The Silk Road of Alice Yi
At first glance, Zhao Mingfei, a.k.a. Alice Yi, is short, thin, and even fragile. Although in her 60’s, she has black and translucent shoulder-length hair, set off against her whitish face, which highlights even more of her fragility. However, with her natural and often smile, Mingfei is like a whiff of the warmwind, a beam of sunshine, easily putting strangers at ease. Who would have thought that, this delicate lady was once the main player of the Xinjiang Provincial Table Tennis Team 40 years ago?
Tonight though, Mingfei, the keynote speaker in front of 400 people, is not at all a slender old lady who has long passed her prime. Instead, she looks more like the fearless athlete she once was, full of strength, enthusiasm and courage. Every word and every sentence she uttered was like the shot she played in the past, packed with strength, confidence and a clear purpose.
Zhao Mingfei, a.k.a. Alice Yi
Mingfei is one of those old-time Austinites, even before Austin gained its current day metropolitan fame. She came from the far corner of China to Texas for college in 1981, moved to Austin in 1985, met and married her husband, Mr. Yi, and has been an Austinite even since.
Mingfei and Mr. Yi both worked in the State government, but Mingfei was not into politicsat all in the beginning. It all changed in 1990. In this year, Mr. Yi’s friend, Mr. Bob Bullock, then a Democratic Comptroller of Texas, asked for Yi’s help in his election bid for the position of Lt. Texas Governor. The Yi’s threw themselves into the race, and organized many fundraisers, community events and canvassing for Mr. Bullock. Bullock’s campaign was ultimately successful and he served alongside another famous Democrat Ms. Ann Richards. Four years later in 1994, the Yi’s again helped Bullock’s re-election campaign, and Bullock served the next 4 years alongside Gov. George W. Bush. Also in 1994, the Yi’s helped Mr. Lloyd Doggett’s successful bid for the Texas Congressional District 35, taking the vacated seat of Mr. J.J. Pickle. To this day, Rep. Doggett still serves asa prominent member of the US Congress. Through these campaigns, Mingfei gained the acumen, and the grassroot connections in Texas’ political scenes. These experiences and connections would one day serve her well.
For the next 18 years, even though the Yi’s continued to be involved in local politics, their focus in life shifted to raising a family and running their restaurant business. During this period, Austin saw a significant influx of Asian immigrants, aiding in Austin’s rapid growth into a major metropolitan area.
Meanwhile, in California, Mr. Yi’s long-time friend, Mr. CC Yin, founded Asian Pacific Islander American Public Affairs (APAPA) in 2001 to empower the API community and to address an alarming lack of API representation at all levels of government throughout the United States. APAPA experienced fast growth in California, and by late 2000’s, it was expanding into other areas in the US. Mr. Yin asked Mr. Yi to start a Texas chapter, but as much as Mr. Yi wanted to help his friend and believed in APAPA’s mission, he was pre-occupied with his work and experiencing health issues. Mr. Yi passed away in 2012. Having put her household and business back in order while mourning, Mingfei called Mr. Yin in 2013, and wanted to take on the task of starting an APAPA chapter in Texas, as both an attribute to her late husband, and a challenge to herself on a new adventure that they both cared about deeply: to elevate API’s voice and representation in all levels of government and civic affairs in Texas.
The mission of the APAPA national organization focuses on three major objectives: API Voter Development, Leadership Development and Increased Political Appointment of APIs. From day one, Mingfei tirelessly dedicated herself to these objectives inbuilding APAPA Austin to serve what was a fast-growing API community in Austin and in Texas.
Voter Development
According to Austin City statistics, Asian populationin Austin experienced explosive growth in recent decades, from 3.3% in 1990, to about 5% in 2000, and to about 6.5% today. However, for many reasons, voting rate among Asian Americans as a group consistently ranks below those of non-Hispanic White and Black, only on par with that of Hispanic, as seen in a US Census Bureau statistics below on general elections from 1980 – 2016. This is inconsistent with Asian Americans’ education and income characteristics in the same period.
Closely mirroring the national trend, voter registration rate and actual voter turn-out among Asians in Texas are also abysmal. Take 2014 and 2018 mid-term elections, for example, the table below based on a KFF survey shows that, even though both metrics showed improvement from 2014 to 2018, they still have much room for improvement. And that is precisely what Mingfei, and APAPA Austin, are trying to do.
