Yeah, but okay, you'll like this. When when when Matt died,
they had a huge funeral for him in southern cal
and all the big Republican readers took the microphone and
they all said, Matt Fong, he was a great man.
He ran against Barbara Boxer. They didn't say anything about
his achievements or his contribution to the party or anything.
(36:12):
He was just one after another. We love him because
he ran against Barbara Boxer. So they used him. They
used him. They probably had no viable candy to run
and they had this guy who's got name recognition and
through another Yeah, and uh yeah that was that was
(36:33):
just amazing for me to sit through that funeral and
to see him being crazed as Yeah. But yeah, I
mean I think one of them was even Governor Wilson. Yeah,
we love Matt Pong because he ran against Barbara Boxer.
Speaker 4 (36:49):
Let me ask you, because we believe it or not,
we have only six minutes left. I just wanted to
ask a little bit more about her. If she got
behind you once you started going to law school, Like
if she kind of noticed and appreciated that. I mean,
I know she loved you, of course, but it's interesting
that she encouraged other people to go to law school,
had not encouraged you, but you chose to there any more,
(37:12):
kind of any more kind of interchanges you can share
with us about that or attitude shift.
Speaker 7 (37:18):
Well, I found a note in her stuff that said,
no I found it wasn't my step Sorry, I didn't
come to your graduation by missed the invitation.
Speaker 5 (37:28):
It's like, oh my, oh yeah, I guess she wasn't there.
He you know, I I he liked my company. I
mean once she came. She hadna speaking event in Woodland,
and her people had to scope out the DA's office
in Woodland, you know, because they have to check securating
all that. She came to pick me up take me
(37:49):
to the speaking her speaking engagement. I went to a
lot of dinners with her. It was a you know,
actually it's sort of a lonely career a politician, and
family is easy company. And so I went a lot
of dinners with her.
Speaker 4 (38:09):
Wow and uh.
Speaker 7 (38:12):
And actually, what's really funny is Okay, it was when
I was a prosecutor. I'd be sitting in the car
talking to her drivers because her drivers were all hPAT
officers or state officers. There are cops.
Speaker 5 (38:27):
I'd be talking cops stories with the drivers while we're
going off to some event, and I got she's listening.
Speaker 7 (38:35):
So she actually I think she actually was proud of me.
But you know, Chinese don't really articulate proudness.
Speaker 4 (38:42):
Yeah, I was thinking about that, like kind of the
humility and the humbleness because I was thinking, I bet
she was very proud of you, but probably, but that's
not something to express, you know, you know, or lavish
you with.
Speaker 5 (38:55):
Well, when when she when she was down in fortune,
I went down to her three times a year, and
every time we would work on the book. And so,
and I'm the only one who volunteered to do work
on the book, and she she had no problem with
I'd sit there. Actually, it was a good conversation piece
because I could grill her because I knew some of
(39:16):
this history because I was growing up at the same
time and she was doing it, and so I could
grill her and have conversations, well is it really this
person who did this and that? And then because we
were all reading that, we could google everything that check
it out.
Speaker 7 (39:32):
So, yeah, she had no problem.
Speaker 5 (39:34):
With me tinkling with the book, and she knew she
want and she never told me to stop working on it.
And that's really funny, is it. Of the beneficiaries. We
had some naysayers who said, now, let's not dump any
more money into this book. I said, now we got finished.
She really wanted it. It was like, oh my god,
(39:54):
I got find some market for these books, and so yeah.
Speaker 4 (40:00):
It was lucky, so so lucky to have you by
her side along the way too, and then at the
end finishing something so important to her. We just have
a couple of minutes left. So I wanted to make
sure I let people know about the Currents newspaper and
if you, if you want to, if people can sign
up for that, maybe you can say out loud how
they could find that the Asian Asian American CI Islander
(40:25):
community news, and also how people can get the book,
how and where people can get Let's see.
Speaker 5 (40:34):
Yeah, it's available at Amazon, Pango Books, and East Wind
Books in the Bay Area. They're available at the book event,
but you'll have to make it to l A on
the twenty ninth of May. The Current Newspaper if people
want to get on the mailing list, they just need
to email me and I'll give up my email. I've
(40:57):
been hacked enough. Yamsong at hotmail dot.
Speaker 4 (40:59):
Com, Empong at hotmil dot com.
Speaker 5 (41:04):
And the Current Newspaper is an Asian newspaper and you
can find it at the Yolo County Libraries there.
Speaker 7 (41:11):
I just dropped some.
Speaker 5 (41:12):
Off at City Hall Data City Hall, Asian American Studies
at U see d S getting their supply tomorrow.
Speaker 7 (41:20):
Oh, you can go OTO's Market Freeport in Sacramento.
