Conversations with the CTGCA Team: Executive Board Member Jane Kim
CTGCA Executive Board Member Jane Kim tells us about her lineage of public service and how she learned to be fearless as a prominent elected leader, woman of color, and child of immigrant parents.
Jane is a longtime community organizer, civil rights attorney and ally of Close the Gap California. In addition to previously serving on the San Francisco County Board of Supervisors, she also served as President for the Board of Education, and ran for State Senate in 2016 as a Close the Gap Recruit. In 2022, she joined the California Working Families Party as State Director.
This interview has been edited for brevity. We interviewed members from our team to learn about their roots in the gender equality movement. To learn more about our Interview Series and read other pieces like this, please click here.
When was the first time that you became politically active?
While I did not necessarily have words for it, raised in a large, dense and diverse city, I grew up seeing and experiencing racism, injustice, and inequity– and as a child of immigrant parents, I saw how my parents were viewed and treated by larger society. During my middle school and high school years, I learned about Vincent Chin, a young Chinese American man who had been brutally murdered by a white father and son in Detroit on the night of his bachelor party simply for looking Japanese, and saw the fire and wreckage of South Central LA and Koreatown post unjust Rodney King verdict.
I started by joining a Coalition for the Homeless program at my local Y my freshman year of high school– I volunteered at the office, eventually getting hired part-time and volunteered to deliver meals from a van at encampments around the city every Saturday night, never missing a Saturday even if it was Christmas or New Year’s.
How did your family and community influence your passion for public service?
I was also very lucky– I had incredibly passionate high school teachers, some of whom had been active in the Civil Rights Movement and LGBTQ movement. They nourished and fed my desire to learn more about American history, social change movements and guided me to different youth leadership programs and conferences. I was exposed to and read Malcolm X, Leslie Marmon Silko, Julia Alvarez, Amy Tan, Ronald Takaki, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison and more. I watched Paris is Burning, a documentary on the Black, Latino and transgender communities in NYC and the ball community and Eyes on the Prize.
As immigrants, my parents were very nervous as it became clearer that I would be pursuing a path of public service versus a more traditional path leading to financial security. I don’t want to sugarcoat the arguments and debates we engaged in, but while it took almost 15 years, my parents eventually grew to embrace my choices. As I got older, I started to understand that I do come from a lineage of service– it was just never talked about that way. My father was incredibly active in the Korean and Korean American community– he was someone who wanted to be a community resource and connector. When he passed away last Spring, so many members of the community came up to me to share the story of how my father helped or supported them. I believe under a different set of circumstances, my father would have run for local office as well.
Often in our immigrant communities and communities of color, we do not question the narratives and stereotypes this nation has developed for us. We may even stereotype members of our own family and the roles we can play in American society. This is very disempowering, because it can lead many children of immigrants or children of color to NOT consider or envision a role in public leadership– and we do not learn the story of activists, leaders and elected officials who looked like us.
What inspired you to run for office?
For six years, I served as a youth community organizer in San Francisco, working for Chinatown Community Development Center– I wanted to provide the same opportunities for services and leadership as my teachers provided me when I was in high school and I loved this work. In fact, I am still so proud that many of the students I worked with went on to become community organizers, teachers and four of my former students served as legislative aides for different colleagues on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors when I served. Two ran and won seats on the San Francisco Democratic Central Committee and now serve with me.
As a young organizer, I got involved in local and state ballot measure campaigns and a few candidate races. During this time, an elected leader and a few organizer friends encouraged me to run for the San Francisco Board of Education. I had never considered running for local office and knew very little about what that would mean, outside of precinct walking and doorknocking. However, San Francisco Unified School District was 90% students of color and roughly 50% Asian American and Pacific Islander– yet the Board did not look like the students and families they served. Largely out of naivete, I said yes. And I ran as the only candidate that served public school students.
I lost my first race, but ran again and won two years later– our field operations over two election cycles paid off. As the youngest candidate, I came in first place out of 15 candidates. I initially viewed the work as civic duty but I ended up falling in love with the work of public representation, governance and public policy. It was amazing to bring in students, parents and teachers who did not previously have seats at the table to craft legislation and policy which would impact the school district– I was proud to introduce and implement SFUSD’s first Restorative Justice program, reform our suspension/expulsion system and institute Ethnic Studies curriculum in all our high schools. I then decided to run for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and served eight years.
I’m really proud of the work that I was able to do. I hired all women of color to lead my legislative team, and we were the most prolific legislative office over my eight years. Our landmark legislation included making San Francisco the only city in the nation to make community college tuition free for all residents; the Fair Chance Act (removing unnecessary barriers to employment and stable housing for the millions of Californians who have a conviction record); passing the strongest and most progressive minimum wage law in the nation raising our minimum wage to $15/hour by 2018; securing full-time nurses for homeless shelters and establishing a medical respite shelter for aging and sick homeless residents. And in my final year in office, we authored and passed a ballot measure equaling the single largest investment any US city has made towards childcare- a tax on multi-million dollar commercial real estate to raise $140M+ per year to make universal affordable childcare a reality.
What types of barriers or challenges have you encountered?
I learned to work in a dichotomy where my race and gender was utilized against me almost every day, sometimes in crushing ways, while still holding power, real power vested in me by the Charter of the City and County of San Francisco. Rarely would a week go by when I was not confused for being my own assistant.
