My Dad's first vote: Being Chinese in 1950's Chicago Oh, and chair-throwing in Vegas

OK yeah I'm a Chinese-American Democrat although that last, after 40 years, I may finally change. Because after we moved to California in the '80s,after I turned 30-something, my father told me what it was like to vote in Chicago when you're a Chink. Later, a Gook. A Slope. My father, BTW put himself through law school, through a Juris Doctorate degree, practiced law and was a CPA in two states. Ask me about my Mom, I dare you!

Chicago used to and may still use mechanical voting machines that look like this



You step up, to vote, a shower-curtain-like arrangement gives you privacy, you select candidates/issues using mechanical switches and vote using a big handle. No computers of course, a physical record of your vote, yadda, yadda, yadda...

So here's Dad, a naturalized American, a child refugee from Communism (I think Grandpa was stood up against a wall and shot) stepping up to vote. And stepping up with him as the shower curtain closed was a BIG white guy. Dad was 5'5" maybe 140# so there was room in the voting booth for two, I guess. Whitey moves the switches, never mind Dad's prepared list of voting choices, looks down and says, "Go ahead and vote"

I like to think that Dad took a few seconds to consider his options before he pulled the big handle.

Decades later Dad overcame his shame and asked first his brothers and sisters, then others to learn that that was how ALL Chinese and Chinese-Americans "voted" in those days. Because that's how the Chicago Machine worked. That's how the Democratic Party ran the Chicago Machine.

Oh yeah, Vegas.

I was ten years old in 1968. I remember Uncle Walter on the teevee. I remember Mayor Daley whom my Dad MUST HAVE voted for saying the police were on the streets to preserve disorder. I remember all the stories about the radical Communists, the same people who probably shot Grandpa. And I remember the teevee showing violent Communists shouting for Peace when the non-violent cops were the only ones using billy-clubs.

So yeah Bernie supporters are inherently violent. Chairs were thrown, the dozens hospitalized proves it. Barbara Boxer was terrified and terrorized. We will have ORDER in future state and national conventions, a pre-agreed on agenda, no outbursts, just orderly applause.



#SeeYouInPhilly