Speaker 5 (41:25):
I want to get it. Uh, there's usually some at
Bell Coolige Library in Sacramento. They're scattered here and there,
but you also can read it online at apps A
p s e A dot org. The Asian State Employees
Association has been a great sponsor of the newspaper and
(41:46):
it's uploaded on their website under community involvement, So if
you want to read electroniccopy, you can APC dot org
and find it.
Speaker 4 (41:54):
There A p s E dot com.
Speaker 5 (41:57):
No A p s e A Asia Pacific State Employee
Association dot org.
Speaker 4 (42:04):
Find the current newsletter there online wonderful.
Speaker 5 (42:10):
And the next edition if I'm not writing from El Salvador.
The last edition is pretty heavily anti Trump, because Trump
is destroying this country and we need to do everything
possible to prenect protect democracy. So if I'm not rested
and shipped off to El salvad Or by the next
(42:30):
additional in October, how about that?
Speaker 4 (42:33):
Thank you so much. I really appreciate what you've done
for your aunt, what you've done for our county, for
so many people, yourself in public service all these years,
and thanks for the current current newsletter encouragement and action
action advice for people who went to use their voices
(42:56):
to realign America back to its original to do values.
Speaker 5 (43:02):
Yes, it's not well great, it's not make America great again.
We were already great. That's why everyone wants to come here.
That's why we're the leading country in the world. So
it's like he just wants to make it great for
the white male again.
Speaker 4 (43:18):
Thank you, Patty. On that note, I think we need
to wrap up, and I want to thank you again
and thank you to all of our listeners and viewers
and to our engineer Rebel and our producer Dean Piper,
and please tune in next Wednesday, APM on it's your
voice or Talk for TV. And maybe we all have
enriching conversations not just every week but every day because
(43:40):
diversity helps expand our thinking. It helps us grow and
learn and helps become a more perfect union, which is
a slow, long process, but we can keep moving forward.
Maybe we all have be enriching.
Speaker 5 (43:51):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
In largic gallolet switch in large gallowletswitch on the inlargic
gellolet switch in large gallottisch over high
The topics and opinions express in the following show are
solely those of the hosts and their guests and not
those of W four c Y Radio, it's employees are affiliates.
We make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services,
or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability,
explicit or implied shall be extended to W four c
Y Radio or it's employees or affiliates. Any questions or
comments should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you
(00:20):
for choosing W four c Y.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Radios in lot, Thanks and lots and.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Lott Hello, and welcome to It's Your Voice, the show
that hosts enriching conversations in diversity.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
My name is Bihia Yaxon. I am a core alignment coach,
which means I support organizations and individuals and identifying their
core values and watching for patterns of bias that are
causing harm to them or others so they can develop
new habits that are far more beneficial to them and
(01:23):
everyone else, far more inclusive, and help them align their
actions with their values. I'm also a diversity educator and
I have a wonderful guest today, Patti Fong The title
of today's show is The March Loong You Story. I've
recently published biography about an amazing woman who just dissolved
(01:46):
barriers before there were even organizations to help people dissolve barriers. Patty,
thank you for being here. Marchfong was your aunt, right.
Speaker 5 (01:58):
That's right. She and my mother were sisters and they
both married Pong. So that's how we end up with Pong.
And here, okay, here's the book.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
Wow, and it's it is called what's the subtitle? I
know it's called the March Pong You Story and what's
the sub attack line?
Speaker 5 (02:15):
And unauthorized and authorized biography of an unauthorized woman because
she really was the first when she was elected. She
grew up in the Versaid County. She was born in
the back of her father's hand laundry. This is like,
(02:36):
you know, basins of water boiling water, and you washed
things by a hand and iron them for people. And
that was in Oakdale, California. And then the family moved
to Richmond and did hand laundry there and they lived
behind the laundry at all these locations. And she grew
(02:57):
up and graduated from Richmond High School and there weren't
a lot of opportunities. Then she was told by people
that being a teacher was not a possibility, that being
a scientist. She wanted to be a soil scientist, they
said that wasn't a possibility. An adult told her, why
don't you go back to China help your people, but
(03:20):
she ignored them all and all her siblings went to college,
and she went to UC Berkeley and finished up at
UC San Francisco with a degree in dental hygiene, and
she became the first dental hygienis hired by the Alameda
County schools. She went into classroom taught little kids how
(03:42):
to brush their teeth, amazing that they had money in
those days. She married her first husband, who was a dentist,
and when he went off to war, joined a Chinese
young women's society that was sort of Likeless through Our
but not connected to a university. But they did dinners
(04:03):
and entertained gis and tried to support the war effort.
She worked as a dental hygienis only in the schools,
and she managed to become the division chair of the
UCSF Dental Hygiena Dental Hygiene Department. Because the chairman had
(04:26):
died and they just invited her. And so when she
was like in her mid twenties, chair of a UCSF
division while she's working in Alameda County, and she went
on to get her master's degree from Mills College and
went on to get a doctorate in education from Stanford.
