Santa Clara County Supervisor Betty Duong knows plenty of people would rather steer clear of politics. She told a near-capacity crowd at San José City College’s Career Education Complex that nobody really gets that choice.
“Everything is political,” Duong (pronounced Yoon) said. “Food, shelter, childcare, how much it costs, how this building was built. As long as we have had the rich and the poor, the haves and have-nots, everything’s always been political.”
Duong, who represents nearly 400,000 residents in District 2, including downtown San José, East San José, and neighborhoods such as Japantown, Little Saigon, and Mayfair, spoke to students from ethnic studies and political science classes in the CEC’s auditorium.
SJCC President Dr. Marilyn Flores introduced Duong as the first Vietnamese American and first Asian American woman to serve on the Board of Supervisors. Flores noted that Duong’s path to public office began in a community college ethnic studies class.
“Her story is proof that this curriculum changes lives,” Flores said. “From a community college Ethnic Studies classroom to the County Board of Supervisors, Betty Duong embodies exactly what we hope for in every Jaguar.”
SJCC Ethnic Studies professor Cindy Huynh organized the event and opened the conversation with Associated Student Government President Sarayu Rayapuram before students submitted their own questions.
Raised on the safety net
Born and raised in San José, Duong said her family arrived in the late 1970s as refugees from Vietnam, at a time when some people in parts of the U.S. urged leaders to reject them.
“There were people in Santa Clara County who told the Board of Supervisors not to accept the refugees,” she said. “They’re not our responsibility. We don’t have enough housing. We don’t have enough resources. They won’t fit in. The same kind of rhetoric aimed at immigrant communities, now.”
But community activists and civil rights groups, such as the NAACP, La Raza Lawyers Association, and the Asian Law Alliance, pushed back, and the community welcomed the refugees.
“That is the Santa Clara County way. That is the San José way,” Duong said.
She said her family relied on nearly every county program until she was 15, including housing assistance, food support, and family stabilization services. Starting in third grade, she was often pulled out of class to translate for her parents. “It doesn’t mean you’re translating one language to another,” Duong said. “You’re navigating, you’re negotiating, you’re identifying who has the power.”
After a stint in cosmetology school and years working as a makeup artist, Duong followed friends to De Anza College. Browsing the catalog, she spotted a course titled Contemporary Asian American Issues. “I was a contemporary Asian American. I’ve got issues,” she said, drawing laughter. “Let’s just see what this class is about.”
That first ethnic studies class, she said, shaped her understanding of her family’s struggles by connecting them to larger histories of colonization, exploitation, and foreign policy. She went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in Asian American Studies from UC Berkeley and a law degree from UC Davis King Hall School of Law, clerking at the Santa Clara County Public Defender’s Office along the way. She practiced employment law before joining the county, where she spent more than a decade in policy work.
At the county, Duong was the original manager of both the Office of Labor Standards Enforcement and the Vietnamese American Service Center, which brings health, behavioral health, dental, senior nutrition, legal and other services under one roof.
She also helped create the county’s language access policy and served as one of its lead public information officers during the COVID-19 pandemic. She said the service center has exceeded its goals and should be a model for how the county builds going forward.
‘Being real nosy’
Asked to define civic engagement, Duong kept it simple. “Being real nosy. Ask all the questions,” she said. “It is the business of being in each other’s business and trying to make sure everyone’s OK.”
Voting is the starting point, she said, describing what she learned during her first campaign. Consultants focus on “fours and fives,” voters who cast ballots in four or five of the last five elections. “Brand-new voters, first-time voters are not fours and fives,” Duong said. “My immigrant mother is not a four or a five.”
If young voters and immigrant communities became reliable voters, she said, campaigns would compete to show up in their classrooms and neighborhoods, and priorities would change overnight.
She pointed to Measure A, the 2016 affordable housing bond campaign she managed while on leave from the county. The $950 million measure needed a two-thirds majority and cleared it by less than a percentage point. Between 2016 and 2025, Measure A funds helped finance more than 5,500 affordable housing units in 10 cities across the county. Duong said the measure has helped house about 20,000 households.
“Every phone call was necessary. Every door knock was necessary,” she said.
Duong encouraged students to find one issue they care about and follow it. She used Regional Medical Center in East San José as an example, describing how the hospital’s owner planned to gut it, sell off its pieces, and sell the land to a developer.
“We need people with lived experience in spaces of decision-making,” Duong said. “Because with that decision-making process, you shape the world.”
But community members rallied week after week when the hospital’s services were threatened. The county ultimately bought the hospital, she said, and has restored labor and delivery services, cardiac and stroke care, with cancer treatment services on the way.
She also urged students to join one of the county’s more than 100 advisory commissions, volunteer with local organizations, or attend a city council or Board of Supervisors meeting.
Long days, late nights
Asked how she cares for herself, Duong admitted she hasn’t figured it out. Her days begin with breakfast and a school drop-off with her daughter. Then come meetings, phone calls after her daughter’s bedtime and reading that often lasts until 2 a.m. Every other Tuesday, the board considers an agenda that can run about 2,000 pages.
“Every single one of those agenda items is someone’s job, someone’s family, someone’s program, someone’s service, someone’s housing,” she said.
Duong closed with advice for her younger self, the one who tried cosmetology, network programming and several trade programs before finding her way. “Don’t listen to your imposter syndrome,” she said. “It’s lying to you.”
She told students that transfer students earn the highest grades at four-year institutions and that the best employees she has hired have community college in their backgrounds.
“We need people with lived experience in spaces of decision-making,” Duong said. “Because with that decision-making process, you shape the world.”
