Korean American Students Mobilize to Recall District Attorney Gascon

The uniqueness of American political culture is its emphasis on active civic participation. For Korean American students in Los Angeles, this has manifested in various methods – such as working to collect signatures for the recall of District Attorney George Gascon. This summer, high school students from the Beverly Hills High School Speech and Debate Team led a collaborative effort to inform citizens of Los Angeles and collect signed petitions to contribute towards the recall movement.

When deciding where first to start the outreach, Koreatown was unanimously brought up as a suggestion, and ultimately chosen. The reason is simple – the District Attorney’s policies significantly impact minority populations, especially the Asian American and Korean communities in particular. As noted by the official Recall George Gascon movement website, the district attorney’s policies are “soft on crime,” with eliminations of cash bail and crimes such as criminal threats no longer being prosecuted in Los Angeles county. Furthermore, the DA’s office now takes violent criminals such as those in murder, rape, and robbery to be first-time offenders, and prohibits prosecutors from filing enhancements on such cases if the offender is on parole.

The students of the Beverly Hills High School Speech and Debate Team, along with those from the Asian American Association of Beverly Hills, aimed to first inform the Koreatown citizens about Gascon’s policies and their impacts, then collect signatures to contribute to the recall movement.

“Initially, I was discouraged because so many people just walked by without even letting us a chance to speak,” notes a high school student that participated in the initiative. “But as I began to speak out and directly discuss these policies in Korean, more people began to listen.” Overall, students from the Asian American Association of Beverly Hills and BHHS Speech and Debate Team agreed that the experience was both fulfilling and meaningful, although the initial cold reactions had intimidated them.

Now, the results of the recall movement have been released: more than 717,000 signatures were submitted with the uniform hopes of recalling George Gascon. Ultimately, the recall movement did not collect enough signatures to get on the ballot, as 195,783 were deemed invalid by the Registrar of Los Angeles County. Students from the Asian American Association of Beverly Hills note that the LA County Registrar has refused to verify the signatures that they have invalidated, and hope that this may change soon. Moving forward, students from the civic actions group in Beverly Hills will continue to mobilize to spread awareness of Gascon’s devastatingly harmful policies, along with news about other injustices in our political system.

Suhh Yeon Kim, 12th grade

Beverly Hills High School

Students mobilize to bring awareness to Gascon and collect signatures.

The Asian American Association of Beverly Hills created informational flyers in Korean to advocate for the Recall George Gascon movement to Koreatown residents.