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Published on: 12/1/2007
Last Visited: 5/17/2008
Michael Hsing is a councilman in Bridgewater, New Jersey, a prosperous, predominantly Republican suburb less than an hour's drive from New York City.The town has seen substantial growth in recent years, as pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies opened offices, and newcomers, many of them Asian professionals, settled there, attracted to the jobs, good schools, and prime location.Asian Americans now compose a little less than 12% of Bridgewater's 44,000 residents, a reflection of New Jersey's overall demographics.From 1990 to 2000, the state's Asian population nearly doubled, growing by 95%, as compared to the national Asian growth rate of 13%, giving New Jersey the fifth largest Asian American population in the U.S. in 2000.
Mr. Hsing arrived in New Jersey substantially before the recent surge.In 1983, he and his wife, Tammy, left Taiwan for the U.S. so that he could pursue a master's degree in computer science.The couple stayed, raising two sons.Mr. Hsing soon began getting involved in the community."Originally I just wanted to serve the community, because I feel that this is the right thing to do, in particular as an Asian.In the community and society where I come from, there isn't really that kind of tradition.Once I settled down in America, I found that this is a good American tradition, everyone serves in some way," Mr. Hsing said.He successfully ran for town councilman, was re-elected, and also served as the president of the town council and of the county governing officials association.These are mostly weekend and evening commitments; during the weekday, Mr. Hsing works the director of information technology compliance at CIBER, Inc., an international technology consulting company with an office in Edison, New Jersey.
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In 2001, when Mr. Hsing first ran for town council, there were 465 registered Chinese American voters.The next year, the number had almost doubled to 800.Mr. Hsing attributes this increase to the fund raising and voter registration drives his campaign conducted.Asian Americans have tended to vote Democratic, but Mr. Hsing notes that 85% of the Asian American voters in New Jersey were not formally registered with any party.Furthermore, he feels that, in their hearts, many Asian Americans identified with traditionally conservative values.
In part because his views differed from that of the powerful mayor of Bridgewater, Mr. Hsing's time on the council has been marked by a number of failed efforts.He talks unabashedly about these experiences, viewing them as examples not so much of failure, but of the type of politician he is.He was unable to obtain support to get solar panels installed on the new municipal complex even though he argued that it would save money in the long run; he could not get the city to fix the pot-holed surface of a nearby road; he failed to persuade the mayor and the council that a proposal to cut down 650 trees so that low-income housing could be constructed on the cleared land unnecessarily damaged the environment."You can never reclaim that [forested land] back, that's open space lost," Mr. Hsing said.
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Despite, or perhaps because of, the frustrations of local politics, Mr. Hsing recently declared his candidacy for the Congressional seat vacated by Rep.
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To be a viable candidate, Mr. Hsing believes that he will need to raise $1 million by the primaries.He is looking to Asian Americans for support, but, just as importantly, he is banking on his broader appeal as a moderate Republican.
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