(04:48):
Not bad for our little girl who grew up on
a laundry and was told that she couldn't get anywhere
in the inner world. She started dabbling in politics with
the Alameda County Board of Education, and it was a
special year in that all the Board of Education trustees
were being elected before they were appointed, and they enlarged
(05:11):
the number of seats. So she won in the Almiya
County Board of Education. But she realized right then in
that first elected position that the girl boy system. She
was going to have to face that because the superintendent
already had his hand pit candidates for his board and
(05:31):
she wasn't one of them, but she won, but she
had someone else was who was in that same situation,
and so they would the superintendent would think that they're
ganging up on him and being mean to him, but
she was just being independent, not being the superintendent yes man,
and so she did county Almia County Board of Education
(05:55):
for ten years and then she and during that time
she started lobbying in Sacramento for the boards of education statewide.
They didn't have a presence in Sacramento, so she would
drive up with other people to go testify before legislative
(06:15):
committees and she started to learn what the legislative process was.
So she did Almia County Board of Education for ten
years and then when a seat came open in the
Stay Assembly, she ran. She had a real nasty run
in though. When she was a dental hygienis, she at
some point became the president of the Association of Dental Hygienis,
(06:39):
the nationwide organization, and they piped in on different issues.
And the issue that came up during her term as
president was whether the Texas I mean, this is a
national association. They're looking at Texas Dental Hygienis. Texas Dental
Hygienis like dnal Hygienis all over the They were being
(07:00):
controlled by the Dental Association, and the Texas Dental Association
had a clause that would not let Black Dennis join
their association. And the Texas Dental Association wanted their dental
hygienis to adopt that same language in their constitution, and
anti March took them on, and she had the backing
(07:23):
of some of her compadres in the dental hygien dental
hygiene area, but not enough. So she took on the
Texas Dental Association, and her association actually blackballed her. They
censured her, and they tried to hide it.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
And that's let me let me, let me ask at
this point in her career about how old she was
and went about what year was this, and about how
old was she?
Speaker 5 (07:50):
The nineteen fifty nine was when she was censured by
her own dental hygiene association, So she was born in
twenty two. She was was thirty seven years old. And
what's really interesting is that the association, the Dental Association,
tried to clean up their record. They destroyed their minutes,
(08:12):
they denied that they had censured her. They were actually
denying the meeting had happened. But what was really cool
is we found the original censure letter blue ink and
Awe in the regular It was really important for her
because somehow it passed down to my stuff and I
was like, oh, here's the letter and so we have
a piece of history where that was her first dabbling
(08:34):
into civil rights because she saw that the dental hygiene
Dennis they wouldn't let guys become dental hygienis. There was
something in the law where they could not enter the field.
So it was like a male dominant dennis profession dominating
dental hygienis, which are all win anyway. So that was
(08:55):
her first taste of politics at the professional level. So
he ran for Assembly and won it and served starting
in nineteen sixty seven. So how old was she then?
She was forty five. She was forty five years old
at the time. There were three women in the Assembly,
(09:17):
a body of eighty and it was here when von
Brathwaite Burke, the African American woman from la and Pauline
Davis who took over her husband's seat, and she was
from northern California, like Plumus County or something like that.
They were the three women in the Assembly. And they
were and when once a year they take pictures on
(09:39):
the Capito steps, and they always put the women in front,
and satan Ty Marsh always made sure that they gave
him flowers, so you can really pick them out, but
you can really see that everyone else is in black
suits and there's three women in front. And so he
went through. He took on the misogyny of the Assembly.
(09:59):
At the time, it was a good old boy's atmosphere
for socialization. They would do golf golf games. He'd sign
up and then they say, oh, you can't come. They
would have parties and the leadership would have delivered to
(10:19):
Anti March and Yvonne Brathway Burke a case of liquor
and say you can't come to our party, but here
have your own party. And they've got this case of liquor.
She took it in goods good. She handled it well
because Anti March had good, good sense of humor and
she could turn things to her advantage. Like once when
(10:42):
she was in an Assembly, uh she she was. The
Assembly at that time was dealing with environmental protection, consumer protection.
The first Women's Commission, the Commission on the Status of
Women was formed. Those sort of new issues were coming
were coming to, you know, into the public arena. And
(11:06):
there was one issue where she tried to get the
South the Peninsula air quality guys to come to a
hearing and they refused to come to a hearing and
there would be a press comment in the news saying, well,
the guy who refused to come, he used to be
a forty nine er linebacker. And the press coverage would say,
(11:29):
if they were to take a bet on whether March
bomb would win over this guy from the air Quality
Control Board who used to be a football player, they
get on her Anti Marches.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (11:42):
Antie March is best known for that paid toilet thing.
Speaker 4 (11:45):
Do you remember those tell us about that?
