Mary Chung Hayashi on the Campbell Conversations.

Campbell Conversations

Mary Chung Hayashi

Program transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is Mary Chung Hayashi. She's a former California State Assembly member and the author of a new book titled, “Women in Politics: Breaking Down the Barriers to Achieve True Representation.” The book weaves together her own life and political experiences with the stories of women in political leadership positions. Ms. Hayashi, welcome to the program.

Mary Chung Hayashi: Thank you so much, Grant. I am so honored to be part of your show today.

GR: Well, that's very kind of you to say, and we're delighted and honored you have the time to speak to us. So, let me just start with a very basic question about the book. How did you get the idea to write this book at the time when you did?

MH: Well, when I was in the legislature, I served with, you know, just incredible women legislators. And often their personal journeys are not told, you know, in the press or there's, because of term limits in California, we only have a certain number of years to get to know each other and so I really wanted to showcase these role models. And so I decided to interview 17 women and one man documenting their personal and professional journeys toward leadership.

GR: Great, great. And so, you were born and you grew up in South Korea. I'd like you to tell me a little bit about your own immigration experience, if you would, because that's something you talk about your book.

MH: Yes. Really, many women, you know, travel different paths and different journeys. You know, the women were interviewed in the book and I really wanted to, you know, talk about my own sort of personal experience immigrating to this country when I was 12. And losing my older sister to suicide that same year before coming to this country and using that sort of personal experience and trauma to advocate for mental health issues. And that was well documented in my first book, but in my second book I talk about basically dedicating my life to advocating for mental health causes, like so many other women in the book who talked about their own pain and own adversity, barriers to leadership that, you know, they forge ahead and defied the naysayers who told them they couldn't achieve their ambitions. And so I did talk a lot about sort of my own, you know, experience growing up in Orange County and, you know, my parents were very traditional and didn't expect girls to go to college or have a career. And so yes, and I thought I was like, so different. But after interviewing these women for the book, I realized many of us have a lot of commonalities in terms of using our own personal background to advocate for others.

GR: Yeah, I want to get into some of the things that you have advocated for as a member of the legislature, but also more generally, because you did that before you got into the legislature and you've done it since. But I just wanted to ask one thing, intriguing that you said, you know, you discovered similarities in the stories. So it sounds like maybe writing the book kind of had a therapeutic effect on you in addition to in addition to just, you know, putting the book out and telling the story of leadership.

MH: Yes. Because when, you know, like in traditional Korean culture, women are to be seen but not heard. And, you know, we're raised to be respectful and silent, “good girls”. You know, and this meant keeping my thoughts and opinions to myself. And so, you know, when my older sister died by suicide when she was 17, we were unaware that she was struggling with depression because those types of things were not discussed in our family. And I began to understand that my sister couldn't seek help because we were taught to keep our personal problems to ourselves. Well, when I started interviewing these women who I served with and some who I didn't know very well at the time I interviewed them, like the California U.S. Senator Laphonza Butler. I had interviewed her when she was the president of the EMILYs List and then she was appointed to the U.S. Senate. And I had worked with her professionally, but personally I didn't know her that well. But talking with her and better understanding sort of her background and her personal struggles that, you know, many of us, regardless of your immigration status or family background, many of us sort of share that, you know, that good girl sort of upbringing and the values that we're told. The new generation of women, I think have been raised with a better message. That, you know, rather than being taught to be a good girl, they were told to, you know, it's okay to speak up and you can be a leader. And they're actually encouraged to do so. But many of us, including myself and women who I interviewed for the book, you know, we were we were taught to not take credit for things that we accomplished. And we should be careful about, you know, bragging too much about our qualifications. We're supposed to downplay our achievements. And a lot of those sort of messages that we grew up with were very similar. Not just Korean women, but American women experience the same sort of upbringing and those messages.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with Mary Chung Hayashi. She's a former California State Assembly member and the author of, “Women in Politics: Breaking Down the Barriers to Achieve True Representation.” So I wanted to ask you a story about just a little bit later on your life story. But first, it occurs to me, give us the title, give our listeners the title of your first book, because I think some of them listening are going to be interested in and maybe checking out that one, too. So what's the title of your first book?

