By John Lee
Photographs by Eric Sueyoshi

Minutes before stepping into a boxing ring for his first competitive match, John Yoon’s boyish face bears a stern demeanor. The 22-year-old traverses the stands where friends and fans have gathered, moving to and fro, keeping his body loose, swiveling at the waist, swinging shoulders, and working his arms like silent pistons. His weight shifts from his heels to the balls of his feet in a barely perceptible bounce while pacing the length of the gymnasium, then turning and repeating.

Although he’s trying to stay limber and focused, the severity of his countenance belies a nervousness. About 250 people crowd the second floor of the Los Angeles Oriental Mission Church’s sports complex where a basketball court serves as a makeshift arena for the Fifth Multiracial Boxing Exhibition, which is sanctioned by United States Amateur Boxing, Inc., Southern California Association, and co-sponsored by Friendship Boxing Club, the Korean Boxing Association and Nanoom Christian Fellowship.

Twenty-one matches are scheduled on this torrid Saturday in early August, drawing extended families from across Southern California’s 100 amateur boxing clubs. Their names hint at the history and diversity of fighters ranging from age 8 to the late 20s who are here to represent: Pride and Glory, Outlaws, High Desert, Challenger, Lion Power, Long Beach Police Athletic League, Lompoc PAL, Gaucho’s, Jackie Robinson, Old School, Westside, Mongoose.

John’s Friendship Boxing Club is the lone Korean American outfit which also happens to serve as a co-organizer for the day’s fighting. So when his club mates and supporters arrive in force, he grows anxious. He doesn’t want to let them down.

Match No. 9 sets the squarely built Korean American versus Hector Castro, who at 28 is the day’s eldest competitor and by appearances the line-up’s most seasoned veteran. His scowling mien atop a jawline slightly ajar, broad shoulders, long reach and weathered body tattoos suggest a formidable opponent.

The opening bell sounds and within 13 unlucky seconds, Hector unsurreptitiously rears back his gloved fist from halfway across the ring and lets fly, landing a haymaker squarely on the bridge of John’s nose. Face slightly flushed but expression unchanged and still standing, John doesn’t seemed fazed at first by the punch. The referee, however, separates the fighters and administers a mandatory eight-count, giving both a moment to take stock of their situation.

[a bell rings]

It seems as though John’s perpetually severe expression comes from thinking a lot. A broken family life and past forays into drug abuse weigh heavily on him. To confront these issues, he took to training three years ago through a program offered at his drug rehabilitation residency. John does not really view boxing as a career. But during workouts it is clear from the way he gives himself over completely to the tasks before him that he relishes the conditioning, the structure it gives his days. And as he trains his eyes on the shadow his body casts, monitoring his fighting form as if he is looking at his most elusive opponent, boxing, it seems, is a way of searching.

His training might resemble that of a boxer, but his struggle is with more than sport. For the last five years, he has made a home of the halfway house at Nanoom Christian Fellowship Center, a court-approved church facility in a drug-addled, working class neighborhood adjacent to Los Angeles’ Koreatown. Although he graduated from the substance abuse program two years ago, he stayed on at the center and has been working for the church.

“I think about what happened to people I know who’ve gotten in trouble. I know I don’t want to live like that,” says John. “No one really respected me for trying to change. But I beared through.

“I can say you have got to have a lot of patience. A lot of people my age, I don’t think they have it. I’ve seen a lot of people give up. It’s really hard to live this life. It’s a lonely path.”

Much of the turmoil in John’s life began when he was 9. Too young to fathom exactly what was going on, he hints at having been raised in a strict Christian household by a father who came from a family of ministers. John’s father, too, was a minister before he left home in what his son says was a kind of personal crisis that same year.

“Growing up in a broken home, I had a lot of anxiety,” John says of his childhood family life. “Ninety percent of the time when we talked, it was arguments. I compared myself to other kids, my life and theirs. And it made me mad. The other kids, it seemed like they were always having parents that support them. I didn’t have that growing up.

“I didn’t have a father figure to turn to in the house, to show me how to be a man.”

John, who hasn’t spoken with his father in years, was raised from that period on by his mother and two older sisters in Seattle, Wash. His mother took on a catering business to support the family,. While his older sisters entered the military, John took another route.

With a single mother who worked long hours, he chanced upon the solace offered by the streets. He effectively dropped out of high school and fell in with others who were also just kicking it, whose parents were either lenient, not at home, or had issues with substance abuse themselves. He started to shadow the gang life, befriending peers who orbited that world. From a young person’s perspective, John says, gangsters are people you look up to, even successful to the undiscerning. He and his friends experimented with getting loaded on alcohol and drugs and embarked on petty criminal activities, selling drugs and breaking into homes.

“I hated life,” recalls John. “And I hated myself. I just wanted to escape reality. I did whatever I could get my hands on. Whatever’s mind-altering, I was pretty good at getting it.

John soon saw some of his peers become caught up with the law, and quickly developed an aversion to his own penitentiary chances.

“I was a rebellious kid,” John recounts uncomfortably. “Rebellious to the core. I gave my mom a heart attack right in front of me. All I cared about was myself. I grew up thinking no one could tell me anything.”

