The third Asian American tapped to join Obama’s cabinet, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke—who also made history as the first Chinese American governor—muses on the “100-year” trail that led him to one of the nation’s highest posts. This month, as U.S. Census forms filter into the homes of Americans, one of Locke’s biggest tasks is to ensure an accurate count of the national population and tackle low levels of immigrant participation, including among historically “hard to count” Koreans.
By Suevon Lee
In describing his family’s experience in the United States, Gary Locke often says it took 100 years to move one mile. That, after all, is the distance separating the governor’s mansion in Washington State from the house where Locke’s immigrant grandfather once performed work as a servant.
Last year, Locke, the nation’s first Chinese American governor and first Asian American governor of a mainland state, continued that remarkable journey by traveling another 3,000 miles to assume the role of Commerce Secretary in President Obama’s administration.
Locke oversees such agencies as the U.S. Census Bureau, Patent and Trademark Office and National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, plus divisions that set technology standards. Such wide-ranging responsibility no doubt requires the seasoned hand of a state executive with years of management and budget experience.
It also takes someone as focused and determined as the Seattle native to help fulfill the ambitious agenda that Obama has set out to achieve, beginning by spurring job growth during a time when 14.8 million Americans remain out of work.
“There are a lot of positive economic signs, but the president still is not satisfied and will not be satisfied until every American can find a job,” Locke said during a recent phone interview from his home in Maryland. “That’s been a top priority and that’s really been what the Department of Commerce has been focused on.”
So far, Locke, 60, has had what he calls “a whirlwind year.” In the past few months, his office announced a new National Export Initiative that aims to double American exports over the next five years and support 2 million domestic jobs.
It also unveiled a new NOAA Climate Service that will serve as a centralized source of information to offer long-range projections on climate change.
He describes the Commerce Department as what seems, at first, “a large holding company with unrelated bureaus and divisions.”
“They may seem all unrelated, but they are all related,” Locke said. “They’re all about knowledge, innovation and enabling businesses to grow and expand, and to be more competitive and profitable and hire more people.”
One of the biggest tasks currently underway is the administration of the 2010 U.S. census, the decennial questionnaire that was mailed out this month and which in years past, has experienced historic low levels of participation among immigrant groups, including Koreans.
According to the National Korean American Service & Education Consortium, a D.C.- and Los Angeles-based community organization, there are several explanations for this pattern of non-participation in the greater Korean community: the large percentage of foreign-born Koreans who do not speak English at home, the high rate of undocumented Koreans living in the United States, and unfamiliarity with the census itself.
The 2010 census, which aims to gather a count of all people living in the United States, regardless of citizenship status, determines the allocation of $400 billion in federal funding plus the apportioning of congressional seats.
Locke hopes that the number of changes made this year—keeping the census survey at just 10 questions, mailing over 10 million forms in both English and Spanish, and making questionnaires available in a total of six languages, including Korean—will remove some of the barriers standing in the way of an accurate count.
“We have a huge advertising budget going out into the ethnic media—in radios, newspapers, TV stations,” he said. “We’re advertising in 28 different languages compared with 17 in 2000.”
It wasn’t a hard decision for Locke, who had been an early Hillary Clinton supporter, to accept President Obama’s nomination when the call came February 2009. After spending more than two decades in elected office, Locke is known as a policy wonk keen on matters concerning trade and business, who served as a popular two-term governor in Washington State from 1997 to 2005.
His hassle-free confirmation last March underscored a squeaky-clean record with credentials burnished in the trade-friendly Pacific coast.
Obama’s first two picks for the position withdrew their names—New Mexico Democratic Governor Bill Richardson due to a federal investigation into a state contract and New Hampshire Republican Senator Judd Gregg due to his “irresolvable conflicts” with the president on issues concerning the census and the stimulus.
Locke, who completed several trade missions to China as governor, was widely praised as a savvy and solid pick.
As a partner at Davis Wright Tremaine, the law firm he joined after his governorship, Locke specialized in issues dealing with China, energy and governmental relations. It’s his strong ties with the country and familiarity with its leaders that many cited as an added plus to the Obama administration.
Here was an individual who his supporters said would bring to the position “an international focus, centrist pragmatism, strong skills in public policy and a largely scandal-free resume,” wrote the New York Times.
Locke now joins Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki as one of three Asian Americans serving on Obama’s cabinet—the most among any U.S. presidency.
Described as simply a nice guy yet rather shy in private, Locke grew up in the Pacific Northwest, part of the time in a public housing project for families of World War II veterans.
“Gary Locke has been one of the most popular politicians in Washington State,” said his former press secretary, Roger Nyhus. “His story is so compelling to many citizens, not just Asian Americans, but all Washingtonians.”
Locke’s grandfather first arrived in America from China’s southern Guangdong Province, trading house chores for English lessons in a home in Olympia. It was a chapter in American history when the Chinese Exclusion Act was still in effect, denying Chinese immigrants the right to become citizens or vote.
Locke’s father, Jimmie Locke, was drafted into the United States Army, then returned to Hong Kong, married Locke’s mother, Julie, and brought her to the United States.
They operated a neighborhood grocery store in Seattle. Gary Locke, the second-born of five children, didn’t learn English until kindergarten. But the kid who loved Boy Scouts was destined for great things, and would travel leaps and bounds to cross that metaphoric one mile.
