Kumagai’s bi-racial experience informs Council work today

“It was shocking to me to see. It also made me feel the need for self-preservation. If you got overly involved or got associated with those people, you know, we did have a little gay crew in the military, but there was always this fear that we would become guilty by association and that we would then lose our careers. It was this very insidious fear causing us to serve in silence.”

In addition to the witch hunts, Kumagai became aware of another major injustice against the queer community in the military: that of being unable to claim benefits for same-sex partners.

“What really made me realize how unfair and discriminatory the policy was, was to see so many of my siblings in service faced discrimination when it came to the benefits that they received for their significant others. For example, because there was no same-sex marriage at the time, if you were deployed, then your significant other was invisible. If you were going to go to a place where only a legally married spouse was able to go with you, or you were entitled to receive the benefits of you taking those orders in the military, your same-sex significant other was completely left out. There was no support system for those couples. That made me realize that there was just no way for people to serve under ‘Don’t ask. Don’t Tell’ in a way that was equal.”

The ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ policy was annulled in 2011, making way for more members of the queer community to serve and receive benefits that are equal to their heterosexual peers.

A call to action

When asked what led Kumagai to politics, he admitted that the decision was not made lightly.

“When I served in the military under ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,’ I never thought that I would be able to serve in any position of higher leadership because of the scrutiny that it would bring to me. I had this fear that I would be outed and that that would not only end my career but also bring shame to my comrades in arms.”

However, once the policy ended, Kumagai had the space he needed to reconsider his stance on being an out politician – an aspect of himself he now finds vital to his entire message.

“I think that those of us who can lead by example absolutely must,” said Kumagai. “I don’t ever say that every single person must come out and be a certain way, but certainly those who are running as candidates, they are a voice for people who may not be able to have a voice at any given moment, it’s the same for I think the LGBTQ community as for the AAPI community. We must have people in positions of power as role models for other future leaders.”

When asked what he feels is the best course of action to eradicate hate and prejudice, the Councilman paused before responding.

“It’s a tough question,” admitted Kumagai. “How do we solve this age-old problem? I think we need to continue to create awareness about the diversity of our cultures. We really need to push back on these kinds of stereotypes and tropes as well.”

“I think nothing happens without intention in this arena, we have to keep our eye on the ball. We have to continue to do this work and move in a progressive direction and that’s why I’m so thankful for people like Senator Wiener and for people who are doing the work in Sacramento, There are so many areas in our systems that need to still be fixed to allow people to live out their full potential.”

In addition to leading by example as a queer leader, Kumagai recognized a need to push for AAPI leadership and representation.

“During my time on the city council, we saw a spike in AAPI hate. I really started to realize that I had a duty and responsibility as someone from these different identity groups to be a voice for those people who often do not have voices in this process to speak up and to do work on these important issues. I started to get more involved with different identity-based political and government work organizations to try to do that work.”

“When it comes to the AAPI side of things, I think we still have a lot of work to do in that space. We are underrepresented even in California, where I think we do have relatively more representation compared to the rest of the country. But there are systems and pipelines put in place that stopAAPI people from moving into positions of power. There is this kind of model minority mask that is put on people. Oftentimes AAPI leaders are expected to step aside. There is always an excuse for why any given AAPI individual should not run in any particular race. We are told, ‘this is a Latino seat, or this is a Black seat, or this is a labor seat, or this is…’ whatever it is. The API candidate, for whatever reason, seems to be pushed out of the systems of power. It’s almost like it’s OK to push an AAPI individual out of a given race or out of a position. We have a lot of work to do to create support systems that allow for AAPI leaders to ascend into positions of power.”

While there is still a lot of work to be done, Kumagai did share his optimism when looking at the new generation of young leaders.

“I feel very hopeful, particularly about the younger generation, which seems to have a deeper understanding of what a diverse culture and what a pluralistic culture looks like. When it comes to LGBTQ issues, they are much more enlightened than even I was at their age. In terms of sexual orientation and gender identity, it is truly this beautiful rainbow where we have so many different experiences and identities. I am still learning every single day about that, but I’m hopeful that the younger generation is going to be able to help us continue to move in a positive direction.”

Just last year, Kumagai conceded to straight labor candidate Liz Ortega in the race for a state Assembly seat noting he was still glad he ran.

“The primaries were an amazing experience,” said Kumagai. “You never know what the dynamics of a race are going to be when you get in, but certainly we knew that I was the underdog, and in this race because we were going up against the labor and democratic machine, that was geared towards a certain type of candidate.”

“But I truly felt that because there was no other AAPI person getting in the race that it was important that this district, which has a plurality of AAPI people, have that option on the ballot. I didn’t know how far the campaign would go, and I was proud of the coalition that we put together and that we were able to get through the primary and go on to the general election. But, you know, we fell short in making the case to people.”

When asked what went wrong in the election, Kumagai felt that constituents were generally uninvolved, leading him to lose out on important votes.

“I think a lot of people were disengaged with the process. We had about a 50 percent turn out. A lot of folks were just not really paying attention. That is unfortunate, but that is kind of how things go in our democracy sometimes. I absolutely learned so much from that experience. There are also always other opportunities on the horizon. I know that I will find other ways to continue to serve.”

In 2019, Kumagai stirred up controversy when he sought to represent his queer community in Dublin.

“In 2019, I asked my colleagues to declare two things. The first was to declare LGBTQ plus pride month in the city of Dublin. The second was to raise the pride flag.”

“Unfortunately, there were members of the public team who made some very inflammatory remarks. These are the tropes we have seen forever, trying to associate the LGBTQ+ community with pedophilia and bringing in religious talking points. The sad thing is, those comments got inflated with the fact that my colleagues were largely afraid of issues around first amendment rights and the constitutionality of flying a flag and whether or not that would open up a can of worms or Pandora’s box of having to fly other flags. All of that got inflated, and it blew up in national news.”

“I think what was most surprising for people was that many think of the San Francisco Bay area as this monolith of progressivism and that everywhere there should be forward thinking and accepting. But what this incident peeled back was that there is still this underbelly of racism and of anti-LGBTQ sentiment. All of this still exists in the Bay Area within California.”

“Luckily, this is not the majority opinion. We got there. We came back, and we unanimously passed the raising of the pride flag for the entire month of June, which was more than I originally asked. We then went on to do that every year during my time on Council.”

“You know, raising the flag was commonplace in places like San Francisco and Oakland and Berkeley, but in broader suburbia, it wasn’t. That whole kerfuffle brought this rainbow wave throughout the east bay and outer east bay and even into the central valley. I have people write to me who say, ‘We want to do that too.’ and, ‘How do we advocate for this in our community?’

“By the time we got to raise the flag, I think, the third year, pretty much every city in Alameda county was doing it, including every city in the Tri-Valley region, where Dublin is centered and which tends to be a little bit more of a purple area of the Bay Area. I was proud that it had this ripple effect that created awareness and moved people in that direction.”