***

The referee gives the go ahead sign and Hector tries to capitalize on the opening salvo, rushing at John in feral, dogged pursuit, swinging fiercely but connecting with scant few blows. John remains buoyant but without the crispness of movement he had before the onset. Still he mixes it up without shrinking and manages to connect with a few solid counter punches as the bell brings the round to a welcome end. The crowd erupts. Friends unabashedly shout out encouragement, “Stay up, baby!” and “John Yoon!” John leans heavily into a corner turnbuckle. The look on his face says, the last three minutes were an eternity.

***

By the time John turned 17, he had tested his mother’s coping abilities sufficiently for her to issue an ultimatum. On the recommendation of John’s uncle, his mom sent him to Nanoom.

Coming to L.A. ostensibly to straighten out his life and enroll in a drug rehabilitation program, he found he wasn’t as alone as he thought. He met hardened teenagers like himself in need of succor and without a functional family structure to turn to. In adjusting to the rough environment, one block east of MacArthur Park, the streets called out, by default perhaps, to John and his new rehab mates. They fought episodic battles with addiction, seemingly kicking a habit, only to have the opportunity staring at them again. And then a relapse.

The residents at Nanoom are no strangers to this scenario. The Rev. Young Ho Han, who cofounded Nanoom with the Rev. Yong Il Kim 12 years ago, says many arrive at his center with addictions to crystal meth, ecstasy, cocaine, marijuana and increasingly prescription painkillers and stimulants. Immigrating from Korea in 1972, Han identifies with his Nanoom charges, having been addicted to drugs and involved in gangs for 20 years. He also knows what it means to have one last chance. As of this summer, the center has graduated 544 residents from programs prescribed for drug rehabilitation, alcoholism, domestic violence and anger management.

But over the course of 12 years, Han laments, problems appear to be getting worse. He estimates the proportion of young Korean Americans today who have smoked marijuana at least once as high as nine out of 10, with more than half exposed to other drugs and involved deeper than merely experimenting. Formal statistics appear to bolster his assessment. Asian Americans, as a group, are the only community whose juvenile delinquency rate has increased in the past 20 years, according to Federal Bureau of Investigation statistics and reporting by the U.S. Census Bureau.

“The problem is there is no leader for these kids,” the 53-year-old minister says. “I know how difficult that is. When I was a trouble maker, I really hated anyone telling me what to do. Between pastors and kids, there’s too thick a wall. I’m not here to teach, to give orders or to discipline. I’m here to be their friend. To know their hearts. We need to communicate with them — to be friends first. Then maybe they can hear what we have to say.”

For John, it took nearly three years, but he figured out that the streets offered not much more than an exceedingly difficult way of life.

“It was a temporary escape, but you always came back,” John says of the conclusion he arrived at regarding getting high. “Nothing lasts forever.

“I worked hard to think like that,” he says. “To learn to take a route that others didn’t want to.

“I guess I knew we aren’t living a good life. We are destroying people and ourselves. I‘ve seen too many people make mistakes, even more than me, mistakes that could mean a lifetime of regret. Sometimes the devil’s whispering in my ear. I don’t want to fall again. I know what kind of burden that is, to lose the will to do good in life.”

***

John blinks and the bell sounds for the second round. A couple of unbridled flurries are exchanged with both fighters connecting loudly. A young woman, who up to this point cheered spiritedly ringside for John, cringes and turns away in fear as the fighters go toe to toe, and John gets the worst of the exchanges. Two more standing eight counts come in quick succession, and the ref crosses his arms over his head to call it off. The fight is over just as quickly as it began. As Hector is declared the winner, modest applause is quickly overcome by an exuberant ovation when John is acknowledged. Even in defeat, he represents Friendship well.

***

A few days lafter at the boxing club’s ersatz training “gym” on a half-grass, half-dirt patch of Lafayette Park, John reflects on the conditioning that led up to his first match and fills in some of the particulars of his life outside the ring that brought his story to KoreAm‘s attention.

“I realize what I was doing wrong when I was training,” John says. “There was only 30 days to get ready for the fight, and my motivation and goals weren’t clear. I was thinking, ‘I have to win. I have to lose weight to fight in this certain division, this weight class.’ I wasted too much energy feeling pressured and worrying about the outside part. Instead of dropping my weight, I should have focused on my strength and being ready on the inside.

“I believe in the philosophy, ‘fast come, fast go.’ If something comes easy, like you gain results fast, you’re going to lose results just as fast.”

These days John competes with himself, pushing to see how far and how long he can go, trying hard to figure out how to become something in life. There’s no hiding from the old habits he fears, the murmuring temptations. Maybe that’s why John is here, sparring in the shadows at Nanoom. He appears to be fighting for himself and to prove to others there is a way out.

Although John’s not the type to assert himself as a leader, younger inmates at Nanoom are known to approach him with problems they may  be hestitant to take to the church’s other staff members.

“He cares a lot about the center,” observes Esther Young, 24, a volunteer at Nanoom. “He considers everyone like his brothers, people he doesn’t even know. He tries to protect everyone.

“He knows how it is to feel rejection, to have had a hard family life,” she adds. “I think now he knows the way to change those bad feelings into something positive.”

It’s been some time since he’s had to talk about such things, but John has been thinking about the future.

“I want to remain clean, and be responsible. I believe that’s possible. I want to be so many things. To tell you the truth, when I was young I wanted to be something that I thought was, you know, like, successful,” John says.

“If I’m going to be doing something with my life, it shouldn’t just be to make money. I want to be a better person. I’ve thought about maybe going back to school and becoming, like, a doctor. That’s a lot, I know. That could change.