Speaker 5 (11:49):
In the old days, Nickel Locke was the company that
sold toilets dolls and you had to stick a nickel
in before the handle would open up the door, and
they were in public and she it took five years
for this legislation to get through, to make it out
to outlaw Nikolock or pay toilets in buildings that had
(12:12):
government funding. And what's interesting is someone that asked me
because women really backed on this issue, but it was
actually a guy, a military guy who was returning from
his deployment at the airport, who didn't have the change
to go into the toilet and he messed his pants
(12:34):
and he told Anti Marsh about that problem, and so
she ran with it for five years to get the
law changed so that they're no longer pay toilets in
public building. But you know, on one hand, he was
embarrassed that she was known as the pay toilet lady.
But you know, in politics, it's what gets you name
(12:56):
recognition and positive name recognition.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
And for commitment and follow through, not stopping until it
was achieved.
Speaker 5 (13:03):
Well, that's actually what always happens, So it takes a
lot of years for legislation to make it through. Anyway,
after being in the Assembly for like eight years, Jerry
Brown was going to run for governor and the Secretary
of State position was opening up, so she ran for
that and me and my cousin went. We took off
(13:24):
this quarter from college and went to LA to run
the LA headquarters. She won the election. It was a
statewide election. She was only known in northern California. Most
of the votes are in southern California. But the theory
was is that most of the people running against her,
most of the Democratic candidates who were running against her
(13:45):
were LA people, so they split the LA votes among themselves.
She carried northern cal picked up some of the LA votes,
and she made it onto the ballot for the Secretary
of State. Race in seventy four and.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
One and she can oh, oh my gosh. Then as
you go, I just want to interrupt again to ask, like,
what was her superpower? Because I mean, at one point
you said, well, she ignored them all, like she ignored
people saying no, you can't, and like I think in
the press release about the book, it says she was
told you can't do this, that you could just be
(14:21):
a secretary. Then turns out it becomes a secretary of
the state. But what was it like it was her
ability to just ignore and not take in people saying no,
you can't, and her humor and what kept her going
because so many people, how does she get to know
people and win their trust?
Speaker 5 (14:39):
You know her when she campaigned, her role was always
to not not near her opposition, but to build on
and let people know what she's managed to get done
in her career. That might have been part of it
because she always had a good left of good feeling.
(15:01):
She was really good at namesoff, she remember everyone's name,
and when it was came to making a presentation to
an ethnic group that had a specific language, she'd learned
how to do an intro in the language of their
native language. And and you know that kind of stuff
really impresses people, do he was always fighting for the
(15:23):
small guy. He didn't. She was fighting against big power,
big money. And you know it's sort of bitter in
the butt though, because she never was a great fundraiser,
so she ran statewide campaigns on very little money, but
her name recognition got to the point where she only
was the top vote getter on those state wide campaigns.
(15:45):
I mean she'd be she'd be far ahead of you know,
governors and and all the treasurers and attorney generals. She
was the top vote getter, and that's probably why no
one ran against her. Well, they ran against her, but
she kept on win and she held the position for
twenty nearly twenty years. And then after that she started
(16:08):
getting interested in federal stuff. So she worked on presidential
campaigns and got appointed to the ambassador by Clinton to
the Federate States of Micronesia, which is like two days
away from here because you have to island hop to
get there. Wow, and so, and some of those islands
are not I mean, their runways are like ten inches
(16:30):
above the sea level, so you know, their global warmings
really affecting them. So she really he was the first
Asian woman to be elected in a constitutional level position
in the whole country, in the whole country, and when
(16:51):
she was the first Asian Assemblyment person woman in California.
He was the first Asian secretary of State. But you know,
they're not that that many people run for a secretary
of state. So she really she she was quite remarkable.
(17:11):
She had Okay, you guys have a big ego to
do this. Right to be in politics, you've got to
do it. And she managed to stay away from the controversy. Members.
Remember when we had that problem that it was called
the Asian donor gate or something like that. We're big.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
I think I was in California at that time, was
not familiar with it.
Speaker 5 (17:33):
No, it was affecting Clinton and Gore too. Big money
was coming in from Asia and oh yes, and and
and frankly Asian overseas. Overseas Asians don't know how to
follow the federal campaign rules. You know, they just think
they're going to wash it. It doesn't work that way.
So yeah, anyway, anti March, thank god he hired he
(17:58):
wrote a contract with Tim van to Hey, a ghostwriter.
So if you ever want to do your own biography,
and you don't want to write it. Hire someone. He
took twenty eight boxes of stuff, which was organized by
the co writer, Aaron Daniel Meet, and wrote this book.
He said he didn't have to do a lot of
(18:18):
research beyond because everything was in these boxes, and he
kept everything. There were greeting cards in these boxes. I thought,
I think I sent that and it was still there.
So he managed to She commissioned him to write this biography.
