Jennifer Tang

What is your connection to the San Gabriel Valley?

When I was born, we lived in Chinatown in LA, and my parents saved up their money so we could move to a suburb. When I was ten, we moved to Monterey Park.

Now, I am a homeowner in Monterey Park and am contributing to the community that raised me.
 

What made you want to give back to the community?

A big piece of that comes from being a teacher. I started my teaching career in a low-income community in Maricopa, Arizona. I felt so helpless against the policies set forth by the sheriff. “How could I teach my kids how to read if they’re scared if their parents were going to be deported at the end of the day.”

Being a teacher is really important to me, but I felt helpless unless I could affect change in policy. That’s when I started learning about community organizing.
 

What brought you back to San Gabriel Valley?

I missed home. My entire family is here. My friends are here, and I was so burned out from teaching that I took four years off and worked with Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari, making educational video games.

It ended up not working out, and I started mentoring students from over 200 high schools across Southern California.

Then, the 2016 election happened, and the best place for me was back in the classroom.
 

What was it like growing up in Chinatown?

I remember a lot from growing up in Chinatown. It was so different from when we moved to the suburbs. We were living in poverty, but I didn’t realize it until we moved to Monterey Park.

We are ethnically Chinese, but my parents are Cambodian refugees because they escaped to Cambodia due to the cultural revolution in China. We lived in a community with many Cambodian refugees. We always had food on the table, and I always felt safe.

When we moved to Monterey Park, I understood what having space and a park in the community was like. It was a big difference.
 

Did you have any brothers or sisters at the time?

My sister was born nine months after we moved. My parents had decided not to have another kid until we moved.
 

What happened after you moved to Monterey Park?

I did well academically and went to college, USC, and chose English as my major because telling stories is important to me. I felt like so many stories in the San Gabriel Valley weren’t told, and I wanted to learn to communicate better to tell those stories.

When I was 21, I decided to go to Cambodia by myself to be a teacher for a few months. I taught students English. They were between the ages of 15 and 65. It was a life-changing experience.
 

How much of this influenced what you do today?

It influences a lot. I teach in Huntington Park, where there is a lot of poverty, and almost all of my students are immigrants or are children of immigrants.

Education helped me escape poverty, and my students see that if they work hard in school, they can make it out. I hope my students use this to give back to the community and help improve it.
 

What gives you hope, and what frightens you?

I’m very much an optimist. The hope comes from what I’ve seen in my own life and seeing what’s possible in this country.
 

You said this country. Do you believe in the American Dream?

I very much question the American Dream. I used to believe in it up until my mid-20s. As I’ve gotten more into politics and policies, I question if it’s available to everyone, and that’s why I do organizing work and policy work. Those are the levers we have to pull to make the dream available to everyone.
 

Who do you see that needs the help?

There are a lot of people, but the distribution of wealth isn’t accessible to everyone.
 

How do you define the American Dream?

We talk about this in my AP English class every year. We read The Great Gatsby, and I asked my seniors, “What do you think it means, and do you think it exists?”

The majority of my students say that it does exist, and it means the ability and freedom to do things like earn money, buy a house, and support your family.

Over the last five years, I’ve seen that fewer students believe in it. They also define differently now. They see it as the ability to be who you want to be, whatever that means to you.

It’s moved away from the economical piece of it and towards a more social or identity-based piece. I wonder if it is because the economic piece seems less accessible to my kids.
 

Do you feel the pull to teach in this community?

I have wanted to teach in the San Gabriel Valley for the longest time. I still think I might someday, but right now, I feel a powerful pull to the community I’m teaching in now. It’s so incredibly empowering to bring 25 kids into my class where they can be themselves and feel safe.
 

Do your students respond to your teaching?

They do. I’m teaching ninth grade, and this is when people are trying to learn who they are and to be able to witness that is such a great privilege.

In the last few years, there has been more awareness of gender identity, and I’ve had several students come out to me as transgender and other non-cis gender-related identities. The fact that I’ve created a space where they feel safe enough to do this is my greatest accomplishment as a teacher.
 

You’ve been getting involved in politics. What is your history in politics?

I ran for Monterey Park city council in 2020 and finished in second place by 118 votes. Had I been elected, I would’ve been the youngest woman councilwoman in the San Gabriel Valley. It was a great learning experience.

Afterward, I became the campaign manager for Councilwoman Sasha Renee Perez.
 

Do you plan to get involved in another election?

We’ll see. I have a lot of different opportunities right now. Ultimately, it will come down to where I’ll have the most significant impact.
 

How do you affect change in your class and the community?

When I first started, I wasn’t very good. After 2016, when I got back into teaching, I said I was going to just be myself, and it worked. The unabashed authenticity worked really well.
 

How does that carry over into your community organizing?

When I ran for office, I was 26 years old. I thought, “I didn’t have a suit, and I didn’t know anything about politics,” and my friends who had done it before said to just be myself.

I was myself through the election. I didn’t compromise myself or my story. It’s important that politics and politicians have that authenticity. People would hate it less.
 

What is your view on the acceptance of gender identity issues?

Because of social media activism, my students have the terminology to think about their gender identity and then come out. Before that, someone might be transgender and not have the words to communicate that to someone.