“But I’ve come this far. God’s given me a chance. I’ve got to make the most of it. Right now, I feel like I should be giving back to [Nanoom]. And I just want to do something good in my life. I still have the opportunity.

“I want to live like a human being. To have a family,” he says. “I guess I want people to think, ‘Dang, he’s not such a bad person, after all.’”

By Michelle Woo   Photo by Lucas Zarebinski

Gyenari Korean BBQ & Lounge

9540 Culver Blvd., Culver City

(310) 838-3131

www.gyenari.com

Check average: lunch, $15; dinner, $40

The standard Korean barbecue experience is many things, but pretty, it ain’t.

There’s the obnoxious clamor of diners drunk off soju, the overworked ajumas who snap every time you press the service button, and, of course, the clouds of grease-infused smoke that seep into your pores and leave you reeking for days.

Oh, the things one must endure for a belly full of juicy, tastebud-tantalizing slabs of grilled meat.

Until now.

Enter Gyenari Korean BBQ & Lounge, a sleek new culinary fixture in yuppie hotbed Culver City, Calif. A contemporary space decked with rustic brick walls, a massive mural of blossoming flowers and a tranquil water sculpture, the two-month-old eatery (pronounced jin-AR-ee) puts a decidedly upscale twist on classic Korean fare. Banchan just went posh.

William Shin, who co-owns the restaurant with his partners Danny Kim and chef Robert Benson, hopes the concept will help introduce Korean flavors to new audiences. “Korean food is the last in Asian cuisine to be brought to the mainstream,” says Shin, 35, an electronics importer by day. “We wanted people to get the authentic taste of Korean barbecue, but didn’t want to scare them off. You won’t see kimchi jigae on the menu.”

You will see familiar recipes tweaked for the American palate. Jeon Jeon is pajeon (Korean pancakes) prepared with your choice of applewood bacon and white cheddar cheese or shrimp, calamari and kimchi. Sunset Soup is mandu guk (dumpling soup) infused with spinach, mushrooms and rice ovalettes. The Bright Bloom is patbingsu (shaved ice), a massive dessert piled with seasonal fresh fruit and tangy mango ice cream.

The lounge menu offers even more innovative creations: Seoul Tacos (crispy wontons filled with shrimp, spicy aioli and crème fraiche), Soju Baby Backs (ribs in a spicy soju barbecue sauce), Malibu Tofu (pan-seared tofu in a soy citrus sauce, topped with fresh avocado) and an array of original Asian-inspired cocktails. For the still-apprehensive, the restaurant also offers trusty, not-quite-Korean options: a ground chuck burger, prime rib dip, and salmon Caesar salad.

Shin says Asian Americans, which make up about 20 percent of the clientele, are embracing the Korean hybrid dishes rather than scoffing at their lack of authenticity. “We feel like we’re pioneers,” Shin says. “The only complaints we’ve had are from, like, that one Caucasian customer who’s had yukgaejang at some hole-in-the-wall in K-town and feels like he’s a Korean food connoisseur.”

Fortunately for Asians and non-Asians alike, at Gyenari, named after a flower that blooms once a year, what’s most true to Korean form is the meat. On mid-table grills, guests can cook flavorful, high-quality galbi, bulgogi, beef tongue, aged pork belly, filet mignon or chicken. The best part? Special technology that sucks the smoke into underground vents (the dining area is built one foot above ground-level) and expels it outdoors. Meaning you’ll leave smelling like a gyenari. Or however you smelled when you first walked in.

Story and photos by Kathleen Richards

Kim Cogan was the type of kid who loved going to the big city. In this case, it was San Francisco, about a 30-minute drive west from his home in the bucolic, sun-baked suburbs of Contra Costa County. But it wasn’t the iconic images of San Francisco, with its trolley cars, ruddy-colored Golden Gate Bridge or pastel-hued Victorians, that caught his imagination. It was his father’s office downtown, the toy store in Chinatown and the Legion of Honor museum his dad would often take him to. The view of downtown from the Bay Bridge, that’s what Cogan considered “breathtaking.”

It seems fitting then, after a lifetime as an artist and 10 years as a painter, Cogan is finally achieving some real success depicting the city that has helped shape his life. And he’s doing it his way. His oil paintings of urban landscapes — San Francisco and New York — aim not to be faithful photographic recreations, but rather to capture the mood a certain scene evokes. He chooses vantage points that are often overlooked and are usually devoid of people: underneath a tangle of freeway overpasses (“Freeway”), on a rooftop in New York (“Lower East Side Sunset”) or the façade of a lit-up corner bakery at night (“La Bonita Bakery”). His brushstroke, too, conveys feeling — loose, almost abstract in places, with drips of paint and diffused light. They’re expansive works.

“I wanted to do it big so you could feel like you could step into the painting and really involve the viewer,” Cogan says from his San Francisco apartment, which doubles as his studio.

Cityscape painters rarely achieve success beyond a certain point, which makes Cogan’s rise all the more noteworthy. His paintings are shown in prominent galleries around the United States and sell for between $5,000 and $15,000. Actor Robin Williams owns one of them. He has achieved this measure of success largely by sheer determination. Born in Busan, South Korea, in 1977, Cogan was adopted as an infant by an American family and grew up in the East Bay suburbs of Pleasant Hill, Concord and Walnut Creek. Art always played a major role in his life. “I can’t really think of a time that I wasn’t drawing,” he says. Over the years, he became influenced by graffiti artists like Barry McGee (known as “Twist”) and Dream. “I found out later on that they were Asian American,” Cogan says of the two artists, “and that was really inspiring.”

