Eddy Zheng
Encyclopedia
Xiaofei "Eddy" Zheng is a Chinese immigrant to the United States
living in Oakland
, California
. His decades-long series of attempts to secure release from prison for crimes he committed at the age of 16 and to fight deportation from the US made his case a cause célèbre in the Asian American
community.
in southern China
. There, his father was an officer in the People's Liberation Army
for the Guangzhou Military Region, while his mother worked as an accountant for the government. He was the youngest of three siblings, with an older sister and an older brother. Zheng immigrated to the United States
with his family in 1982. They moved into a one-bedroom apartment in Oakland's Chinatown
. His father worked at Burger King
, while his mother was a live-in babysitter for another family. He rarely saw his parents, and suffered difficulties in school due to his poor English skills. He befriended other Chinese immigrant youths in his school, who began to push him towards crime such as petty shoplifting; Zheng was arrested for stealing a jacket from a Macy's
store, and placed under probation.
On the evening of January 6, 1986, Zheng and two friends broke into the house of a family who owned several shops in San Francisco's Chinatown, by ambushing them with guns as they came home from work. They locked their two children into the bathroom and tied up the husband and wife; they also tore off the wife's clothes and pretended to take pictures of her using a camera with no film in it, in an effort to intimidate her and get her to reveal the house's hiding places for valuables. After several hours spent ransacking the house in unsuccessful attempts to find a safe they believed held cash, they forced the wife to drive them to one of the family's stores and unlock it for them so they could also steal goods from there, including expensive Chinese herbal medicines
. One accomplice remained at home to watch the husband and the two children. In total, they robbed $
34,000 in cash, jewelry, and merchandise. They were caught and arrested almost immediately after the commission of their crime, pulled over by a police officer for driving without headlights on the way back to their victims' house to drop the wife off.
Zheng's family had no money to hire a lawyer in his defense; they urged him to plead guilty because they were under the impression that it would bring him a more lenient sentence. Just aged 16 at the time, Zheng was tried as an adult and convicted of 16 felony counts including kidnap-robbery, and sentenced to seven years to life in prison
. He had an interpreter and a public defender during his trial, but reportedly did not understand most of the legal language used, and did not even realise he had been sentenced to life in prison until some time after the trial when he arrived at the California Youth Authority
where he would begin to serve his sentence. His lawyer had been supposed to ask the judge for a judicial recommendation against deportation but failed to do so, an omission which would bring later legal difficulties for Zheng.
, where he ended up serving as a model prisoner. He taught himself English through reading romance novels, and passed the GED in one attempt. In the 1990s, he entered into San Quentin's associate degree program, where he developed friendships with a number of the volunteers—mostly area university students—who acted as teachers in the program. He also held crime prevention
workshops, giving lectures to at-risk immigrant youth who visited the prison in an effort to steer them away from a life of crime. His parents attempted to keep his imprisonment a secret; in an essay written some years later, Zheng recalled how his mother lied to relatives that he was busy with school when he failed to show up for his grandparents' funerals. For the first decade, he committed no major disciplinary infractions. He applied for parole for the first time in 1992. In 1998, at his fifth parole hearing, the parole board voted unanimously to recommend his release, making Zheng one of the fewer than one percent of those sentenced to life in California prisons to receive a positive recommendation for parole. However, then-governor of California
Gray Davis
returned the parole recommendation to the board for reconsideration, as he did with all but eight of the 340 parole recommendations he received during his tenure as governor.
Zheng met Shelly Smith, a volunteer English tutor, in 1999, and began to develop a friendship with her which would later blossom into a romantic relationship. However, prison officials began to view Zheng as a troublemaker, in contrast with his previously excellent disciplinary record. One major incident came in March 2002, when he and fellow inmates began efforts to set up courses in Asian American studies
for prisoners; they even circulated a petition. This provoked prison officials to accuse Zheng and other signatories of organizing an escape attempt; their cells were searched, writings were confiscated, and Zheng was accused of having worked with his teachers in the prison education program to have writings smuggled out, allegedly contravening California Code of Regulations
, Title 15, Section 3020, which states that "inmates may participate in the publication and distribution of an inmate publication only with the institution head’s specific approval". Zheng was placed in solitary confinement
for eleven months as punishment.
