ELK GROVE, Calif. — Elk Grove mayor Bobbie Singh-Allen is a proud immigrant.
She was born in India and spent her early years in Turlock after moving to the United States. She and her family moved to the Elk Grove area in 1992 before the city was incorporated in July 2000.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2010 just over a quarter (26.3%) of Elk Grove’s population identified as Asian alone. By 2020, roughly a third (33.5%) of Elk Grove’s population identified as Asian alone.
In 2022, it was reported roughly 56% of Elk Grove’s Asian residents were immigrants and about 43% became naturalized citizens. Singh-Allen became a citizen in middle school through her parents.
“Our entire family became proud U.S. citizens,” she said. “In middle school, I did not know the gravity of what it meant to become a U.S. citizen, but I remember (my parents) studying for this exam…and sort of playing the Q&A with them so that they were ready for their interview.”
She said Elk Grove is one of the most diverse cities in the United States, and it has a responsibility to a variety of cultures to celebrate them and involve them in its recruitment process.
“We want our staff to look like the communities we serve,” she said. “So, we do active recruitment within the community as well so that we have a very diverse, strong workforce.”
Erin Vonada works as a receptionist at Elk Grove City Hall. She was born in Sacramento to Japanese American parents previously held at an incarceration camp at Tule Lake in California after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Vonada said she was drawn to living in Elk Grove as she got older due to its diversity.
“I feel like it's a safer area than where I came from,” Vonada said.
Where do some Asian community members work, live?
According to the city’s economic development team, about 214 business licenses in Elk Grove were filed by owners who identified as Asian alone.
Samantha Tov is a co-founder of Portfolio Real Estate in Elk Grove and represents the greater Sacramento area as the first female Asian president of the Sacramento Association of Realtors; she is Cambodian.
Tov opened Portfolio about five years ago. Now, it employs more than 65 agents, and 85% of them are Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI), she said.
“That’s what I do in my business right now is selling the American dream, helping a lot of API, but also helping anybody just sustaining home ownership,” Tov said. “My agents love that we teach them...how to be an investor and build your generational wealth for your legacy for future years to come.”
About 80% of Asian householders in Elk Grove own their homes, while the other 20% rent, according to the census.
Asian community members mostly inhabit the southwest portion of the city and the northern part of the city, according to an interactive census map on the city’s website.
A city called home
Elk Grove Councilman Darren Suen was born and raised in Sacramento’s Pocket-Greenhaven community.
Suen, who is Chinese American, said his family immigrated to the capital region from China, some of them from Hong Kong.
He moved from Sacramento to San Luis Obispo to attend California Polytechnic State University and looked to settle down with his wife after college. Around 2000, the couple chose Elk Grove due to housing affordability and availability, bringing Suen back to the Sacramento area.
“It's an honor to be part of that Asian community...to represent,” Suen told ABC10. “There hasn't been the prevalence that there is today I feel like with API elected leaders throughout the state…there's still not a representative percentage based on our population, but I do feel it's more common than before.”
Suen said it’s important to note the Asian community is not monolithic. He is Chinese, which makes up only one subgroup within Elk Grove’s Asian population. In 2022, a majority of Elk Grove's Asian population self-identified as Chinese, Filipino, other Asian and Vietnamese.
Asians in the education system
Cosumnes River College is a community college in Sacramento roughly a mile away from Elk Grove city limits and has an Elk Grove center at 10051 Big Horn Rd.
“My understanding is, or I'm aware that a lot of our students that attend here, (they’re) first-time, first-year students that just graduated high school, a majority come from the Elk Grove Unified School District,” said Paolo Soriano, a CRC faculty member and counselor assigned to the Asian Pacific Islander Desi American (APIDA) retention program.
Soriano co-advises the Kasamahan Pilipino Club, the Pacific Islander Student Association and the Muslim Student Association with APIDA services director Raul Pasamonte. Funding for APIDA services came from federal programs because the college serves more than 10% of Asian American, Native American and Pacific Islander students combined. In the last 11 years, an average 23.8% of enrollment has been Asian, CRC officials said.
Soriano and Pasamonte are Filipino American.
“Working in Los Rios (Community College District) and directing the center, I get to become the role model for the students that I didn't have when I was growing up,” Pasamonte said. “I'm a first generation immigrant (and) college student from a low-income family. I didn't know what it took to go to college. I didn't know how to navigate it when I did go to college. We have multiple programs or multiple clubs that came out of our center to provide a sense of belonging for our students.”
Alyanna Manzano is Filipina and serves as president of the Kasamahan Pilipino Club. As an Elk Grove resident and CRC student, her goal is to help Filipino students celebrate their heritage and educate people on lesser known facts about Filipino history.
“As a student, I'm guided by my mentors primarily from (the APIDA program), and from there I've learned how to also help students engage with their history (and) their culture,” she said.
Breaking down AAPI
May is Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month and intends to celebrate Asians, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders in the United States. Some Pacific Islander advocates say the month may perpetuate a trend lumping Asian American and Pacific Islander communities together.
In 2010, roughly 1.2% of Elk Grove’s population (1,807 out of 153,015 people) identified as Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander alone. In 2020, that number grew to 1.5% (2,560 out of 176,124 people).
Lesieli Netane, who is Tongan, serves as High Chief of CRC’s Pacific Islander Student Association (PISA). She moved to Elk Grove in 2021 from the Bay Area. While Asian Americans make up just under a quarter of CRC student enrollment, Netane is part of a 1.2% Pacific Islander student population enrolled as of fall 2023.
“We are overshadowed, but not because the Asian American community does that to us,” Netane said. “It's more in the fact that because we are so small in quantity, in terms of numbers…for example, the census, when we're put together, I think it's easier to data-wise lump Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders together.
“But…just as much as the Asian American community has so many ethnic groups in their community, Pacific Islanders, we have Micronesian, Melanesian (and) Polynesian people in our community who, because we're lumped with another ethnic group or racial group, our needs tend to get overshadowed.”
Netane said problems she may face individually as a Tongan American, for example, may not be the same problems a Marshallese American faces.
“One term that us Pacific Islander scholars tend to use is the ‘invisible minority.’ That's what we call ourselves because…Pacific Islanders are so racially ambiguous that most people tend to confuse us socially,” Netane said.
She said the APIDA program at CRC inspired her leadership and her idea to possibly entertain social activism after college. Right now, her sights are set on multimedia.
“I'm trying to get a film degree,” Netane said. “That's the whole reason why I entered into higher (education). I didn't see much of Pacific Islanders or any kind of representation for us…I want to do anything with film or media, kind of voicing or telling our stories for Pacific Islanders and just being a part of that conversation.”
A diverse, strong community
At the statewide level, and in an effort to more accurately depict certain ethnic groups within U.S. Census Bureau data, California State Assemblyman Bill Essayli introduced legislation in February that would require state entities to update data collection to reflect additional Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) groups as they are reported by the census.
The Middle East falls in West Asia.
“Current demographic data collection in California is entirely inadequate in capturing the unique experiences that MENA communities face, from health issues to socioeconomic outcomes,” Essayli said in a statement.
At the local level, Elk Grove Mayor Singh-Allen said she intentionally showcases and lifts various cultures through celebration and active participation.
“When I go around, not only in the greater Elk Grove, but throughout the region, I truly like to lift the API (Asian and Pacific Islander) voices, particularly young girls,” Singh-Allen told ABC10. “They really need to see themselves in those leadership roles. My desire and goal is to sort of break down those barriers.”
