Alameda Vice Mayor Malia Vella Aims for the California Legislature
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Malia Veila
“But nobody would rent to them,” says Vella. “They had to work really hard and save up to buy their first home.” All the while “still helping their extended family in the Philippines.”
Thus, begins the familiar immigrant story of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. This is the story of Malia Vella – the first Filipina to be elected to the Alameda, California City Council. Malia pushed the envelope. “I outworked all of my opponents. I ran a grassroots campaign, often canvassing neighborhoods with my lola, cousins, sisters, and parents. We knocked on so many doors and talked with many voters.”
When she won not even pregnancy stopped her. Consequently, she earned the rep as the first pregnant councilmember in Alameda. Currently the city’s vice-mayor, Malia Vella is a Democrat running for State Assembly in District 18 (Alameda, San Leandro, and parts of Oakland) to fill in the seat vacated by Rob Bonta when he resigned to be the State Attorney General. Will she be the female Bonta?
She replies, “Like our Attorney General, I’m also a lawyer, although I work as a union attorney. I am also a professor at Mills College and have previously served as staff for two California legislators. (I have) served as a councilmember for more than four years. I was elected in 2016 and re-elected last Fall. I have a bit of a different perspective than AG Bonta when it comes to understanding the role of local government in addressing the housing crisis, ensuring we connect those (that are) most in need with services and re-imagining public safety.”
Nevertheless, Bonta publicly endorsed Vella in April to replace him. Ironically, Bonta’s wife, Mialisa Bonta is also running for the same spot. The Alameda Merry-Go-Round quoted Rob Bonta as saying, “Mia may have the teacher’s union behind her. But Malia’s got the Teamsters and all the construction trades.”
As of press time, there are eight other contenders for the seat: Alameda Board of Education President Mialisa Bonta; San Leandro Vice-Mayor Victor Aguilar; lawyer-activist and Oakland Public Ethics Commissioner Janani Ramachandran; electrical engineer and contractor Stephen Slauson; San Leandro school board clerk James Aguilar; retail worker Joel Britton; public health professional Eugene Canson; and write-in candidate Nelsy Batista.
“Malia Vella could be the first Filipino woman in California’s State Assembly.”
The primary will be on June 29. If no candidate gets the majority vote (50 + 1), a special election is slated on August 31.
Vella is considered to be a major contender for State Assembly. She has the most years as an elected official than the other candidates. She is more organized, a top fundraiser, and her campaign workers started out early. It is projected that her lion’s share of the nearly 100,000 union household voters in District 18 will be a great asset in an election with expected low turn-out.
Plus, she has big names and bigger groups on her endorsement list, including Assemblymembers Lorena Gonzalez, Bill Quirk and Alex Lee; Planned Parenthood Advocates Mar Monte; members of the Alameda School Board; the California Asian Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus; SEIU California, Teamsters Joint Council 7, Teamsters Joint Council 42, United Food and Commercial Workers, ATU #1555, IBEW #595, California Federation of Teachers, and Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance.
Vella’s strong ties with labor started early. “(My grandparents) used to go to Delano every summer when my mom was little so they could make extra money picking grapes. Uncle Pete Vergara would talk with the family about the fight to unionize the farm workers. They eventually sponsored my great grandparents and titas and helped them to immigrate to the United States.”
Vella could be the first Filipino woman in the State Assembly. But the perennial low turn-out of Filipino voters is a major concern, along with new voter restrictions.
“In order to be heard, we must vote. We saw a record number of Filipino Americans turn out to vote last November. I don’t think they will be dissuaded by new laws but it will certainly make voting more difficult,” Vella says.
“Filipino Americans have been severely under-represented in State and Federal government. We need to come together to support Fil-Am candidates by voting, volunteering, and donating when we run for office. Despite having the largest Filipino population in the United States (almost 1.7 million), California has never had a Filipina in our state legislature and we currently do not have a single Filipino in our State legislature. This must change.”
Vella lists anti-Asian hate crimes, workplace safety concerns due to COVID-19, and housing shortage as paramount issues to her Filipino constituents.
To address mass shootings and violent racial crimes, she has supported multilingual Hate crimes reporting, bystander training, and expanded gun registration and safe storage laws. She actually voted to declare racism a public health crisis and recommended funding to be shifted to mental health and crisis intervention. Vella champions repealing the Copley decision, which protects police officers’ records from becoming public in California.
Vella says, “We know that the Filipino American community was one of the hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. Nearly a third of nurses who’ve died of coronavirus in the U.S. are Filipino, even though Filipino nurses make up just four percent of the nursing population nationwide. We need more workplace rights, more employer-provided PPE, universal health care for all, expanded family leave, and better enforcement mechanisms for our workers.”
The housing shortage is a major concern for Vella. “I decided to run (for City Council) because I was seeing so many families, especially Filipino families getting pushed out of our community. It was hard to watch as multigenerational families were being forced to leave Alameda. And I was determined to change that. These issues were not new. They were a repeat of what had been happening to our community when my mom was a child.
“We need to build more affordable and workforce housing. We also need to expand tenant protection and provide 100 percent rent relief so that we do not see families displaced as a result of financial hardships created by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I know what it means to have the odds stacked against you. I know what it means to have to work multiple jobs in order to provide for your family.”
Vella was born in Alameda, grew up in San Leandro, and went to high school in Oakland, giving her a full sweep of District 18. She lives with her husband, Jon, and their children, Theo and Kealia, in Alameda.
Harvey Barkin is editor-in-chief at FilAm Star in San Francisco, correspondent for the San Jose Mercury News and content writer for an industry-specific newsletter. He is also a reporting fellow for campaigns and grant-funded projects. Previously, he was a correspondent for news portal BenitoLink, a tech writer for Silicon Valley start-ups and a book reviewer for Small Press in Rhode Island. His work has appeared in various media from advertising copy and collateral to B2B content and in various outlets from Valley Catholic to Inside Kungfu.
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