The publicity surrounding Zheng's case, bolstered as a result of his solitary confinement, began to result in increasing sympathy from the Asian American community. A number of prominent Californians wrote letters in support of his parole, including then-California State Senators
Mark Leno
and John Burton
, as well as activist Yuri Kochiyama
. In July 2004, he also began to maintain a blog on Blogspot.com
, by sending letters to a friend on the outside who would then post them online, garnering further publicity for his case. In November 2004, the parole board again recommended that Zheng be released; the new governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
did not object, and Zheng was released from San Quentin on March 10, 2005.
Jail. While still in custody, he married Smith in a ceremony in July 2005. The judge who would hear Zheng's deportation case then granted a postponement of the hearing so that Zheng could pursue a deportation waiver by virtue of his being married to a U.S. citizen. In 2005, prominent San Franciscans including Board of Supervisors
member Jake McGoldrick
and pastor Norman Fong
wrote letters to the Board of Immigration Appeals
in opposition to Zheng's deportation. At his deportation hearings in 2006, California Department of Corrections director Jerry Enomoto urged the judge to let Zheng remain in the United States, asserting that Zheng had significantly reformed himself while in prison and that society would benefit if he were released to receive a fresh start. His lawyer also argued that Zheng, as a Christian, might face persecution if returned to China. However, in July 2006, the immigration judge ordered his deportation. Under United States immigration law, a person awaiting deportation may be released from custody after being held for 90 days. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
requested the Chinese embassy to the U.S. provide travel documents to Zheng so that he could be deported; the embassy responded that the Chinese government could initially find no record of Zheng and needed more time to perform research. After an initial refusal to release Zheng from custody, the Department of Homeland Security set him free on February 27, 2007. However, he still faced the possibility that he could be deported to China.
In December 2010, Zheng appealed his deportation order to the Ninth Circuit Court
. Zheng's lawyer Zachary Nightingale contended that the deportation review process had been handled incorrectly. Supporters also circulated a petition calling on lame duck
California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to grant Zheng a pardon before the end of his gubernatorial term in January 2011; by the end of 2010, the petition had garnered nearly a thousand signatures and was reported in China's People's Daily
. On May 6, 2011, judges Mary M. Schroeder
, Sidney R. Thomas
, and Ronald M. Gould
of the Ninth Circuit Court ruled that the case be returned to the Board of Immigration Appeals
for a new hearing. Schroeder, writing the unanimous opinion, stated that the board had erred in failing to consider Zheng's value to the community and the opinions of community members when ruling on deportation. Zheng was quoted as saying that the news would make a wonderful Mother's Day present for his mother. His mother remains in San Francisco, while his elder sister moved to Hong Kong in 2008. Nightingale for his part reacted with optimism, stated that with the ruling in hand, Zheng had "a really good shot" at convincing an immigration judge to permit him to remain in the state.
. His poetry has also been published in the Kartika Review
. In June 2011, Zheng also emerged as one of five co-chairs of the Run Ed Run campaign along with Rose Pak
, Planning Commission President Christina Olague, Assistant District Attorney Victor Hwang, and Progress for All chief consultant Enrique Pearce. The campaign aimed to convince San Francisco mayor
Ed Lee
, who was appointed to his position to succeed Gavin Newsom
, to run in the November 2011 mayoral election. In September 2011, Ben Wang, Christine Kwon, and Deann Borshay-Liem began raising funds through Kickstarter
to create a documentary on Zheng's life, tentatively titled Breathin: The Eddy Zheng Story.
The children of the victims of Zheng's robbery and kidnapping have criticized what they describe as the Asian American community's lionization of Zheng, and support his deportation in spite of their agreement that he has been rehabilitated. In interviews, the children have described the effect of the crime on their parents, noting that they installed extensive security systems in their home afterwards and even once hired a private detective to protect them as they walked to school. The elder sibling was quoted as saying, "He was Asian, but he robbed an Asian family. So the Asian community that is standing up for him should realize there is an Asian family that is a victim at the same time". Others have also spoken out in favor of deporting Zheng, such as the California Coalition for Immigration Reform
, whose northern California
chairwoman Carole Blalock reportedly stated, "A lot of politicians are saying, 'Gee, look what he's done (in prison)' ... [l]et's remember what he did do and the victims. They're never going to forget that".
Chinese American
Chinese Americans represent Americans of Chinese descent. Chinese Americans constitute one group of overseas Chinese and also a subgroup of East Asian Americans, which is further a subgroup of Asian Americans...
living in Oakland
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. His decades-long series of attempts to secure release from prison for crimes he committed at the age of 16 and to fight deportation from the US made his case a cause célèbre in the Asian American
Asian American
Asian Americans are Americans of Asian descent. The U.S. Census Bureau definition of Asians as "Asian” refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent, including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan,...
community.
