With diversity come success and setbacks for 'new' Boston's politicians
For those hoping that Boston's increasingly diverse population would begin to be reflected in its politics, there were signs of success yesterday and some setbacks, too.
In the City Council race, Boston elected its first-ever Asian city councilor in Korean-American Sam Yoon, who came in a convincing third on his first run for the office. Voters reelected Hispanic Councilor Felix D. Arroyo, who placed second. Now, two of the four at-large councilors and two of the nine district councilors are members of minority groups.
Some neighborhoods showed remarkable jumps in voter participation: More than 2,500 Chinatown voters cast ballots, well above the 1,000 or so voters who normally vote in city elections, according to Secretary of State William F. Galvin. Lower Roxbury, home to a large black population, voted in greater numbers than some areas of Charlestown, which has traditionally been home to some of the city's most committed voters.
Yoon said last night that he owed his victory to voters eager for new blood and to those who wanted a councilor who would represent minority residents.
''The Cape Verdean community, the Haitian community, the Vietnamese community, and the people who live with those communities, I think they came out to vote for me because they saw I would be somebody who would represent the interests of them and their neighbors," he said.
Over recent election cycles, as Boston's population has grown more diverse, the electorate has followed, albeit slowly. Members of minority groups now make up just over half of the city's population, though whites remain a majority of voters. The city's predominantly white neighborhoods have long been home to the most fervent voters. But with each election, the gap in political participation between those neighborhoods and those that are home to black, Hispanic, immigrant, and young professional voters has narrowed.
''The electorate is changing incrementally, but the increments get bigger with each election," Galvin said. ''It would have been almost implausible eight years ago to think about Sam Yoon, a guy who lived in Arlington until two years ago, who is Korean, winning on his first try. And eight years ago, it would have been improbable to think Arroyo was a lock, which he is. It is changing, but it's changing subtly."
But even as subtle changes emerge, deep political patterns persist.
Councilor at Large Stephen J. Murphy, a veteran politician from Hyde Park considered the epitome of the old Boston, kept his seat, despite a weak showing in the preliminary and some speculation that his constituency was shrinking. And mostly white West Roxbury and Hyde Park, the traditional powerhouses of Boston politics, showed their strength again.
Murphy benefited partly from help from Mayor Thomas M. Menino, for whom he has been a cooperative colleague: The mayor turned out the vote in Hyde Park, from which both men hail. But Menino also pulled voters to the polls in minority neighborhoods, certain that they would give him a large margin of victory over challenger Maura Hennigan, whom he trounced. While those neighborhoods are not natural Murphy strongholds, they were no match for the numbers in West Roxbury and Hyde Park.
Another factor in Murphy's favor: Election Day was dominated, as it often has been, by elderly voters. The young professionals who are gentrifying the city's neighborhoods and who tend to shun local contests did not vote in numbers large enough to be a force.
In the race for the district seat for Jamaica Plain and West Roxbury, voters returned incumbent Councilor John Tobin to office, despite a spirited challenge from Gibran Rivera, a native of Puerto Rico who had worked as a political organizer. The race featured a lively debate among Latino voters about whether a Latino candidate should automatically gain their support.
Still, the turnout grew in some minority neighborhoods because the candidates and activist groups launched an unprecedented drive to reach those voters.
''We had a much more diverse sampling of candidates," said Juan Martinez, executive director of MassVOTE, an organization that aims to boost voter turnout. ''It makes it easier for organizations of color to organize as well."
The Menino administration, recently embarrassed by a US Department of Justice lawsuit alleging the city had failed to accommodate voters with limited English skills, was doubly motivated to make casting ballots as easy as possible for immigrant voters. Signs were prominently displayed in several languages at polling places, and voters in minority neighborhoods like Fields Corner, home to a large Vietnamese population, had translators on hand.
Bay Van Le, a 74-year-old Vietnamese immigrant, was beaming as he left the Viet-AID community center in Dorchester yesterday, having voted for the first time.
Quynh Dang, a volunteer for at-large council candidate Yoon, had tried to sell her candidate to Le as he entered the polling place, but Le already knew whom he was voting for. He had learned all he needed to know about the election this year from Vietnamese language newspapers and Vietnamese cable television. Menino was his man, though he was mum on his City Council choices.
''That's why I became a citizen, so I could vote," he said in Vietnamese. ''I'm old. Why else do I need to be a citizen?" 