Relying on her past experience in voter registration and turn-out drives back in the 90’s, Mingfei tirelessly worked with like-minded colleagues and other community organizations on voter education sessions, online forums and social groups, vote turn-out phone banks and canvassing, including driving people to polling stations on election days. With help from her friends and connections she and her husband built years ago, Mingfei was able to find receptive audiences. More people joined her effort in making APAPA Austin even more effective in reaching all API communities. Partially due to APAPA’s effort, Travis County voter registration rate set a record high of 93.5% in 2019.
Leadership Development
Civic andpolitical leaders among API population are in general a rarity for a very long time. Particularly in Chinese American communities, people still heed the old saying of : “木秀于林，风必摧之；行高于人，众必非之” – roughly translated as “Try not be the one to stand out – you get shot if you do”. As a result, representation of API in all levels of government is anemic.
Mingfei and APAPA Austin set out to fundamentally change this.
From herexperience as a summer intern at Texas Capitol when she was in college in Belton, TX, Mingfei felt that interest in civic engagement and public servicesmust start at a young age. Banking on her connections with Texas political scenes cultivated over the years, Mingfei set out to establish a regular youth internship program that places API youngsters, from high school seniors to college students, within political offices. Under Mingfei’s initiative, guidance and tireless effort, APAPA Austin’s internship program has grown to more than 20 interns placed in all levels of Texas government every year. These interns also have a chance to go to APAPA’s HQ in California for an annual retreat and training. This program has concretely increased API youths’ voice and interest in public policies and political dialogues.
Another front in developing API leadership is active identification and support of API candidates running for offices. In this effort, Mingfei put in significant amount of time and money in supporting API candidates in recent elections, successfully putting a number of API candidates into political offices at county, city and state levels.
Political Appointments
According to Mingfei, political appointments of APIs in all levels of government are also seriously lacking. And it was a result of the combination of a lack of interest in public service, and a lack of engagement in civic affairs and political dialogues among the API communities. However, with APAPA’s effort in both voter development and leadership development, this is changing for the better. Coinciding with a rapid awakening of APIs’ interest in public policies and issues that directly impact the API communities, such as Affirmative Actions, racial profiling, gun violence and immigration, APAPA’s effort will surely put more APIs into all levels of government.
Mingfei’s contributions to APAPA Austin is enormous and wide-reaching in the past 6 years. Her finger print can be found in every activity, organization and publication at APAPA Austin. Deservingly, she has become a highly recognized activist and a strong voice for APIs in the local political scene, and started to wear multiple hats: API Community Liaison for Rep. Lloyd Doggett, Executive at Greater Austin Asian Chamber of Commerce, and President of Asian American Complete Count Austin Subcommittee for Census 2020.
Keynote Speech
Mingfei is here today on invitation from Asian Family Support Services of Austin (AFSSA) to give akeynote speech, on a topic she is all too familiar with and well-known for: speakup, be counted and vote.
She started with sharing a painful experience from her childhood during China’s Culture Revolution, an experience that many Asian woman would have chosen to keep quiet on, because of perceived shame, for themselves and for their families. But Mingfei, through her gentle voice, bravely shared her trauma, as painful as it still is half a century later. She shared it because right this moment on stage, she wanted to set an example, an example to encourage Asian Americans to speak up about violence perpetrated against them; and also because she believed that, when a victim speaks up, she becomes brave and turns into a survivor.
Mingfei further implored that Asian Americans not only speak up, but also actively participate in Census 2020, to have their presence and needs accurately counted. And more than just counted, they should also vote, for the sake of themselves and their communities, to have their voices heard and their power felt.
In fact, today's keynote speech is not the first time for Mingfei; but it is the first time she has told her traumatic story in public. In the eyes of many listeners, Mingfei on stage is no longer that fragile old lady, but a standard-bearer, a towering giant who screams, every chance she’s given, for the interests of the API communities. In her, many people saw courage,dedication and the potentials that API people have; more importantly, we saw ourselves, each and every one of us ordinary citizens in everyday life, many first-generation immigrants, yet truly extraordinary, together, in making this greatest nation on Earth our real home.
中文版（Chinese version）
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