Early life
Zheng grew up in GuangzhouGuangzhou
Guangzhou , known historically as Canton or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of the Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China. Located in southern China on the Pearl River, about north-northwest of Hong Kong, Guangzhou is a key national transportation hub and trading port...
in southern China
Northern and southern China
Northern China and southern China are two approximate regions within China. The exact boundary between these two regions has never been precisely defined...
. There, his father was an officer in the People's Liberation Army
People's Liberation Army
The People's Liberation Army is the unified military organization of all land, sea, strategic missile and air forces of the People's Republic of China. The PLA was established on August 1, 1927 — celebrated annually as "PLA Day" — as the military arm of the Communist Party of China...
for the Guangzhou Military Region, while his mother worked as an accountant for the government. He was the youngest of three siblings, with an older sister and an older brother. Zheng immigrated to the United States
Immigration to the United States
Immigration to the United States has been a major source of population growth and cultural change throughout much of the history of the United States. The economic, social, and political aspects of immigration have caused controversy regarding ethnicity, economic benefits, jobs for non-immigrants,...
with his family in 1982. They moved into a one-bedroom apartment in Oakland's Chinatown
Chinatown, Oakland, California
The Chinatown neighborhood in Oakland, California, is a pan-Asian neighborhood which reflects Oakland's diverse Asian American community. It is frequently referred to as "Oakland Chinatown" in order to distinguish it from nearby San Francisco's Chinatown...
. His father worked at Burger King
Burger King
Burger King, often abbreviated as BK, is a global chain of hamburger fast food restaurants headquartered in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. The company began in 1953 as Insta-Burger King, a Jacksonville, Florida-based restaurant chain...
, while his mother was a live-in babysitter for another family. He rarely saw his parents, and suffered difficulties in school due to his poor English skills. He befriended other Chinese immigrant youths in his school, who began to push him towards crime such as petty shoplifting; Zheng was arrested for stealing a jacket from a Macy's
Macy's
Macy's is a U.S. chain of mid-to-high range department stores. In addition to its flagship Herald Square location in New York City, the company operates over 800 stores in the United States...
store, and placed under probation.
On the evening of January 6, 1986, Zheng and two friends broke into the house of a family who owned several shops in San Francisco's Chinatown, by ambushing them with guns as they came home from work. They locked their two children into the bathroom and tied up the husband and wife; they also tore off the wife's clothes and pretended to take pictures of her using a camera with no film in it, in an effort to intimidate her and get her to reveal the house's hiding places for valuables. After several hours spent ransacking the house in unsuccessful attempts to find a safe they believed held cash, they forced the wife to drive them to one of the family's stores and unlock it for them so they could also steal goods from there, including expensive Chinese herbal medicines
Chinese herbology
Chinese Herbology is the theory of Traditional Chinese herbal therapy, which accounts for the majority of treatments in Traditional Chinese medicine ....
. One accomplice remained at home to watch the husband and the two children. In total, they robbed $
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
34,000 in cash, jewelry, and merchandise. They were caught and arrested almost immediately after the commission of their crime, pulled over by a police officer for driving without headlights on the way back to their victims' house to drop the wife off.
Zheng's family had no money to hire a lawyer in his defense; they urged him to plead guilty because they were under the impression that it would bring him a more lenient sentence. Just aged 16 at the time, Zheng was tried as an adult and convicted of 16 felony counts including kidnap-robbery, and sentenced to seven years to life in prison
Life imprisonment
Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime under which the convicted person is to remain in jail for the rest of his or her life...
. He had an interpreter and a public defender during his trial, but reportedly did not understand most of the legal language used, and did not even realise he had been sentenced to life in prison until some time after the trial when he arrived at the California Youth Authority
California Division of Juvenile Justice
The California Division of Juvenile Justice , formerly known as the California Youth Authority , is a division of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation that provides education, training, and treatment services for California's most serious youth offenders...
where he would begin to serve his sentence. His lawyer had been supposed to ask the judge for a judicial recommendation against deportation but failed to do so, an omission which would bring later legal difficulties for Zheng.
Imprisonment
Zheng was later transferred to San Quentin State PrisonSan Quentin State Prison
San Quentin State Prison is a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation state prison for men in unincorporated San Quentin, Marin County, California, United States. Opened in July 1852, it is the oldest prison in the state. California's only death row for male inmates, the largest...