Here was, as Obama put it during a speech introducing Locke as his Commerce nominee, a man who “knows the American Dream.”
Locke attended Yale University on a scholarship, then earned his law degree from Boston University, before launching his career in public service.
As it turns out, the King County courthouse where Locke tried cases as a deputy prosecutor early on was located only a half-mile from Seattle’s Yesler Terrace housing project, where he’d spent part of his childhood.
After volunteering for a number of local candidates, Locke felt the call of office beckon. In 1982, he was elected into the Washington House of Representatives for Seattle’s 37th District, where he came to lead the House Appropriations Committee. In 1993, he was elected King County executive, the second highest-ranked office in the state.
Three years later, Locke set his sights on the governor’s race when the Democratic incumbent announced he wouldn’t seek another term. Defeating the African American mayor of Seattle in the Democratic primary and easily winning over his white female Republican opponent, Locke made history when he was elected the nation’s first-ever Chinese American governor in 1996. He easily won reelection the next term.
“His politics really resonated with people in Washington State,” Nyhus said, pointing out it wasn’t biography alone that swept Locke into office. “He’s socially progressive, yet fiscally more conservative. That really was in line with the politics of our state.”
Hard to overlook was the fact that just one mile from the governor’s executive mansion stood the home where Locke’s grandfather, years earlier, had bent on his knees, washing floors to secure his own American future.
“We joked that it took our family 100 years to move one mile,” Locke said. “I think all of those experiences have kept me grounded. I’m firmly aware of the issues and the dreams and the hopes and the hard work and the challenges faced by immigrants and immigrant families.”
His path to elected office, Locke says, was made easier by Asian American politicians who came before him—people like Daniel Inouye, the Japanese American United States Senator from Hawaii; Norman Mineta, who as a Democrat served as U.S. Secretary of Transportation under George W. Bush; and Wing Luke, the first Asian American to win a Seattle City Council seat in 1962.
“Just as they have blazed the trail for me, it’s my hope my accomplishments have moved the glass ceiling even higher,” Locke said. “The election of President Barack Obama has in many ways shattered that glass ceiling. My motto is I can make it easier for people to consider running for office and make it easier for Asian Americans to win by simply being as an effective public servant as I can possibly be.”
Locke established a strong track record as governor, though gradually shifting from a left to more centrist approach during those eight years. He was touted for his early focus on education reform, and widely credited with successfully preventing Boeing from moving production of its new line of aircraft to another state, thereby preserving hundreds of thousands of jobs.
He was enthusiastically received in China during the several trade missions he conducted as governor, greeted overseas almost as a “head of state,” according to Nyhus, his former press secretary.
His popularity, in fact, seemed destined to take him into even higher office; in January 2003, a then-governor Locke was chosen to give the Democratic Party’s response to George W. Bush’s State of the Union address.
Locke ultimately decided not to run for a third term, citing family reasons.
“It was a very tough decision,” he recalled. “Ultimately, we really wanted another child. Third term vs. third baby. It was back and forth.”
Locke met his wife, Mona Lee Locke, a charismatic former Seattle television news anchor and reporter, when he was a state representative, asking for her hand in marriage by arranging for a banner to trail the back of a plane, as they watched from the roof of her apartment building, according to a 2000 New York Times profile. Today, they have three children: Emily, 13, Dylan, 11, and Madeline, 5.
Home for this family of five, at least for the time being, is now another Washington.
In his new role as Commerce Secretary, Locke brings all his years of leadership and budgetary experience to a position with significantly broader reach. One of his most important tasks is to ensure the 2010 census is administered smoothly, and given the lessons of past decades, that won’t be an easy task.
Martha Choe, who served as director of the Washington State Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development under Locke’s administration, believes that the many hats worn by Locke—as governor and legislator—plus his sensitivity to immigrants’ concerns shape his outlook towards the census.
“He is deeply and passionately committed to making sure everyone is counted,” she said.
When talk during an interview turns to the census, Locke is cognizant of the reservations held by minorities and especially immigrants when it comes to the survey, but said outreach efforts taken by the Census Bureau should help put those fears to rest.
“[The form] comes in the mail and they ignore it and don’t fill it out. We’re seeing a trend nationwide of fewer and fewer people participating in the mail-in census,” he said, adding that this year, the form is “unprecedented,” with a total 10 questions that don’t inquire about voter or immigration status.
“We’re trying to make it as simple as possible, to get an accurate count of the people living here in America,” he said.
“We’re obviously learning from 2000,” he added, referring to the last decennial census that was heavily criticized for its long and perceived invasive questionnaire.
The forms this year were printed in English, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Russian and Korean.
In his spare time, Locke likes to work with his hands—for someone who reached Eagle Scout, that includes plumbing, wiring, any method of home construction or remodeling, and working on cars. He is trying to learn golf, as well.
While he hopes to eventually move his family back to Seattle, where his parents still reside, Locke said he’s committed to helping the president get the nation back on its feet, getting straight to the point when asked what mark he’d most like to leave behind in this latest role.
“I really want to help the president help achieve his goals of creating more jobs for America,” he said.
If he can do that, who knows what else can be accomplished during his next mile journey.
