Judy Chu Wins is the first Chinese American congresswoman in U.S.

LA Times - Judy Chu can trace the beginnings of her career as a San Gabriel Valley activist and political leader back to the early 1970s and her freshman year in college.

As the young math major, intent on a career in computer science, was crossing the UC Santa Barbara quad one day, someone thrust into her hand a flier about a new Asian American studies course. She decided to give it a try.

"It was like a light went off in my head," Chu recalled. She learned about the history of Asian immigrants and their children, the discrimination and stereotypes they endured and their contributions to American life and culture.

One of the guest speakers was Pat Sumi, a third-generation Japanese American whose activism included registering blacks to vote in Mississippi and Georgia and organizing protests against the Vietnam War.

"It was the very first time it occurred to me that an Asian American woman could be a leader," said Chu, who began volunteering with various causes, transferred to UCLA and gave up computers for clinical psychology.

On Tuesday, adding to a 24-year political career launched on a local school board, Chu became the first Chinese American woman elected to Congress. She won a special election -- with nearly 62% of the vote -- to succeed longtime ally Hilda Solis, now U.S. Labor secretary, in the 32nd Congressional District.

She won this election in much the same way she posted earlier victories -- expanding on her Asian base (about 13% of voters in the congressional district) to win support among Latinos (who make up almost half of the registered voters in the district), organized labor (a major element in the largely working-class district) and women. Her years on the Garvey School Board and the Monterey Park City Council and representing a local Assembly district made her a trusted household name among San Gabriel Valley political leaders, many of whom crossed party and ethnic lines to support her.

One is Republican Betty Couch, who said she found common ground -- and friendship -- with the unabashedly liberal Chu when they served together on the Monterey Park City Council.

"She does her homework, she listens, and she really cares about people," said Couch, who said she wishes only that Chu were "a little more frugal" when it comes to government spending.

Couch recalled balking at Chu's proposal for city-sponsored child care -- until Chu won her over by adding a service charge based on a family's ability to pay. "She found a way to get me to support something I was philosophically opposed to," Couch said.

Judy May Chu was born July 7, 1953, in Los Angeles, the second of four children of Judson Chu, a native Californian, and his wife, May, whom he brought from China under the War Brides Act. Judy Chu's paternal grandfather ran a Chinese restaurant in Watts, and the family lived near 62nd Street and Normandie Avenue in South Los Angeles until moving to the Bay Area when Judy was in junior high.

Her father worked as an electrical technician for Pacific Bell and her mother was a cannery worker and a member of the Teamsters.

It was while she was a student at UCLA that Chu met her future husband, attorney Mike Eng. The couple married in 1978. Chu, who holds a doctorate in psychology, continued teaching at Los Angeles City College, then at East Los Angeles College, and Eng practiced immigration law.

By the early 1980s, the couple had settled in Monterey Park, which was experiencing an influx of immigrants from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, sparking a backlash among some longtime residents who sought a ban on Chinese-language storefront signs. When a divided City Council voted in 1986 to support a resolution endorsing, among other things, English as the nation's official language, Chu, by then on the school board, and Eng helped form the Coalition for Harmony in Monterey Park.

"Judy and Mike were always trying to find ways to bring people together," said Jose Calderon, another member of CHAMP who is now an associate professor at Pitzer College in Claremont. They started "harmony days" to celebrate the city's various cultures, and they led a petition drive that moved the council to rescind its divisive resolution.

Chu was elected to the council in 1988 and, in 2001, won an Assembly seat after two unsuccessful attempts. When she ran for the state Board of Equalization after being termed out of the Assembly in 2006, her husband succeeded her to the 49th District seat.

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According to People's Daily, Judy Chu, vice chair of the California State Board of Equalization, received 61.67 percent of the vote while Republican Betty Chu collected 33.12 percent. The seat was left vacant after Hilda Solis became President Barack Obama's labor secretary.

"I am proud of those victories and the victory tonight to be the first Chinese American woman in the U.S. Congress," Judy Chu said.

Soon after Judy Chu was elected as a Monterey Park City Council member and mayor, she led a delegation to visit China in 1990 when relations between the two countries were not normal. She visited China again in 1994 and 1999 as a city councilwoman.

Asked whether she would visit China soon after being elected to the U.S. Congress, she said it was too early to say but would not rule out the possibility.

She said that as a Chinese American, her door to the Chinese community is always open. But she stressed that as a congressional member, she will serve all Americans whether they are Asian, black, Caucasian or Latino.

Updated Xinhua reports July 16, She was sworn in as the first Chinese-American Congresswoman in U.S. history here on Thursday. 

Chu, a Democrat from California, was sworn in by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Her husband, Mike Eng, also attended the ceremony. 

Chu filled the House seat for 32nd district in California left open by Hilda Solis, who resigned to become U.S. Secretary of Labor earlier this year. 

Pelosi said in a statement that as the first Chinese-American woman elected to Congress, Chu's victory is "a source of pride to many."

"Over her 24 years in public service, Congresswoman Chu has been committed to the essential issues facing our nation: the strength of our economy, the education of our children, and the health of all Americans," she said.

Chu became the first Chinese-American woman in U.S. Congress after winning a runoff election for the House seat for 32nd district in California on Tuesday. 

The former vice chair of the California State Board of Equalization received 61.67 percent of the vote, beating Republican Betty Chu, who is her cousin by marriage. 

Chu was born in Los Angeles, California in 1953, and her father was also born in the United States.

Her mother, however, came from south China's Guangdong Province.

Chu's husband Mike Eng is a member of the California Assembly.

She visited China three times in the 1990s.