, where he ended up serving as a model prisoner. He taught himself English through reading romance novels, and passed the GED in one attempt. In the 1990s, he entered into San Quentin's associate degree program, where he developed friendships with a number of the volunteers—mostly area university students—who acted as teachers in the program. He also held crime prevention
Crime prevention
Crime prevention is the attempt to reduce victimization and to deter crime and criminals. It is applied specifically to efforts made by governments to reduce crime, enforce the law, and maintain criminal justice.-Studies:...
workshops, giving lectures to at-risk immigrant youth who visited the prison in an effort to steer them away from a life of crime. His parents attempted to keep his imprisonment a secret; in an essay written some years later, Zheng recalled how his mother lied to relatives that he was busy with school when he failed to show up for his grandparents' funerals. For the first decade, he committed no major disciplinary infractions. He applied for parole for the first time in 1992. In 1998, at his fifth parole hearing, the parole board voted unanimously to recommend his release, making Zheng one of the fewer than one percent of those sentenced to life in California prisons to receive a positive recommendation for parole. However, then-governor of California
Governor of California
The Governor of California is the chief executive of the California state government, whose responsibilities include making annual State of the State addresses to the California State Legislature, submitting the budget, and ensuring that state laws are enforced...
Gray Davis
Gray Davis
Joseph Graham "Gray" Davis, Jr. is an American Democratic politician who served as California's 37th Governor from 1999 until being recalled in 2003...
returned the parole recommendation to the board for reconsideration, as he did with all but eight of the 340 parole recommendations he received during his tenure as governor.
Zheng met Shelly Smith, a volunteer English tutor, in 1999, and began to develop a friendship with her which would later blossom into a romantic relationship. However, prison officials began to view Zheng as a troublemaker, in contrast with his previously excellent disciplinary record. One major incident came in March 2002, when he and fellow inmates began efforts to set up courses in Asian American studies
Asian American Studies
Asian American Studies is an academic discipline which studies the experience of people of Asian ancestry in America. Closely related to other Ethnic Studies disciplines such as African American Studies, Latino/a Studies, and Native American Studies, Asian American Studies critically examines the...
for prisoners; they even circulated a petition. This provoked prison officials to accuse Zheng and other signatories of organizing an escape attempt; their cells were searched, writings were confiscated, and Zheng was accused of having worked with his teachers in the prison education program to have writings smuggled out, allegedly contravening California Code of Regulations
California Code of Regulations
California Code of Regulations contains the text of the regulations that have been formally adopted by state agencies. They are reviewed, approved, and made available to the public by the California Office of Administrative Law , and are also filed with the Secretary of State.The CCR consists of...
, Title 15, Section 3020, which states that "inmates may participate in the publication and distribution of an inmate publication only with the institution head’s specific approval". Zheng was placed in solitary confinement
Solitary confinement
Solitary confinement is a special form of imprisonment in which a prisoner is isolated from any human contact, though often with the exception of members of prison staff. It is sometimes employed as a form of punishment beyond incarceration for a prisoner, and has been cited as an additional...
for eleven months as punishment.
The publicity surrounding Zheng's case, bolstered as a result of his solitary confinement, began to result in increasing sympathy from the Asian American community. A number of prominent Californians wrote letters in support of his parole, including then-California State Senators
California State Senate
The California State Senate is the upper house of the California State Legislature. There are 40 state senators. The state legislature meets in the California State Capitol in Sacramento. The Lieutenant Governor is the ex officio President of the Senate and may break a tied vote...
Mark Leno
Mark Leno
Mark Leno is an American politician, representing California's 3rd Senate district, which includes parts of San Francisco and Sonoma County, as well as the entirety of Marin County. He was elected in 2008 and is the first openly gay man to serve in the Senate...
and John Burton
John L. Burton
John Lowell Burton is the current Chairman of the California Democratic Party. He is an American politician who served as a Democratic California State Senator from 1996 until 2004, representing the 3rd district. From 1998 until he was forced out of office by term limits in 2004, he served as the...
, as well as activist Yuri Kochiyama
Yuri Kochiyama
Yuri Kochiyama is a Japanese American human rights activist.Kochiyama was born Mary Yuriko Nakahara in San Pedro, California. After the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Kochiyama's father was imprisoned the same day...
. In July 2004, he also began to maintain a blog on Blogspot.com
Blogger (service)
Blogger is a blog-publishing service that allows private or multi-user blogs with time-stamped entries. It was created by Pyra Labs, which was bought by Google in 2003. Generally, the blogs are hosted by Google at a subdomain of blogspot.com. Up until May 1, 2010 Blogger allowed users to publish...