She didn't want it published in her lifetime. He died
(18:42):
in twenty seventeen, which was eight years ago. And I
think what she didn't want to do is deal with
this promotion stuff, because when you promote a book and
want to distribute it, there's a lot of ego in there.
And she was really very conscious of not looking very
self promoting and egotistical. But you know, two years after
(19:05):
she died, they dedicated the whost Secretary of State building
complex to her because she fought for that. No one
wanted to put money into the archives and she and
her offices of the Secretary of State were scattered all
over the place. So the whole complex, which includes the
California Museum, which is a great museum of California History
(19:30):
was dedicated to her in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 6 (19:33):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (19:34):
But let me tell you about growing up with Anti
March please. I was lucky because I was close in
age to her two kids, and so when she was
in the Assembly and she didn't have daycare, he took
us to work. We spent summers in Sacramento running errands
for the office, going using the copier that's in the hallway,
(19:59):
going to the bill room to get copies of bills,
and then we'd explore the place. And you know what's
really crazy is like, you know, I'm here. I was
probably twelve thirteen years old. We were not scolded at all.
Of course, you know, little Asian kids probably aren't as
rambunctious as the other ones, but no one they got
used to us just being around the state capital wandering
(20:22):
and doing our thing. So she broke down that barrier too,
take your kids to work. And my cousin Kip. People
may know him as Matt Fong because he ran for
treasure and he ran for Senate. One summer. I remember
he went into the typing pool so to keep him busy.
Sometime to the place where all the typists are. So
(20:45):
we were really we grew up with privileges that I
just am trying to recognize I learned. I didn't learn
until a lot later that these guys who took us
out for dinner were lobbyists. But you know, you got
you got two kids, a fee hit the lobbyist, the pam.
Speaker 4 (21:05):
You know, okay, my children are coming with me.
Speaker 5 (21:10):
Yeah, you got two morounds or three or miles to feet.
You know. The Capital got really used to us too,
because I remember when I was just getting my driver's license.
I was the oldest of all three of us. So
I got my driver's license first. They actually let me
check out her car from the state capital garage. We went.
(21:32):
I think it was a Cadillac. It's like the little
kids to a driving this car out let. No no
questions asked. They didn't even ask my driver's license. No,
we just because underneath the Capitol is a cool garage
valet system for all the legislatures. So there's parking space.
You just drive up the driveway and leave the keys
(21:53):
in the car and they put it away. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
I love that image. I love that image. I can
see the valley kind of Okay, here's the keys.
Speaker 5 (22:04):
Then I have to tell you what, really what happens
sometimes though, I mean in the winter, you know, if
we wanted to go skiing, they managed to find someone
to drive us to the slopes. It was really I mean,
there were some privileges there, but yeah, somehow they found
resources to get us get our day up there.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
Well that, yeah, that's something else to like step back
and recognize privileges you had. I'm also I appreciate that,
But I also am wondering how much you think your
own career, because you were the Yolo County Deputy District Attorney,
and you you edit a current newsletter and you've had
(22:49):
quite a successful professional career yourself, how much or just
in what ways do you think your aunt March influenced
your like confidence and your drive to decide what you
wanted to do and go for it and succeed.
Speaker 5 (23:05):
You know, what's interesting is that he never told me
to go to law school, but she told other people too,
which is interesting. I did. After I graduate graduate from
UC Berkeley. My first job was in civil rights an
organization called Chinese War from of Action in San Francisco,
and we actually did head ons with Anti March because
(23:28):
when the nineteen seventy five Voting Rights Act brought in
amendments requiring things be translated. Anti March's office not saying
it's going to cost too much, We're going to tear
down too many trees. We can't do it. And from
our perspective, from the Chinese community, the Chinese language community,
(23:49):
is like, it's the spirit behind it. It's not whether
you're going to translate every darn word. It's the spirit
of getting people to be more knowledge being feel more
welcomed on voting. And so yeah, we actually had head
ons because Anti March's office was saying, oh, this cost
a few million dollars and we're going to you know,
waste all this paper, and it's just and not that
(24:11):
many people are going to ask for this. But the
thing is is that her father, our grandfather, he didn't
speak much English at all, but he voted every time.
He was one of these guys who claimed that he
was born in America and couldn't prove it because of
the nineteen six six earthquake. I mean, there's a whole
generation of Chinese who took advantage of the earthquake. But
(24:34):
he read Chinese newspapers all the time, So why shouldn't
he have access to more official stuff and be a
more knowledgeable voter. So we you know, we we had,
we had head ons.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
Did you ever talk about the head ons like at
the at her house or your your mom's house. Did
you ever talk about that when you were in personal settings?
Speaker 7 (25:00):
You know what, we avoided it, but you know what
it was.
Speaker 5 (25:02):
Really it was really significant because her right hand person,
Tony Miller, he brings it up still today.
Speaker 7 (25:10):
I was like, oh my god, that's about forty years ago.