Cogan attended the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, where he received his BFA in illustration and fine art in 2000. He started working in computer game developing to earn a steady paycheck, all the while painting after work or on the weekends, and occasionally teaching college classes. But soon his day job began taking over, he was painting less and “sort of miserable,” he says. So about five years ago, Cogan quit his job and decided to devote his life to painting, specifically focusing on cityscapes. “I was looking to do something that incorporated my experience and the things around me,” Cogan explains. “I always liked the city growing up in the Bay Area, but I had never tried to convey that through painting.”

He also wanted to emulate the large-scale paintings by artists like Rothko, Diebenkorn, Pollack and Bacon that he’d seen at San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art. That was easier said than done, considering Cogan was living in a one-bedroom apartment in the Haight-Ashbury district and couldn’t fit a 120-inch canvas inside. He would paint in sections and then attach them with hinges. “I didn’t have any money,” he recalls. “I was running out of paint.” To support his art, he painted apartments, made sandwiches at a cafe and worked with special education students. His hard work paid off. One day, the owner of a gallery he frequented, 111 Minna, saw his slides and asked him to be a part of a group show. His piece sold, so he was asked to do a solo show at the same gallery.

“I’ve been pretty busy ever since,” says the laid-back Cogan.

In the last three years, the artist has continued to paint cityscapes, but has expanded to include New York and nighttime scenes, masterful examples of illuminating light in a dark palette. He also participated in projects relevant to his Asian heritage, illustrating a children’s book called Cooper’s Lesson about a bi-racial Korean American boy in 2002.

These days, Cogan is equally intrigued by the ocean as he is by the city. He took up surfing about six years ago. “If I’m surfing too much, I know I’ll have to make up the time in the studio,” he confesses. It doesn’t help that his apartment in the Outer Richmond district overlooks the breaking waves of the Pacific. With a view like this, sometimes he just gets swept away.

By Mira Jang

When exit polls showed that Hillary Clinton won the Asian American vote 3-1 against Barack Obama in the California primary, some pundits and scholars blamed racism for Clinton’s margin. If it had been true that a significant number of Asian Americans rejected Obama because of his race, John McCain should have an opportunity to capture these votes in the general election. But after Clinton conceded defeat, a June SurveyUSA poll found that 68 percent of Asian Americans in California, regardless of party affiliation, said they would vote for Obama, while only 27 percent said they would support McCain. No other group expressed stronger support for Obama except for African Americans.

It’s tempting to conclude from these results that a strong majority of Asian Americans will back Obama this November, but the Asian sample size was probably too small. Except for the California and New York/New Jersey exit polls, no other scientifically sound survey measured Asian American opinion of the presidential candidates. “It’s a group that is understudied and underpolled,” says Sergio Bendixen, president of polling firm Bendixen and Associates, which conducted a rare national political survey of Asians in 2004. “The media doesn’t pay attention to these voters, which is a mistake.”

But on the basis of extensive interviews conducted among Asian voters in Southern California and discussions with political scientists and other experts who study the Asian American vote, it is possible to draw tentative conclusions about where Asian American voters are headed, and these conclusions bear out what polls have found. Asians are becoming more Democratic with each election, and Barack Obama is likely to benefit from this trend.

Asian Americans are the fastest growing segment of the electorate. According to Bendixen, their numbers doubled to 4 percent over the past two presidential election cycles. And while they comprise only 5 percent of the U.S. population, the majority live in three politically powerful states — California, New York and Texas — and in Hawaii. Some swing states, such as Florida and Virginia, also have sizeable Asian populations, and they are a group, along with Latinos, that will continue to grow at the fastest rates, according to Census projections.

Since the 1990s, Asian Americans have become more Democratic, spurred, in part, by the anti-immigrant sentiment fueled by the Republican-sponsored Proposition 187 in California, where most Asians live. (The ballot initiative sought to deny undocumented immigrants basic benefits, such as healthcare and education, but a federal court found the measure unconstitutional.) There, only 39 percent of Asians voted for Bill Clinton in 1992, but four years later, 51 percent backed the Democratic incumbent, according to exit polls. By 2000, 63 percent supported Al Gore, and in 2004, 66 percent backed John Kerry. Among 18- to 24-year-old Asian Americans, nearly half — 47 percent — identified as Democrats, making this group as Democratic as young blacks and Latinos, according to a 2007 poll conducted for Harvard University’s Institute of Politics. Only 15 percent of the Asian young adults said they were Republicans.

Older Asian immigrants who had been inclined to vote Republican have come to consider racial discrimination as a serious problem the longer they have lived in the country, and they see the Democratic Party as a natural fit for civil rights issues, says Karthick Ramakrishnan, a political scientist at the University of California at Riverside.

