Barry Chang访谈录(一)
张昭富（Barry Chang)生于台湾，于1977来美国，就读辛辛那提大学获土木工程硕士学位。 1985年开始定居湾区。接下来一直居住在库布蒂诺市。是三个孩子的父亲。三个孩子先后从加州州立（UC）系统毕业。
张昭富社会价值的主张是维护民权、妇女参政权、身体障碍者权益以及各人种权益的平等和保护。在财政上张昭富坚持保守理财，捍卫民众税款不被滥用或者 补贴特殊利益，坚持市州政府项目必须有效益。在环境问题上张昭富坚持维护湾区的环境不被非法污染。张昭富长期在教育努力，在有限的教育经费下帮助库布蒂诺 成为加州最好的公立学区之一，而且坚持了浸入式中文的教育机会，让很多华裔和非华裔孩子从中受益。
张昭富坚定地反对加州SCA5的新歧视。支持促成库布蒂诺市议会投票成为加州第一个宣布反SCA5歧视的市。为反SCA5他也不断继续奔走努力。
张昭富1995年开始成功竞选公职。从1985年到1997年是共和党。此后和许多人一样选择了民主党。张昭富不介入党派之争或按党派路线投票。他 说“我从不按党派投票，因为这是对民主的滥用。 我一贯捍卫人人平等的权利和良好的经济政策， 这不是一个党派专有的，了解坚持各派的优点实际上有助于我更好地和大家一起工作为社区服务”。我会对28区的居民和加州负责，把事做好，只要需要我会不断 向我的同事表达诉求，无论他们是民主党、共和党还是党派独立人士。
由于访谈录篇幅较长，我们将分几次登出。下面是Barry Chang访谈录的第一部分：
April 17, 2014
1. Introduction, Social Value and Parties
LY: Barry, could you please introduce a bit about yourself too as a person?
Barry: I have been married for 32 years and I’m proud father of three. My wife and I came to Cupertino in 1985 and raised all our children here. They all went through Lincoln Elementary, Kennedy Middle and Monta Vista High school. Two of them graduated from UCLA and the youngest graduated from UC San Diego.
More information on our family can be found at http://www.barry4ca.com/about
Here are pictures of us, then and more recently.
(Barry on the far right with father, younger brother and sister)
(Aileen’s graduation from UC Berkeley, School of Optometry
From left, wife, Sue, Barry, Mom, son, Howard, daughters, Aileen and Alice)
LY: How’s your social view, a “conservative” or rather a “liberal”?
Barry: Although a family man with lots of good personal friends as social conservatives (laugh), I’m not really a Christian. However I do study and like the Diamond Sutra (Jin Gang Jing, 金剛經) and other Buddhism literatures. The wisdom in Buddhism does help me to better understand religions, humanity, sacrifice, and tolerance of differences in people.
I’d call myself on the socially progressive side. I believe in Civil Rights, Women’s Suffrage, Disabilities’ rights and equal protection for LGBT. Government shouldn’t get in the business of perpetuating institutional discrimination or dictating choices of individuals as well as families. All forms of discrimination are simply wrong.
LY: How do you feel about “Bathroom Bill”?
Barry: It is wrong. Boys go to girls’ bathroom or girls into boys’ bathroom? It is very awkward even for the ones self-identified as the other gender. Above all, it is against the interests of equal protection of all. There are other far better solutions like gender neutral personal or family rest room we see in airplanes, airports and other public places and every home!
We cannot sacrifice everyone’s best interests to score a political stunt.
LY: Rumor has it that you were a Republican before?
Barry: Yes. I’m still very conservative in fiscal matters even though I don’t think it has to be exclusive of Republican. All of us should have fiscal responsibility. I became a citizen in 1985 and followed the party of Reagan. In 1995 I ran and won a seat on the Cupertino Union School District (CUSD) Board of Trustees. Like a lot of people, I eventually chose the Democratic Party after mid-1998. The main reason is the minority rights and representation issue in the Republican Party at that time. It started to improve now as we started to see Chinese Americans like George Yang being noted. At that time though, being minorities, especially the first generation immigrant means that you are more or less automatically excluded from various considerations.
Learning from the best ideas of the two parties, I am also able to see merits in both parties and work with everyone for the community I represent. For example, I do champion for civil rights, better education and better environment for everyone besides the ideas of maintaining better fiscal planning and better environment for business. I’m against special interests.
LY: How do you feel party line voting and Democratic Party?
Barry: I have never and will not (be interested in party line voting). It is an abuse of our democracy. I see the values and extremes in both parties. I will be responsible for AD28 residents and California. I really care about getting the job done. Whenever needed, I do appeal to my colleagues, Democratic, Republican or independent.
Creating more jobs, reforming education, protecting the environment, security matters, and tax are all difficult issues that need bi-partisanship. I would like to get people together to improve on and fix all those issues. I wish we would all set aside party line differences and stand with the people, just like we set aside our skin colors, ethnicity and national origin differences, etc. I fully understand, if we stay with our party lines, then those special interest groups would heavily influence us and we won’t solve the problems with the right solutions.
I chose Democratic Party and I like its focus on Civil Rights, Women’s Suffrage, Minorities representation, education as well as environment. I don’t regret being a Republican before or my fiscal conservativeness. When I see the partisan politics that’s wrong, I speak out and work with everyone to help stop them.
