About this column: LA County is home to more Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Cambodian, Thai, and Vietnamese Americans than any other county in the United States — a Pacific Rim diaspora that makes up nearly 16% of the county’s 9.7 million residents and holds majority status in 14 of its 88 cities. LA County Politics periodically surveys the political landscape of these communities — their civic organizations, elected officials, and neighborhood institutions — across all 88 cities. This is the Pacific Rim Rundown.
By Los Angeles County Politics (LACP)
AAPI LEAD Brings Its National Summit Home to Los Angeles
The most significant gathering of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) elected officials in the country came to Los Angeles last weekend for AAPI LEAD’s Third Annual National Summit in Los Angeles.
The summit brought together elected and appointed AAPI officials from more than 30 states for three days of workshops, strategy sessions, and community engagement. The organization — led by former Los Angeles City Councilmember David Ryu, the first Korean American ever elected to the LA City Council — modeled itself on NALEO, the national organization that built Latino political infrastructure over decades. AAPI LEAD is building the same for the Pacific Rim.
The summit’s Saturday evening program was held at Chapman Plaza, 3465 W. 6th Street — in Koreatown, the symbolic and commercial heart of Pacific Rim Los Angeles.
Featured speakers included U.S. Rep. Judy Chu (D-Pasadena, Monterey Park, San Gabriel, Alhambra, West San Gabriel Valley), LA County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath (D-Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, Calabasas, Malibu, Pacoima, Panorama City), and San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu, who serves as AAPI LEAD’s board president.
Sessions covered AAPI voter registration trends and turnout data, the affordability crisis hitting Pacific Rim communities, immigration policy, and media training for elected officials facing hostile press environments.
The choice of Los Angeles to hold the summit comes as voters here passed Measure G in November 2024 — a landmark county charter amendment that will expand the Board of Supervisors from five seats to nine following the 2030 census, with the new board seated in 2034.
The expansion creates, for the first time in county history, the realistic possibility of a supervisorial district with an AAPI majority — most likely centered on the San Gabriel Valley.
Chu put the stakes plainly at a 2024 press conference: “LA County is home to 14 Asian majority suburbs. But despite this overwhelming growth of AAPI communities, there is not a single person who is AAPI who sits on the Board of Supervisors.”
Tran Takes on Hanoi, One Amendment at a Time
U.S. Rep. Derek Tran (D-Cerritos, Artesia, Hawaiian Gardens, Lakewood/Orange County) last week saw the House pass H.R. 8595, the National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2027, which included his amendment to hold the Vietnamese communist government accountable for human rights violations.
The provision will direct State Department funding for the annual U.S.-Vietnam Human Rights Dialogue, a critical diplomatic tool to press the Vietnamese government to address human rights violations, including the jailing of journalists, political dissidents, and religious leaders. It also reaffirms Congress’ commitment to advancing human rights and fundamental freedoms in Vietnam. The bill passed 217-209.
“America is a beacon of freedom, democracy, and unwavering in its commitment to upholding human rights,” said Tran. “As the Vietnamese government continues to restrict freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and peaceful political expression, the United States has a responsibility to stand up against these human rights abuses.”
In May, Tran made history as the first Vietnamese American member of Congress to question a Vietnamese American official before the House Armed Services Committee, pressing Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao — the highest-ranking Vietnamese American in U.S. armed services — to join him in fighting for the release of political prisoners in Vietnam.
At the center of Tran’s advocacy is Le Huu Minh Tuan, a Vietnamese journalist imprisoned in January 2021 and sentenced to 11 years under dubious charges, who Tran personally sponsors through the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission’s Defending Freedoms Project. Tuan has been denied adequate medical treatment for ulcerative colitis and hepatitis throughout his imprisonment.
Tran’s Orange County base includes “Little Saigon”.
Nisei Week Returns to Little Tokyo, August 15-23
One of the longest-running cultural festivals in the United States returns to Little Tokyo next month.
The 84th Annual Nisei Week Japanese Festival runs August 15-23, 2026, in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles’s historic Japanese American district — nine days of parades, cultural exhibits, taiko, food, and community that trace their roots to 1934, when second-generation Japanese Americans created the festival during the Great Depression to sustain Little Tokyo’s businesses and identity.
The Grand Parade steps off August 16 at 4 p.m. through Downtown LA’s Little Tokyo streets. The Plaza Festival — free admission, Japanese food vendors, beer garden, live entertainment, and cultural exhibits — runs August 22, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center, 244 S. San Pedro Street.
Nisei Week is not merely cultural. It is a civic institution that has marked the Japanese American community’s presence in Los Angeles across nine decades, through internment, postwar rebuilding, and the ongoing fight for recognition that the JACL Pacific Southwest District continues to wage.
This year’s festival arrives as the Yonsei Basketball Association has selected 24 students to travel to Japan, and Harvard-bound senior Yuki Matsumura has been named a 2026 Edison Scholar — two notes of community pride from the Rafu Shimpo, the community’s bilingual Los Angeles newspaper, that bookend the festival announcement.
For more information and a further schedule of events, visit niseiweek.org