But there were still significant political divisions among Asian Americans. In the 2000 election, according to a national survey conducted by Pei-te Lien, a political scientist at the University of Utah, Democrat Gore won 64 percent of the Chinese vote but only 44 percent of the Korean vote. A slight majority of Vietnamese (54 percent) voted for Gore while 35 percent backed George Bush. The same pattern persisted in 2004. Just two months before the election, a national poll of Asian Americans conducted for New California Media found Kerry leading Bush by only seven percentage points (43 percent to 36 percent), with 20 percent of likely voters undecided. Most Vietnamese and Filipinos preferred Bush, while the majority of Chinese and Indians liked Kerry. Japanese, Koreans, and Pacific Islanders were split almost evenly. “Asian Americans lean Democratic, but not consistently so,” says Janelle Wong, a political scientist at the University of Southern California.

Their inability to coalesce as a voting bloc could be due to significant intra-group differences. Asian Americans comprise many distinct ethnic groups with different languages, cultures and histories. Their immigration patterns vary, from the Chinese who began immigrating in the 19th century to work on California’s gold mines to the post-1965 waves of Koreans who came for economic and educational opportunities. Many Vietnamese and Cambodians came as refugees, while a large portion of Asian Indians entered with work visas.

Despite the differences, a non-partisan organization called the 80-20 Initiative, founded by seven Chinese Americans in 1998, has been trying to create an Asian American voting bloc, ideally with 80 percent of Asians backing the candidate that the group endorses. At an August convention, the group voted to support Obama, and it hopes that the 700,000 members on its email list will join the effort to elect him. However, its influence is limited. Only 20 percent of Asian Americans — mostly Chinese — have heard of the group, according to the 2000 national survey.

If Asians do vote together, a more plausible reason would be the growing unpopularity of the Bush administration, along with demographic changes among Asians, which could be moving more Asians to the Democratic Party.

The Vietnamese had been a reliable Republican bloc since they began arriving in the 1970s to escape communism. However, as the younger generation, who tend to care less about foreign policy and more about domestic issues, have reached voting age and as older Vietnamese immigrants have become more aware of party differences, their Republican ties have weakened. “The Vietnamese vote is up for grabs,” says Ramakrishnan.

In Orange County, Calif., home to the largest population of Vietnamese Americans in the country, Democratic Vietnamese candidates have begun to win local seats that were once dominated by Republicans. For the first time this year, more newly registered Vietnamese voters are identifying as Democrats than Republicans, according to the Los Angeles Times. Also, McCain’s use of the racial epithet “gook” in reference to his Vietnamese prison guards during his 2000 presidential campaign could hurt him among Asians.

Already leaning Democratic, South Asians have become even more so as a result of the discrimination experienced after September 11, says Ramakrishnan. Now, even wealthy South Asians who were more likely to be Republicans now identify as Democrats, thus narrowing the class divide and solidifying their Democratic support.

But will this trend extend to Barack Obama’s candidacy? That’s where the question of race comes in. After Clinton won the Asian vote in California’s primary, political scientist Taeku Lee told The New Republic that “many Asian Americans have very deeply rooted and stereotypical reviews of African Americans.” CNN aired a piece that featured several Asians who liked Clinton, with one woman saying that she preferred the New York senator because she was white. And a Time magazine article asked, “Could some Asian Americans not be voting for Obama simply because he’s black?”

Of course, some Asian Americans might oppose Obama because he is black (his mother is white, though), but there is no evidence that most Asian American voters will use race against him. In fact, polls conducted after Super Tuesday showed that the majority of Asian American Democrats had a positive view of Obama. That was true even before Clinton dropped out. According to a May Field Poll of California voters, 56 percent of Asian Democrats (small sample) supported Obama. Only 33 percent backed Clinton. “Obama’s race, in general, will be a net positive for him in attracting Asian American voters because of the possibility of electing the first non-white president,” says Ramakrishnan. In fact, whites have been the most resistant to backing Obama.

Hillary Clinton’s initial popularity among Asian Americans was largely due to her name and association with her husband, who had presided over a period of economic boom and had appointed Asians to high-level federal seats. With Clinton out of the race, most Asian Democrats seem to be shifting their allegiance to Obama. “Many Korean Americans and APIs (Asian Pacific Islanders) didn’t know who Obama was,” says Dae Joong Yoon, who helped found Korean Americans for Obama, a Los Angeles-based political action committee that placed pro-Obama ads in Korean-language newspapers in Texas before the state’s primary. “His middle name is Hussein, so they thought, ‘Isn’t he Middle Eastern, isn’t he Muslim?’ But once they heard who he was, everybody said, ‘Wow, that’s great.’“

Tom Pao is one of those Clinton converts. A 57-year-old Thai immigrant who voted for Clinton in the California primary, he said it was easy to back Obama once he learned more about him. “He represents people like me, the lower-class, the working people,” says Pao, who manages a Thai market in North Hollywood, in the San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles.

Obama’s appeal is cultural as well as political. Beyond his black identity, he has a multicultural background that many Asians appreciate. He was born and raised in Hawaii, the only state with an Asian majority population, lived in Indonesia, and has a half-Indonesian sister and a Chinese Canadian brother-in-law. His father left Kenya to study in the United States. Many Asian Americans, who have felt ignored by politicians, believe that Obama understands them and will heed their concerns about immigration, healthcare, and civil rights, along with more general concerns about the economy and the Iraq war.“He reflects the experience of an outsider,” says Ramey Ko, a Chinese American in Austin, Texas, who founded AsianAmericansForObama.com. “He almost had an immigrant experience.”