People would ask me, “When is the supervisor going to be arriving to attend the meeting?” or they would deliver packets to the office and if they saw me, they would tell me to give this to the Supervisor. Wealthy, high powered men dismissed me. Progressive white men told not to run and wait for my turn or run in an “Asian District” (which I did not).
I was treated differently from my male colleagues, and certainly my white male colleagues. It was difficult for some people to sit across from a young Asian American woman and know that I was the person that they had to meet or negotiate with in order to get what they wanted from the city and county of San Francisco.
Unfortunately, I have seen over and over again, elected officials and leaders, who are women and people of color, told that we don’t hold power, even when we do. Yet we do have the power to introduce and pass legislation, negotiate housing and office developments, and approve land use developments.
We have a seat at the table. And I sit at the table on the shoulders of countless ancestors — who fought for me to even be able to run for office and be taken seriously. I am a woman of color, daughter of immigrants, who has had the privilege of having her name on San Francisco’s ballot 8 times, a privilege my immigrant grandmother pointedly told me she is envious of because I have had opportunities she could not dream of as a young woman.
A few years ago, a young woman asked me what I was most proud of having learned while in office and I responded very quickly– fearlessness. But after more thought, I realized this was not an honest answer because actually, I am scared all the time. It is that I have learned to be both scared and fearless at the same time.
I learned to be fearless because I knew that countless ancestors fought and even died so I could have a seat at the table– to represent the community which elected me to office. And I knew that people were depending on me to fight for the community.
What do you think it will take to achieve Close the Gap’s goal of gender parity in the state legislature by 2028?
We must invest in building and supporting a pipeline of leadership, and we can start by investing in mentorship for women and in particular, women of color. We don’t have as many role models, mentors and historically developed support infrastructure systems as white men do. That’s why institutions like Close the Gap are so important.
And we need to support women at every level of governance, not just elected office– legislative/policy staffers, public agency directors, political consultants and pollsters. Over my eight years on the Board of Supervisors, I hired predominantly women of color, many mothers of color, and invested in those who aren’t given the opportunity to serve our communities in this way. And I didn’t work hard to identify them– there are innumerable highly qualified women of color to take the staff positions that you have.
Frankly, very few people come into the work of policy and politics with a wealth of experience — we all have to start somewhere and be given those opportunities. I would love to see more women and people of color lead and run campaigns, public agencies, and city departments.
What advice would you give to women who may not have considered running for office or may need the extra push?
Start by grounding yourself in your community or neighborhood. Sometimes people lead with the goal of holding office versus the goal of serving their community. In order to be a powerful candidate and representative, it’s critical to be grounded. Join local community based organizations serving your neighborhood, research the neighborhood associations, get to know efforts around local parks and schools, join local actions and volunteer for campaigns because you will really get a sense of what community needs are and what you’re going to fight for when you represent this neighborhood and community. You can spend your evenings and weekends or off-hours either joining a board, volunteering, or attending your regular neighborhood community meetings.
Second, I always encourage women and people of color to surround yourself with people that share your passion to serve– doors will naturally open for you.
Third, know this work is hard. I don’t sugarcoat campaigning or serving in office. I’ve run in six campaign cycles and in my first two campaigns, I cried regularly. No one prepared me for what I was entering into emotionally. It’s one thing to learn about fundraising, field and all of the tasks involved with running for office, but it is also emotionally grueling. You will feel exposed and vulnerable– judged by voters, community influencers, social media and traditional press. I encourage women to assess their support system and reflect on a self care plan before they make the leap.
What do you enjoy most about working with Close the Gap?
The California State Legislature is arguably one of the most important legislative bodies in the country. They pass at least three times as many bills as the US Congress and represent the home of one out of every eight Americans. The policies we pass in California have a huge impact across the country.
Our ability to raise the minimum wage (2/3 of minimum wage workers nationally are women), expand healthcare access, fight climate change, reform our sentencing and criminal justice system, fund a universal and public pre-K through college education system — this work happens at the state level, not in Congress.
This is a small but meaningful example of the impact women can make in office. Until very recently, California prisons used to shackle women inmates when they gave birth– unfortunately, this is still the policy in many states. Now-Senate President pro Tempore Toni Atkins authored and passed the bill to ban this type of inhumane practice in our state prison system when she served in the Assembly.
Close the Gap California is strategic in investing early in a woman’s decision to run– they also identify women who have been doing the work on the ground and are committed to a progressive platform of values to bring to Sacramento.
Women absolutely should be at least 50% of the voices we hear in the state legislature. We have an opportunity over the next four election cycles to make this a reality by 2028.
Close the Gap California is committed to building on progressive women’s historic momentum by recruiting them statewide and achieving equality in California by 2028. Join us!
About Close the Gap California
Close the Gap California (CTGCA) is a statewide campaign launched in 2013 to close the gender gap in the California Legislature by 2028. By recruiting accomplished, progressive women in targeted districts and preparing them to launch competitive campaigns, CTGCA is changing the face of the Legislature one cycle at a time.
One in every four women in the Legislature is a CTGCA Recruit. Our Recruits are committed to reproductive justice, quality public education, and combatting poverty, and nine of 10 serving today are women of color.