Speaker 5 (25:16):
But yeah, no, it must have really hurt. But but
in the other ways, she made voting much more available
and unlike what's going through this Trump administration where they're
kind of require id and and starting to challenge everyone
to vote. Auntie Marsh in her career had to had
(25:38):
to hire someone to investigate alleged voter fraud. And in
the book it says yes, she hired Richard Needle to
and there was no work for him to do, so
he signed him to other things because they just didn't
find voter fraud. And she is told, you know, if
she was alive now and thirty thirty years younger, she
(26:00):
had been at her prime, she would have head ons
with Trump because you know, Trump doesn't like Asian women
and he doesn't want people to vote, and she wanted
everyone to vote, and she wanted to encourage people. They
even had when she was Secretary of State, which is
the chief election officer, he did voter camp, a voter
registration campaign. She started voting postcard voter registration, and that
(26:25):
evolved into this whole thing of reregistering when you go
to DMV and change your address. She was totally opposite
of what the Trump administration is doing in terms of
discouraging people from voting. And yeah, no, it's just totally
It would have been interesting if she was alive in
this time, but she's turning over in her grave, I know.
Speaker 4 (26:48):
So she was helping actually expand voting access.
Speaker 5 (26:52):
She took on the networks because there was one campaign,
I can't remember which one it was where the East
cost declared projected who's going to win and so it
made our voter turnout fall on the West coast and
there was no law. She pointing out any law to
keep the networks from doing that projection other than embarrassed them.
(27:17):
And so she she was good at media. She worked
her hardest to embarrass the networks. To restrain themselves to
not call call the election from the west coast or
from the east.
Speaker 4 (27:31):
So sheenced that, yeah, because they're three hours ahead. Yeah,
so she had an influence.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
Well, you know what, So the influences doesn't last real
long because the networks, forget right, they get so excited.
So it's a pressure that you have to keep on
doing because yeah, during those campaigns, it affects our affects
our elections on the statewide things and propositions and such.
(28:00):
She really battled with the networks.
Speaker 6 (28:04):
Sounds so courageous, yep, she was pretty And so she
wanted this book written because she wanted people to be
encouraged to do public service and to be honest and
upstanding politicians and leaders.
Speaker 5 (28:18):
And so whenever she would run into a young kid
who says, I just want to be like you, she
was so tickled because that was her goal. And she
definitely wanted this book printed. And so right now we're
in the process of promoting, you know, getting it out there.
The State Library's working with me right now. We've done
(28:39):
events in Oakland and Sacramento. I've got one in la
on the twenty ninth of May, and we've we're you know,
we're trying. We're on the Amazon. We've got on Amazon,
we've got a bookstore that hearing it. So no, she
her life is something, it's it's her playbook. This book
(29:02):
is her playbook of how she did it and what
people can learn and that you can't get scared off
by the money and the bullies. So she was She's
special in that way and.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
Was taken a lot of stamina.
Speaker 7 (29:19):
You know.
Speaker 5 (29:22):
Another thing that though she wanted people to know, in
her later years, she took up Chinese brush painting and
she's actually pretty good at it.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
Wow. So there are some of her paintings in the book.
Speaker 5 (29:36):
Yeah, these are big paintings. These are like probably five
feet pall.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
Wow. Where are they?
Speaker 5 (29:45):
Those are in China at some university in China. But
she also did like landscape and and so she because
she was famous Chinese painters from Asia, the old master types,
she would meet them in Asia or they would come
visit here and tutor her. And so she had the
(30:07):
privilege of being tutored by some of these great masters.
And you know, painting side by side in the I
think it's a traditional way of of uh learning how
to do this. And remember when I told you that
she wasn't a great fundraiser gender using her paintings to
(30:27):
raise money for campaigns, because you know, come out with
the original painting marchball you painting Wow was her?
Speaker 4 (30:37):
Was the last position she held, being the ambassador? That
was how long? How long was she an ambassador?
Speaker 5 (30:47):
Just two years? Yeah? And a funny story about that
is that did you know that ambassadors are are higher
than four star general?
Speaker 4 (30:56):
I did not some thing.
Speaker 5 (31:00):
Yeah, apparently because he retired to this place in Fullerton,
Morning Star, Morning Side, and there was a retired general
there who she befriended. And once they sort of pulled
rank on each other and he acknowledged the ambassador outranks him.
Speaker 7 (31:20):
She had more stars than he did.
Speaker 5 (31:23):
Anyway, you know everything that she stood for, I mean,
because she was a dental hygienis. He was behind that fluoridation,
you know, the early days of inducing florid to the
the water system. And here under Kennedy, we've got this
the same old arguments, and we've got and and so
(31:44):
we're just going backwards and and and she would be
the way that Trump is whitewashing history. Now they probably
blank out her name and blank out her pictures on
everything because they she she's de up, you know.