Obama could also win significant support among Asian Republicans. As a largely immigrant group without a long history of party affiliation, Asian Republicans, disenchanted with Bush and the war, could be more open to backing the opposing party’s candidate. Chris Chun, a Korean American, is a 34-year-old registered Republican in Los Angeles upset over his party’s handling of the war and the economy. Chun is now backing Obama. “Obama gives you a sense of hope that he’ll make everything better,” says Chun. “I like that he’s completely different from past candidates, especially Bush. We’ve got a shot at real change.”

Obama also has a good shot at winning Asian independents, who comprise about 20 percent of the Asian vote, according to Wong, the USC professor. Oiyan Poon, a 32-year-old Chinese American in Los Angeles, became a Democrat after years as an independent because she was moved by what she described as Obama’s vision of inclusion. “He’s not the typical politician,” she said. “He understands marginalized communities.”

In addition to volunteering as a precinct captain, Poon convinced her 57-year-old mother, Pauline, an immigrant from Hong Kong, to vote for the first time — for Obama. She’s also talked her 25-year-old brother Felix into supporting Obama rather than Republican Ron Paul. Her father, Paul, a 62-year-old independent who voted for Bush in the last two elections, will also back Obama. “Any other election year, we would have a split family,” Poon said, “but this year it seems like my whole family, from the most conservative to the most liberal, is backing Obama.”

But in California, where Asians comprise about 12 percent of registered voters, McCain volunteers say they will fight for the Asian vote, too. In July, the campaign formed an organization to target Asian voters in the Los Angeles region, and Asian Americans head various pro-McCain groups. “It’s rare to find a political figure like McCain, who has shown political courage on the battlefield as well as on the Hill,” says Shandon Phan, founder of Asian Americans for McCain. The 29-year-old law student, who emigrated from Vietnam at age 16 and now lives in Maryland, says he values the Republican candidate’s extensive political experience and agrees with his position on Iraq.

But it’s unclear how much of the Asian vote McCain can capture. “I have not thought about that, why he (McCain) is particularly better for them,” says Nancy Spero, co-chair of the McCain office in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley, where many Asians live. “I just think he’s a better guy, and I think they’d appreciate that.”

Moreover, McCain didn’t bother to speak, even by teleconference, to a May gathering of about 2,000 Asian American leaders and activists in Irvine, Calif.

Obama, by contrast, spoke by phone to the group. “I am a Pacific Islander,” he said. “I consider myself a part of you.” That’s a theme that is resonating with many Asian Americans. If it continues to do so, Obama will win the majority of these voters in November.

Timeline: Asian Americans And The Fight To Vote

1790

The Naturalization Law of 1790 provides the nation’s first rules on the granting of national citizenship and limits naturalization to aliens who were “free white persons,” thus leaving out indentured servants, slaves, free African Americans, and later Asian Americans.

1882

Congress passes the Chinese Exclusion Act, which in addition to barring Chinese laborers from the country also denies Chinese immigrants citizenship rights (and thereby voting rights).

1923

The U.S. Supreme Court closes the door to Asian Indian citizenship in United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, ruling that Asian Indian immigrants are not “white.”

1943

In a major civil rights victory, the Magnuson Act repeals the Chinese Exclusion Act, thereby granting Chinese immigrants the right to citizenship.

1946

The Luce-Celler Act of 1946 grants naturalization rights to Filipino Americans and Indian Americans.

1952

The McCarran-Walter Act repeals the last of the existing measures excluding Asian immigration and eliminates laws preventing Asians from becoming naturalized American citizens.

1965

President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits any practice that denies the right to vote on account of race and bans voting barriers like literacy tests.

1975

President Gerald Ford signs legislation mandating assistance for language minority voters. Thanks to this provision of the Voting Rights Act, Asian voters not proficient in English can request ballots in their native language.

By Corina Knoll   PHOTOS BY Stephen J. Carrera/Courtesy of Northwestern

The tailgaters descended on the parking lot around Ryan Field long ago, some tipping back mimosas in wine glasses and flipping eggs on the grill, their breakfast fare keeping with the early hour. By 11 a.m., the mass has relocated to the sun-soaked stadium, anxious for the kickoff that will mark Northwestern University’s season opener against Syracuse. Wildcats fans hyped up on beer and Chicago hot dogs and too much face paint shout and wave at ESPN cameras, delighted to have returned to their home turf in Evanston, Ill.

Up in section 127, row 38, a family sits. The sister proudly sports a purple jersey emblazoned with her last name. She’s been saving Saturdays for football for as long as she can remember, and while she’s long-hair-big-smile-cheerleader pretty, she knows more about the roles of a Willie, Mike or Sam linebacker than how to form a human pyramid.

The mother beside her sits with brown eyes wide, body tense. Through the years she’s grown to understand this game — what to pray for when it’s fourth and 17, when to expect the coach to call a time-out. But she’ll never understand the physicality of it, and she cringes whenever helmets crash and knees buckle and bodies land.

The father is more at ease. He scrutinizes the formations on the field below, makes mental judgments about the plays and enjoys the chance to breathe in a game he once played. Last night, someone asked him how he thought Northwestern would fare today. He said the first half would be shaky because of the new offense, but that things would eventually gel. It’s an educated prediction made from years of intently watching the Wildcats, and before the day is done, the proud father of No. 18 will prove to be right.

Running a hurry-up offense that has Syracuse scrambling just to line up, Northwestern dominates the first quarter, but can’t seem to finish drives. Quarterback C.J. Bacher throws an interception within the first six minutes and the team doesn’t score a touchdown until just before halftime.