MH: You're so kind, thank you. It's actually out of print. But it's called, “Far from Home: Shattering the Myth of the Model Minority” of Asian Americans. And it's, you know, it's a sort of autobiography about Asian-American health status in the United States. Like many of us don’t speak up, or because of our cultural issues, we often suffer from diseases and illnesses that are completely preventable. And so applying those sort of cultural barriers and values, that sometimes we hang on to could be very harmful. So a completely different book, but it does have a lot more information about my personal journey.

GR: Oh, okay, great. And don't worry about it being out of print, that's what Amazon is for, to go find those. I buy out of print books all the time. So I wanted to know, though, how your interest in politics developed specifically because, you know, you come over and you're in this completely new country and you've had this traumatic experience. So, when in your life does your interest in politics develop and how does that happen?

MH: Well, I had an opportunity to work for a legislator and when I wrote my first book, I had just completed my tenure as the executive director of a nonprofit that I founded. I founded a national nonprofit organization called the National Asian Women's Health Organization. And I was 26 years old, completely naïve. I didn't know what I was doing, but I just wanted to find out what had happened to my sister and really wanted to learn more about mental health and advocate for mental health issues. And so after I completed my tenure, I wrote this book. And around that time I had an opportunity to work for an amazing legislator, Assembly member Darrell Steinberg. He's the only man that I interviewed for my book. He's in the mentoring chapter because so many women who were interviewed, had male allies and mentors who helped them and guide them along the way. And I just thought that it was important to highlight their contributions and their partnerships because a lot of the mentoring messaging, you know, lean-in messaging really has to do with, you know, if you're a woman, you have to help another woman. But it's like, well, what about the other 50% of the population, and they are examples of like Darrell Steinberg, who has been an incredible mentor to me. Well, when I worked for him, he authored this amazing statewide ballot measure called Proposition 63, and he advocated and put it on the ballot for the voters to tax millionaires to fund mental health programs. And so I had an opportunity to work on that measure, and we passed it with literally, like no money because we're going against millionaires. And so many people have that personal connection to mental health. They know somebody who's been impacted by it, they know somebody who, you know, maybe not immediate family, but a friend who suffered from mental illness. And so we passed this ballot measure and that was just such an incredible experience for me. And I decided, I said, Darrell, is this what you do every single day? Because if this is the kind of impact you can make, I want to do this, I want to pursue public service. And that really inspired me to run.

GR: Interesting. So when you run for public office, I wanted to ask you both, I guess, for when you ran and when you were serving. Did you encounter any resistance or preconceptions based on your gender or your ethnicity? Or maybe a combination of the two because you've been speaking about Asian women and expectations of Asian women. I'm just wondering, once you were pursuing public office, did you run into that and how did you deal with it?

MH: Yes. And, you know, how relevant this conversation is right now, right? Given that we have the first you know, black woman, South Asian woman running for president of the United States. But, you know, women are often penalized for being ambitious and strong. And, you know, no matter what we do, it feels like we begin, you know, at such a significant disadvantage. Because when you announce for your candidacy, voters are sometimes suspicious because we're not supposed to be ambitious and seek leadership positions. And so for me, you know, I, because I was the first Korean-American woman to serve in the California legislature, many of my colleagues have never really seen an Asian person.

GR: Well, let me stop you there. I have to confess, I did not know that and I'm astonished at that. Maybe I'm exhibiting my own preconceptions here, but, California is such a richly, its current culture today is so richly informed by Asian-Americans. I can't believe that after the 21st century, you were the first one, my goodness.

MH: Yes. And I get this question a lot, you know, because people outside of California, sort of view California as very, this progressive forward thinking, and we are in many aspects. But out of 4400 state legislators who have served in the California legislature, only 192 have been women so far.

GR: That’s amazing.