Speaker 4 (32:01):
Up and down, so that that's entirely possible that they're
trying to erase her as well.
Speaker 5 (32:07):
We had this one We had this one question at
one of the book events was was she more of
an Asian advocate or a women's advocate? And I think
the writer Tim Vanda Hay's misogyny was what affected her
more than the racial the ratio being Asian. But because yeah,
(32:32):
the whole bat all the early battles that she had
was whether she got the respect, whether she was respected
as a woman. So yeah, anyway, her politics makes is tough.
And so she she divorced her first husband, the Dennis husband,
early on and married Henry You around the time she
(32:56):
became Secretary of State. That was sort of awkward because
Henry You was a wealthy came from a wealthy family
in Asia, and so when Auntie Marsh was interested in
running for Senate, the whole issue about the husband's wealth
was becoming an issue, and he was a very private person.
(33:20):
That was one way of bowing out of that campaign.
Another real testing thing was when her son, matt his
name was Matthew Kipling funk. We grew up calling him Kip,
but when he became a political person, he took on
the name. He's Matt his first name. Anyway, he became
a Republican at some point.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
And how does she feel about that?
Speaker 5 (33:44):
It's in the book. Yes, he described the meaning that
she called with all her political advisors to test him,
to try to tell him out of it.
Speaker 4 (33:56):
One like like an actual like almost an intervention. Uh
huh uh huh wow. How did that go?
Speaker 5 (34:04):
Well? He stayed Republican, and the Republican Party would use
him to try to use him against her. He disclosed
that he was asked to be surrogate for the Republican
Party at some events that he would be profiled at,
and she they were he was asked to debate his mom.
(34:26):
He says, no, I'm a military man. I'm not going
to brace up against a woman. I'm not going to
do it against my mom. But when when he agreed
to run against Barbara Boxer, that was a real test
because he was criticized for using some of Empty March's
image in the early part of his campaign. And then
it got down to did she just endorse her or not?
(34:49):
You know, is it what what's loyalty to family or
to party?
Speaker 4 (34:53):
Oh, tell us how that went?
Speaker 5 (34:56):
She and m endorsing him. He didn't win. He didn't
win Barbara for one. But you know what it destroyed,
destroyed her political career. And I think he asked for
her to her endorsement because he figured she was at
the end of her political career. After she was done
with micro Nicia. She came back and she was bored,
(35:16):
and she actually ran again for a secretary of state.
But you know, the Democratic Party was not going to
forgive her for that Boxer Barbara Boxer thing.
Speaker 4 (35:25):
Wow, that's that's very interesting and painful and understandable. Also
that yeah.
Speaker 5 (35:33):
She lost that. Yeah, she lost that two thousand and
one primary to Kevin Shelley, who ended up resigning with
some sort of campaign finance problem. But it was worth
it because they became closer.
Speaker 4 (35:47):
In her Yeah.
Speaker 5 (35:49):
Yeah, but okay, you'll like this. When when when Matt died,
they had a huge funeral for him in southern cal
and all the big Republican readers took the microphone and
they all said, Matt Fong, he was a great man.
He ran against Barbara Boxer. They didn't say anything about
his achievements or his contribution to the party or anything.
(36:12):
He was just one after another. We love him because
he ran against Barbara Boxer. So they used him. They
used him. They probably had no viable candy to run
and they had this guy who's got name recognition and
through another Yeah, and uh yeah that was that was
(36:33):
just amazing for me to sit through that funeral and
to see him being crazed as Yeah. But yeah, I
mean I think one of them was even Governor Wilson. Yeah,
we love Matt Pong because he ran against Barbara Boxer.
Speaker 4 (36:49):
Let me ask you, because we believe it or not,
we have only six minutes left. I just wanted to
ask a little bit more about her. If she got
behind you once you started going to law school, Like
if she kind of noticed and appreciated that. I mean,
I know she loved you, of course, but it's interesting
that she encouraged other people to go to law school,
had not encouraged you, but you chose to there any more,
(37:12):
kind of any more kind of interchanges you can share
with us about that or attitude shift.
Speaker 7 (37:18):
Well, I found a note in her stuff that said,
no I found it wasn't my step Sorry, I didn't
come to your graduation by missed the invitation.
Speaker 5 (37:28):
It's like, oh my, oh yeah, I guess she wasn't there.
He you know, I I he liked my company. I
mean once she came. She hadna speaking event in Woodland,
and her people had to scope out the DA's office
in Woodland, you know, because they have to check securating
all that. She came to pick me up take me
(37:49):
to the speaking her speaking engagement. I went to a
lot of dinners with her. It was a you know,
actually it's sort of a lonely career a politician, and
family is easy company. And so I went a lot
of dinners with her.
Speaker 4 (38:09):
Wow and uh.