A 6-foot-2, 200-pounder with baby cheeks and disheveled black hair whose face echoes his mother’s Korean roots and his father’s Irish-French ancestry, Bacher has worry on his brow. He was named co-captain a week ago and he’d like to lead this team out of trouble.

But, as his father foretold, the second half brings with it a happy ending. Northwestern cruises to a 30-10 win, with Bacher going 23 for 35 with three touchdowns.

Winning at home is always sweet, although it doesn’t matter where Bacher plays. That mother and father and sister are always in the bleachers. Any field, anywhere — home comes to him.

***

K.C. Bacher (pronounced buh-SHAY), 55, is outgoing and funny, at ease with strangers and accustomed to dealing with attention, having been a football standout at New Hampshire University. His wife, Susie, 47, is reserved and quiet, happy volunteering and cooking at home.

Their personalities converge, however, at this staunch belief: Nothing messes with family.

The two met while K.C. was in the Air Force and stationed in Osan, South Korea. Susie’s own stepfather, a native of Arkansas, had also been in the Air Force, so she was familiar with military life. Stability, she knew, would be difficult to establish for a family whose scenery changed every few years. But she and K.C. both came from large, close-knit families (five siblings on her side, six on his), and they vowed to try for it.

Their first, Christopher James, was born in 1985 in Washington, D.C., during K.C.’s time at the Pentagon. Stephanie came three years later, while the couple was stationed in Korea. As the family moved through other military bases, including assignments in Guam and Hawaii, K.C. and Susie taught the children that while friends and houses would come and go, flesh and blood would not.

“No matter what happens with anybody else,” K.C. would say, “we’re always gonna be here for each other.”

Weekends were spent as a unit — picnicking, camping, boating on their Cuddy Cabin, feasting on galbi. Every single vacation, save one, was a visit to relatives. Halmeoni in Hawaii, Aunt Sandra in Rhode Island, Grandma and Grandpa in New York, Uncle Patrick in Alabama, Uncle Greg in Vermont — K.C. and Susie insisted their children maintain close relationships with extended family members scattered across the States.

When the Bachers eventually made their way to Rocklin, a small suburb of Sacramento, they were able to put down roots. K.C. was about to retire a lieutenant colonel and the couple purchased their first home.

C.J. and Stephanie made friends easily, but the siblings still found themselves hanging together — going to movies, shooting hoops, singing karaoke. (Friends and family members agree that C.J., known for bursting into song at any given moment, happens to have a lovely voice.) A talented point guard in high school, Stephanie says her brother made time to give her pointers and come to her games.

“People always told me that we were so close and it was different than how they were with their siblings,” Stephanie says. “But I just never noticed, because that’s just how we’ve always been. Our parents wanted us to be good friends.”

The family, to say the least, was tight. Football would make them even tighter.

***

C.J. always had a killer right arm.

“Before C.J. was even able to hold a football,” recalls his aunt Sandra Shuster, “he would throw Popsicle wrappers toward the sink and it would stick to the wall.”

An active kid who couldn’t stop bouncing balls in the house and wasn’t afraid to greet strangers, C.J. channeled that strength into basketball, football and baseball, sports that were easily found on the base.

“It was a good way to make friends, especially when you’re moving around so much,” C.J. says. “You get on teams and you get an automatic bond.”

While in Hawaii, C.J. took up flag football and his father volunteered to coach the offense. At 8 years old, the son discovered what it was like to hurl a ball toward the sure hands of a receiver. It felt pretty good.

When they moved to Rocklin, C.J. played Pop Warner and K.C. once again became a coach.

“It was, I think, a great way to have an even deeper connection,” K.C. says. “I was part of the team with him, as opposed to just sitting in the stands not relating quite as much. I was engrossed in the same kind of emotions that the team goes through. We’d come home and talk about strategy at night. Stephanie got pretty interested in it, so did Susie, and they both learned quite a bit of football just from hanging around it so much. That really helped us bond even more.”

A pastime became a future when C.J. attended Jesuit High School in nearby Carmichael. Under the venerable Dan Carmazzi, a coach known for grooming quarterbacks and emphasizing team unity, C.J. played JV his freshman and sophomore years.

“He impressed me with his competitiveness, game awareness, knowledge of football and athleticism,” Carmazzi recalls. “He loved to compete, even in practice.”

As a junior, C.J. started on varsity and led the Marauders to a section championship. The local papers buzzed with his accomplishments, labeling him quite possibly the latest and greatest in a long line of talented Jesuit quarterbacks. Carmazzi called him a coach’s dream.

“Every player’s the best player in the country in their dad’s eyes,” C.J. says. “Hearing it from my high school football coach who’s very blunt and very straightforward — that’s when I kind of realized I could play college football.”

C.J. verbally committed to Oregon State, but after the Beavers recruited an additional quarterback, he began to look around at other options. Northwestern had always been on his radar — a Big 10 school with strong academics; it was also his mother’s No. 1 choice.

On an official visit to the suburban campus just west of Lake Michigan, he felt welcomed by the players.

“They really have aspirations that go beyond just playing football, and those are the kinds of guys I want to be around,” he says. “My family’s always pushed me towards being around the right kids. You kind of are the company you keep.”

Thing is, the company C.J. would eventually keep in Evanston, was, in fact, his family.