MH: Yes. So that's, I mean, that was, as you know, last year. And I'm sure that number will increase because for the first time we'll have parity in the Senate, state Senate. But going back to my own experience, you know, just working sort of in that environment, I didn't really realize it at the time, but after I left and had some time to sort of reflect on my service in the legislature. You know, people often described me during my tenure in the state assembly as aggressive and very competitive. Whereas, you know, my male legislators who, chaired this business and professions committee before I did were applauded as strong committee chairs. They would say, well, he had solid opinions and they were brilliant policy experts. But when I express my opinion and sometimes they were controversial, you know, they described me as aggressive. And so Asian women are often expected to be submissive and grateful, like that's our stereotype. And so we often navigate much narrower expectations of what it means to be likable for professional women. And so women already, you know, start at a significant disadvantage in politics, as I mentioned, because we're supposed to be likable and qualify to run for office. But for Asian women, we are penalized when we present a counter to this stereotype, this submissive and the grateful stereotype. So I do think that there are many lobbyists and other legislators who had difficulty sort of figuring out, like why is she not submissive and quiet like so many Asian women who I’m used to? (laughter) I mean, I laugh about this, but, you know, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu gets confused with another activist named Beth Wong. And I was confused with another colleague, Fiona Ma, who's our current state treasurer, our next lieutenant governor, hopefully. And people would still call me Fiona because there were only two of us. And it's like, well, there's only two of us, how can you confuse us? But they did for six years.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with Mary Chung Hayashi. The former California state legislator is the author of a new book titled, “Women in Politics: Breaking Down the Barriers to Achieve True Representation” and we've been discussing the topics that her book raises. So I wanted to ask you, you've already talked about this in the first half of the program, and I know it's a sensitive topic, but one of the reasons I think that, from my reading that you wrote the book, was the loss of your sister and how that informed your emphasis in your public life on mental health issues. I just wanted to ask you to elaborate a little bit more on that. If you could talk about kind of the transitioning of taking a personal experience into a publicly oriented effort.

MH: Yeah. Well, thank you for that, because, you know, I lost my older sister to, you know, suicide when she was 17, which led me to a lifetime of public service and mental health advocacy. So this is a very relevant topic. And like I mentioned previously, one of the goals of writing this book is to inspire other women to write their own path and to see that we do not have to be controlled by our backgrounds, ethnicities or family histories. Because when, you know, just not even talking about my own sort of nonprofit that I started when I was 26, but fast forward to my time in the legislature and running for political office. It was very difficult, you know, for me to call people for money. Because that's something that, culturally, we're not supposed to do. You know, public speaking. Speaking about why I want to be a voice for the voiceless and representing children's issues and the underserved communities, you know, whose interests may have been overlooked. And right now, like mental health, even (to a) certain extent sexual harassment, those types of issues are very public and women candidates talk about those issues very comfortably. But when I was a candidate in 2006, I can't say that, you know, many people thought that was a great platform. And so I think that women who are willing to share these types of personal, painful stories in a public way and use that experience as their platform to create positive change, I think is very, very courageous and is somewhat necessary. And I think it worked really well for me not just in the political sense, but being able to use my own voice to sort of advocate for, you know, women, Asian women through the nonprofit, but also in the legislature. So I actually think that personal histories and family backgrounds could be a plus. You know if women are willing to sort of use their leadership journeys and their personal journeys and share the lessons that we've learned, I think it can really help overcome the challenges as a woman and to have an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of others.

GR: That's a really interesting combination and reflection. If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, and my guest is Mary Chung Hayashi and we've been discussing her book titled, “Women and Politics: Breaking Down the Barriers to Achieve True Representation.” So you talked about the fact that the book is based in large part on interviews that you did with mostly women. And I was just wondering, out of all those conversations, is there one conversation that has stayed with you more than all the others?

