This is part 2 of the Q&A with Jennifer Nguyen Moore. To read the first part, click here.
Do you think you’ll run again?
I think about this all the time. What I want to say about running is that it takes a lot of time, effort and a lot of resources. It’s really hard to run for office. My child was ten months old when I decided to run for office. I’m a first-time parent and worked full-time while running my own campaign. In hindsight, I’m like, why did I do that? That’s too much! Running for office impacted my family structure and family relationship.My husband like took care of our child and house stuff while I was out (thanks Kendric!) I’m really sensitive to that and if I were to run again, I’d do that differently.
But I think what’s important is to know that, in those spaces, we don’t have elected officials that have young children. These elected officials are in charge of allocating money or young families and communities that need it the most. If I do run, it would be sometime soon when I still have that perspective. But I don’t have plans yet.
If you give advice to young Asian Americans who are even just thinking about running for office, what would it be?
I think you should go for it. We don’t have enough of our voices and perspectives to be represented in those spaces.
Our stories are similar to a lot of southeast Asian communities but they’re different as well so we need to be there to represent and to share our story. We need to make policy that supports our community and even if we support our community, we need to support other communities too because it’s a ripple effect.
I wouldn’t discourage anyone from running but having them know that there are challenges with running for office. I would advise you to try to get yourself emotionally and physically prepared for it.
One of my goals is to specifically help candidates of color, specifically women of color, running for office and provide that emotional support or even logistical support. There’s some candidates that I’m helping with the 2019 race.
There’s not a lot of resources for us folks of color. So I’m trying to be that person to help.
I’d also like to add that you don’t have to run for office, but you absolutely should be involved. Help out a candidate, go door-knocking for an issue you are passionate about, learn more about who your elected officials are and how their decisions can directly and indirectly impact you and talk to your friends and family about getting involved. Normalize the conversation and action of being politically involved.
What’s something that you would do differently?
I mentioned it before — it’s about a balance. You need to be out in the community, you need to do your own door to door and person to person connection. You need to take care of yourself, that’s really important. You need to take care of your family. It doesn’t mean that you have to do it all by yourself, but you have to have plans in place to make sure that everyone is whole because it takes a lot out of you as a candidate.
It takes a lot out of you as a child and as a spouse.
I knew that those things were important to balance but before being in those situations, it’s hard to know how to manage it. I would take more time to think about how to build that in so that it’s not stressful for everyone.
It’s easy to lose sight of community, like if you’re passionate and driven, you just want to go all the time. There are times when you can’t. You have to take care of yourself.