Local Power, Family Milestone

This is my first effort to create a blog. It is part of my commitment to those who helped get me here to the Democratic National Convention in Denver. I promised to share this historical experience with my friends and neighbors. I am still learning the software so forgive me if the posts are slow.

Like most Americans the party convention processes are not something I paid much attention to. I prefer working on grassroots community organizing. But more than ever local actions can drive the national dialogue and policies, the green response to global warming is a good example. But we can only go so far without national and state support. It sickens me when I think about the waste of life and resources in the Iraq War. As a local elected official struggling to offer hope & a decent education to our children, affordable housing, safe neighborhoods and facing aging infrastructure... I think every day about what I could do with my city's share of the war costs about $867 million to date according to the National Priorities Project.

This is the most important presidential election of my life time. I want to be part of organizing a movement for change. I hope to represent the voices of my very diverse urban city. Already by participating I have gotten a new perspective of the variety and depth of the rank and file activists and their issues from around the state. I am so excited to be with 4400 kindred spirits, many of them first time delegates like myself.

On the most personal level this is a family milestone. I can't help smile when I wonder if my great grandfather, who came to Oakland as a refugee from the San Francisco earthquake fire when Chinese Americans had few legal rights, could have dreamed that his descendent would help govern the city just a few blocks from Chinatown and would help select a president.


(Above) My family and I at the City Hall Rally I co-sponsored last year with our Congresswoman Barbara Lee, who we are proud to say cast the lone vote against the authorization of force in Iraq. (l-r) Will Huen,new doctor at San Francisco General Hospital, UCSF Faculty; Jean; Lailan Huen, director of a non-profit youth program and grad student; my husband Floyd Huen, medical director for Over Sixties Health Clinic.