MH: One of the women interviewed, Amanda Hunter, she's the executive director of the Barbara Lee Family Foundation, and they do a lot of research with focus groups about women in politics. And she gave it a name to this sort of one focus group finding that she did when she asked participants to envision a leader, many of them envisioned a man, and she called it an imagination barrier. And so, you know, and it's like, when I was growing up in Korea, I didn't see women in leadership roles. And so it was really hard for me to envision that I can do something. And believe it or not, it was actually Connie Chung when I was growing up in Orange County who I saw on TV. I thought, wow, you know, here's an Asian woman, smart, and she's on TV. I mean, not that like I was, you know, looking for fame or anything, but just to see her on television really made me realize, oh, maybe, you know, I can do something with my life. And people used to call me Connie when I was growing up in Orange County, and I was flattered. But then when I got older and I reflected on that, I thought, wait a minute, it's because I didn't know any other Asian person when I was growing up, so not such a flattering comment. But anyway, I think that Amanda Hunter's sort of research shows that women and girls need to see role models. And so the book is really you know, they're all role models and not because of the titles they hold, but because they overcome incredible adversary challenges, barriers. And, you know, they pursue leadership and they run for office and they win even when they face criticism and pushback. I mean, that's why they're role models, because they defy their naysayers. And I think that with what's going on at the national level, you know, definitely that imagination barrier has definitely been broken down.

GR: Yeah, that's exactly what I want to ask you about next was, and what you're saying is right on that point is, you know, what do you make of the importance of Kamala Harris’s status as the Democratic nominee for president? I mean, you're linking it directly to this imagination issue. But what do you make of the importance of it beyond that?

MH: Well, I think it's I think it's going to change the trajectory of women in politics forever. I mean, just the fact that we have a woman, you know, it looks like she will get the nomination of the Democratic Party to be the first woman of color to be nominated for president. And I think will really be a turning point for women and, you know, research shows that voters’ perception of her as a leader declines when the media mentions a woman's appearance in any way. And I talk a lot about this account of like sort of a likability double standard. And whether the commentary is positive or negative, the mere mention of her appearance draws voters’ attention to the fact that she's a woman, reminding them of their unconscious bias that women cannot be leaders. And yet with all of this sort of, you know, racist and sexist sort of attacks on her, she's actually pulling ahead, so I'm very encouraged. And I do think that she whether she wins or not, I think that her running and taking on, sort of the establishment and these sort of very sexist comments head on, I think all of her actions that we've seen so far will have an incredible impact breaking down that imagination barrier.

GR: We've only got a couple of minutes left. I wanted to squeeze one last question in, and it goes back to something that you mentioned and that stunned me which was the numbers on the California legislature. In preparation for this interview, I did some of my own calculations and if we look back from today at the presidential and vice presidential nominations, we look at both of those of the two major parties, Republican and Democrat, we look at the last 18 years. It's a really remarkable story if you just look at it statistically, I was struck by it. So there's 24 slots total available, and four of them in the last 18 years have been held by women. Four of them have been held by people of color. And as you just pointed out, one of those is both of those things and one of them was a Mormon. Now that's not parity for women, but it's a completely different story from our history leading up to that If we think about presidential and vice presidential nominees. Up to that point 18 years ago, there was just one woman and one Jewish man that was it.

MH: Wow.

GR: So, I guess my question to you with one minute left, and I'm sorry to make you squeeze it into one minute is, do you think we're at a tipping point now? Given where we are, do you think we're at a tipping point?

MH: Oh, absolutely. I think that the, you know, I was just asked by a reporter if America is ready for a black woman president, you know, Asian woman president. And I thought it was kind of an interesting question with many layers. And it's like the answer is, of course. And we are, I think, you know, at sort of this major historic milestone when we've had Barack Obama and, you know, the first black president and many you know, Hillary Clinton as the woman candidate. But I think we're here and I think we are ready to elect Kamala Harris as the first female president of the United States. And this will be, I think, you know, a major milestone for all of us and all the women who come before me who paved the way for what is possible today.

GR: Well, we'll have to leave it there. That was Mary Chung Hayashi. And again, her new book is titled, “Women in Politics: Breaking Down the Barriers to Achieve True Representation.” But I also want to say it's exceptionally readable and covers a lot of different ground. So I think a lot of our listeners will be interested in it. Ms. Hayashi, thanks so much for taking the time to speak with me, I really enjoyed the conversation.

MH: Thank you.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.