, by sending letters to a friend on the outside who would then post them online, garnering further publicity for his case. In November 2004, the parole board again recommended that Zheng be released; the new governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-American former professional bodybuilder, actor, businessman, investor, and politician. Schwarzenegger served as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 until 2011....
did not object, and Zheng was released from San Quentin on March 10, 2005.
Deportation hearings
Zheng's release from San Quentin did not mean freedom; officers of the Department of Homeland Security immediately took him into federal custody pending deportation proceedings, and transferred him to the Yuba CountyYuba County, California
Yuba County is a county located in the U.S. state of California's Central Valley, north of Sacramento, along the Feather River. As of the 2010 census, its population was 72,155. The county seat is Marysville. Yuba County is part of the Greater Sacramento area.-History:Yuba County was one of the...
Jail. While still in custody, he married Smith in a ceremony in July 2005. The judge who would hear Zheng's deportation case then granted a postponement of the hearing so that Zheng could pursue a deportation waiver by virtue of his being married to a U.S. citizen. In 2005, prominent San Franciscans including Board of Supervisors
San Francisco Board of Supervisors
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is the legislative body within the government of the City and County of San Francisco, California, United States.-Government and politics:...
member Jake McGoldrick
Jake McGoldrick
Jake McGoldrick is a former member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.He represented District 1, known as the Richmond District neighborhood of San Francisco. McGoldrick was elected in 2000 as part of the progressive majority of candidates that were swept into office that year...
and pastor Norman Fong
Norman Fong
The Reverend Norman Fong is a Chinese-American activist living in San Francisco, California. Norman grew up in San Francisco's Chinatown and received a B.A. in Sociology from San Francisco State University and Masters of Divinity from San Francisco Theological Seminary...
wrote letters to the Board of Immigration Appeals
Board of Immigration Appeals
The Board of Immigration Appeals is the part of the Executive Office for Immigration Review that reviews the decisions of the Immigration Courts and some decisions of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. It is an administrative appellate body that is part of the United States Department...
in opposition to Zheng's deportation. At his deportation hearings in 2006, California Department of Corrections director Jerry Enomoto urged the judge to let Zheng remain in the United States, asserting that Zheng had significantly reformed himself while in prison and that society would benefit if he were released to receive a fresh start. His lawyer also argued that Zheng, as a Christian, might face persecution if returned to China. However, in July 2006, the immigration judge ordered his deportation. Under United States immigration law, a person awaiting deportation may be released from custody after being held for 90 days. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is a federal law enforcement agency under the United States Department of Homeland Security , responsible for identifying, investigating, and dismantling vulnerabilities regarding the nation's border, economic, transportation, and infrastructure security...
requested the Chinese embassy to the U.S. provide travel documents to Zheng so that he could be deported; the embassy responded that the Chinese government could initially find no record of Zheng and needed more time to perform research. After an initial refusal to release Zheng from custody, the Department of Homeland Security set him free on February 27, 2007. However, he still faced the possibility that he could be deported to China.
In December 2010, Zheng appealed his deportation order to the Ninth Circuit Court
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is a U.S. federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts:* District of Alaska* District of Arizona...
. Zheng's lawyer Zachary Nightingale contended that the deportation review process had been handled incorrectly. Supporters also circulated a petition calling on lame duck
Lame duck (politics)
A lame duck is an elected official who is approaching the end of his or her tenure, and especially an official whose successor has already been elected.-Description:The status can be due to*having lost a re-election bid...
California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to grant Zheng a pardon before the end of his gubernatorial term in January 2011; by the end of 2010, the petition had garnered nearly a thousand signatures and was reported in China's People's Daily
People's Daily
The People's Daily is a daily newspaper in the People's Republic of China. The paper is an organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China , published worldwide with a circulation of 3 to 4 million. In addition to its main Chinese-language edition, it has editions in English,...
. On May 6, 2011, judges Mary M. Schroeder
Mary M. Schroeder
Mary M. Schroeder is a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.- Education :She received her B.A. from Swarthmore in 1962 and her J.D. from the University of Chicago in 1965, one of six women in her class...
, Sidney R. Thomas
Sidney Runyan Thomas
Sidney Runyan Thomas is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.Judge Thomas was interviewed by President Barack Obama for possible nomination to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court.-Early life and education:Judge Thomas was born in...