Speaker 7 (38:12):
And actually, what's really funny is Okay, it was when
I was a prosecutor. I'd be sitting in the car
talking to her drivers because her drivers were all hPAT
officers or state officers. There are cops.
Speaker 5 (38:27):
I'd be talking cops stories with the drivers while we're
going off to some event, and I got she's listening.
Speaker 7 (38:35):
So she actually I think she actually was proud of me.
But you know, Chinese don't really articulate proudness.
Speaker 4 (38:42):
Yeah, I was thinking about that, like kind of the
humility and the humbleness because I was thinking, I bet
she was very proud of you, but probably, but that's
not something to express, you know, you know, or lavish
you with.
Speaker 5 (38:55):
Well, when when she when she was down in fortune,
I went down to her three times a year, and
every time we would work on the book. And so,
and I'm the only one who volunteered to do work
on the book, and she she had no problem with
I'd sit there. Actually, it was a good conversation piece
because I could grill her because I knew some of
(39:16):
this history because I was growing up at the same
time and she was doing it, and so I could
grill her and have conversations, well is it really this
person who did this and that? And then because we
were all reading that, we could google everything that check
it out.
Speaker 7 (39:32):
So, yeah, she had no problem.
Speaker 5 (39:34):
With me tinkling with the book, and she knew she
want and she never told me to stop working on it.
And that's really funny, is it. Of the beneficiaries. We
had some naysayers who said, now, let's not dump any
more money into this book. I said, now we got finished.
She really wanted it. It was like, oh my god,
(39:54):
I got find some market for these books, and so yeah.
Speaker 4 (40:00):
It was lucky, so so lucky to have you by
her side along the way too, and then at the
end finishing something so important to her. We just have
a couple of minutes left. So I wanted to make
sure I let people know about the Currents newspaper and
if you, if you want to, if people can sign
up for that, maybe you can say out loud how
they could find that the Asian Asian American CI Islander
(40:25):
community news, and also how people can get the book,
how and where people can get Let's see.
Speaker 5 (40:34):
Yeah, it's available at Amazon, Pango Books, and East Wind
Books in the Bay Area. They're available at the book event,
but you'll have to make it to l A on
the twenty ninth of May. The Current Newspaper if people
want to get on the mailing list, they just need
to email me and I'll give up my email. I've
(40:57):
been hacked enough. Yamsong at hotmail dot.
Speaker 4 (40:59):
Com, Empong at hotmil dot com.
Speaker 5 (41:04):
And the Current Newspaper is an Asian newspaper and you
can find it at the Yolo County Libraries there.
Speaker 7 (41:11):
I just dropped some.
Speaker 5 (41:12):
Off at City Hall Data City Hall, Asian American Studies
at U see d S getting their supply tomorrow.
Speaker 7 (41:20):
Oh, you can go OTO's Market Freeport in Sacramento.
Speaker 5 (41:25):
I want to get it. Uh, there's usually some at
Bell Coolige Library in Sacramento. They're scattered here and there,
but you also can read it online at apps A
p s e A dot org. The Asian State Employees
Association has been a great sponsor of the newspaper and
(41:46):
it's uploaded on their website under community involvement, So if
you want to read electroniccopy, you can APC dot org
and find it.
Speaker 4 (41:54):
There A p s E dot com.
Speaker 5 (41:57):
No A p s e A Asia Pacific State Employee
Association dot org.
Speaker 4 (42:04):
Find the current newsletter there online wonderful.
Speaker 5 (42:10):
And the next edition if I'm not writing from El Salvador.
The last edition is pretty heavily anti Trump, because Trump
is destroying this country and we need to do everything
possible to prenect protect democracy. So if I'm not rested
and shipped off to El salvad Or by the next
(42:30):
additional in October, how about that?
Speaker 4 (42:33):
Thank you so much. I really appreciate what you've done
for your aunt, what you've done for our county, for
so many people, yourself in public service all these years,
and thanks for the current current newsletter encouragement and action
action advice for people who went to use their voices
(42:56):
to realign America back to its original to do values.
Speaker 5 (43:02):
Yes, it's not well great, it's not make America great again.
We were already great. That's why everyone wants to come here.
That's why we're the leading country in the world. So
it's like he just wants to make it great for
the white male again.
Speaker 4 (43:18):
Thank you, Patty. On that note, I think we need
to wrap up, and I want to thank you again
and thank you to all of our listeners and viewers
and to our engineer Rebel and our producer Dean Piper,
and please tune in next Wednesday, APM on it's your
voice or Talk for TV. And maybe we all have
enriching conversations not just every week but every day because
(43:40):
diversity helps expand our thinking. It helps us grow and
learn and helps become a more perfect union, which is
a slow, long process, but we can keep moving forward.
Maybe we all have be enriching.
Speaker 5 (43:51):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
In largic gallolet switch in large gallowletswitch on the inlargic
gellolet switch in large gallottisch over high
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