As a redshirt freshman, C.J. saw little action on the field, and the next year, he lost the starting spot after suffering a stress fracture to his right leg during preseason. Sensing his son’s frustration, K.C. flew out for the second game of the season to offer moral support.

“Then I came out for the next one and then the next one,” K.C. recalls. “Then all of a sudden he’s healed up, and a few games later they felt like he was strong enough to play. Once he started a game, it was just too exciting to miss. So we just ended up coming to every game.”

“We” meaning that every Friday after school, Stephanie would join her parents on a plane ride to Chicago or whichever D-1 school was hosting the Wildcats. They’d stay for the Saturday game, take C.J. out to eat afterward, then fly back to Rocklin on Sunday.

“I didn’t want to miss any of my kids’ activities,” Susie says about those whirlwind weekends. Sometimes aunts and uncles and cousins would fly in as well, although most would watch the game on TV, or pick it up on the radio — then call afterward to congratulate C.J. or offer moral support. Even Halmeoni has become a Northwestern fan.

When it came time for Stephanie to graduate and pick a college, she chose Loyola University in Chicago, just a quick train ride from Evanston. “I kind of wanted to be close to him,” the 19-year-old sophomore explains.

By the time Stephanie started school, her parents owned a one-bedroom condo in downtown Chicago. K.C. retired from the military in 1996 and has since been working as a director for a software company, which means his schedule allows for flexibility and telecommuting. So, instead of traveling to every game, it seemed a better investment to just buy property in the Windy City and live there during football season, then let Stephanie eventually take it over.

They still own a house near Sacramento (although they moved to the nearby community Gold River a couple years ago), and will return to it in December. But they’re thinking about making a permanent move to the Midwest. While K.C. enjoys living in a metropolitan hub for a few months, then returning to their gated community and a climate suited to biking and kayaking year-round, Susie is a city girl and likes the hustle of Chicago. When they’re in town, they make time for sightseeing, the theater and Cubs games.

The entire family recently checked out a house in Fox Lake, a western suburb of Chicago. Nothing’s final yet, but it’s clear that if C.J. and Stephanie stay in the city after college (and both hint that they will), then their parents will soon become permanent residents.

It’s a move that would make some kids cringe. College and your 20s are, after all, often about getting the hell away from your parents. C.J. jokes that his folks can’t let go. But he doesn’t deny that he can’t either.

“A lot of times I hear from people, ‘My kids don’t want us to be close,’” Susie says. “Our kids say, ‘Why don’t you guys move here?’”

***

Before he thinks about putting that communications degree to use (he’s actually enrolled in the master’s program now) or fielding questions about the NFL (yeah, he’s definitely throwing his hat into the ring and Carmazzi says he reminds him of 49er J.T. O’Sullivan, another QB he coached) or making use of the “purple mafia” alumni network (he held a summer internship with a sports and entertainment company founded by a former Wildcat quarterback), C.J. Bacher just wants to concentrate on winning games for Northwestern.

“My focus is completely on the team now,” he says. “Anything that comes after that is frosting on the cake.” It’s like his father always told him: Worry about your current squad, don’t set your sights on the next big thing.

Last season, the Wildcats finished 6-6, a respectable record for a school that has only seen six bowl games in its lifetime. Living on the bottom tier of the Big 10 where powerhouses like Michigan and Ohio State reign supreme, the purple has a history of struggling for wins and attention. It didn’t help that the team encountered tragedy two years ago, when then-head coach Randy Walker died of a heart attack at age 52.

Linebacker coach Pat Fitzgerald transitioned into the head position while the team leaned on each other, forced to mature in the face of adversity. “It’s made us stronger,” C.J. says. “A lot of our coaches have said that bad things don’t happen to people who aren’t prepared for it. We’re such a tight-knit family that we were able to handle it to the best of our ability, even though it’s not gonna be fully mended right away.”

In the following seasons, C.J. found himself stepping up, taking his leadership role as quarterback to heart.

“He really came into being more of a vocal guy,” says offensive linesman Joel Belding. “If something’s not going right, he’ll come over and he’ll be the guy that’s talking to everybody. He always puts the team first.”

C.J.’s known for giving himself low grades for performance, then talking up the merits of his teammates. He loves referring to Northwestern’s “brotherhood” and hates when reporters only swarm the quarterback.

“It’s really the offensive line that’s doing the dirty work,” he’ll say.

It’s one of the reasons C.J. was voted co-captain.

“That’s the highest honor that can be bestowed upon our players, because they’re elected by their teammates,” says Fitzgerald. “The guys respect his work ethic, his commitment to being the best player he can be. He’s always got a great attitude and a smile on his face. He just absolutely loves his teammates.”

In his final year of eligibility, C.J.’s made it no secret he’s gunning for a bowl game. It’s an aspiration that rests heavily on a guy commentators wryly note had 19 touchdowns and 19 interceptions last season. Maybe it’s a lofty goal, but he feels the tingle of chance in an arm that can drill a bomb to a wide receiver 50 yards away.

The pressure’s on the QB, but if it doesn’t happen, no hard feelings. That’s the best thing about playing football with teammates that feel more like brothers.

And no matter how many tens of thousands of strangers are stuffed into the stadiums on game day, he can’t forget that this is a family sport. Because somewhere up there his mother is praying, his sister is cheering and his father is grinning.

Anything’s possible when the football field feels like home.

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