, and Ronald M. Gould
Ronald M. Gould
Ronald Murray Gould is an American federal appeals judge who has served on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals since 1999.-Education and legal training:...
of the Ninth Circuit Court ruled that the case be returned to the Board of Immigration Appeals
Board of Immigration Appeals
The Board of Immigration Appeals is the part of the Executive Office for Immigration Review that reviews the decisions of the Immigration Courts and some decisions of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. It is an administrative appellate body that is part of the United States Department...
for a new hearing. Schroeder, writing the unanimous opinion, stated that the board had erred in failing to consider Zheng's value to the community and the opinions of community members when ruling on deportation. Zheng was quoted as saying that the news would make a wonderful Mother's Day present for his mother. His mother remains in San Francisco, while his elder sister moved to Hong Kong in 2008. Nightingale for his part reacted with optimism, stated that with the ruling in hand, Zheng had "a really good shot" at convincing an immigration judge to permit him to remain in the state.
Other activities
Since his release, Zheng has become involved in community work with the Community Youth Center in San Francisco. His anthology of Asian and Pacific Islander prisoner writings, Other: An Asian & Pacific Islander Prisoners' Anthology, was published in March 2009 with a preface from Helen ZiaHelen Zia
Helen Zia is an American journalist and scholar who has covered Asian American communities and social and political movements for decades.-Life and career:...
. His poetry has also been published in the Kartika Review
Kartika Review
The Kartika Review is a quarterly literary magazine that publishes literary fiction, poetry, and essays that endeavor to expand and enhance the mainstream perception of Asian American creative writing. The journal also publishes book reviews, author interviews, and artwork relevant to the Asian...
. In June 2011, Zheng also emerged as one of five co-chairs of the Run Ed Run campaign along with Rose Pak
Rose Pak
Rose Pak is a political activist in San Francisco, California, noted for her advocacy for the Chinatown community. Pak serves as a consultant for the San Francisco Chinese Chamber of Commerce and organizer of the Chinese New Year Parade in San Francisco....
, Planning Commission President Christina Olague, Assistant District Attorney Victor Hwang, and Progress for All chief consultant Enrique Pearce. The campaign aimed to convince San Francisco mayor
Mayor of San Francisco
The Mayor of the City and County of San Francisco is the head of the executive branch of San Francisco's city and county government. The mayor has the duty to enforce city laws, and the power to either approve or veto bills passed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch....
Ed Lee
Edwin M. Lee
Edwin Mah Lee is the 43rd Mayor of San Francisco, California. He was appointed by the Board of Supervisors on January 11, 2011 to serve out the remainder of former mayor Gavin Newsom's term, after Newsom resigned to take office as Lieutenant Governor of California. At the time of his appointment...
, who was appointed to his position to succeed Gavin Newsom
Gavin Newsom
Gavin Christopher Newsom is an American politician who is the 49th and current Lieutenant Governor of California. Previously, he was the 42nd Mayor of San Francisco, and was elected in 2003 to succeed Willie Brown, becoming San Francisco's youngest mayor in 100 years. Newsom was re-elected in 2007...
, to run in the November 2011 mayoral election. In September 2011, Ben Wang, Christine Kwon, and Deann Borshay-Liem began raising funds through Kickstarter
Kickstarter
Kickstarter is an online threshold pledge system for funding creative projects. Kickstarter has funded a diverse array of endeavors, ranging from indie film and music to journalism, solar energy technology and food-related projects.-Model:...
to create a documentary on Zheng's life, tentatively titled Breathin: The Eddy Zheng Story.
The children of the victims of Zheng's robbery and kidnapping have criticized what they describe as the Asian American community's lionization of Zheng, and support his deportation in spite of their agreement that he has been rehabilitated. In interviews, the children have described the effect of the crime on their parents, noting that they installed extensive security systems in their home afterwards and even once hired a private detective to protect them as they walked to school. The elder sibling was quoted as saying, "He was Asian, but he robbed an Asian family. So the Asian community that is standing up for him should realize there is an Asian family that is a victim at the same time". Others have also spoken out in favor of deporting Zheng, such as the California Coalition for Immigration Reform
California Coalition for Immigration Reform
California Coalition for Immigration Reform is a Huntington Beach, California-based political advocacy group devoted to immigration reduction...
, whose northern California
Northern California
Northern California is the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. The San Francisco Bay Area , and Sacramento as well as its metropolitan area are the main population centers...
chairwoman Carole Blalock reportedly stated, "A lot of politicians are saying, 'Gee, look what he's done (in prison)' ... [l]et's remember what he did do and the victims. They're never going to forget that".