Elections Origin Story: Tommy Gong
Meet the Chief Deputy Clerk-Recorder of Contra Costa County, California
The Elections Group is excited to announce its first Elections Origin Story – a new addition to our newsletter connecting readers with election officials from different jurisdictions across the United States.
Each unique story will detail how featured election officials began working in election administration, and will highlight the human element of the field.
Tommy Gong, Chief Deputy Clerk-Recorder, Contra Costa County, California
When and how did you get started in elections?
Let me first share that my first memory of an election was when going to the fire station with my mother when she voted; I was five years old. I distinctly remember being in the fire truck bays while she pulled the lever arm that closed the curtain behind us in the lever voting machine. That memory is burned in my mind.
During the 2000 Presidential Election, I was glued to the TV following what was taking place in Florida and thought to myself, “Why is this taking so long? It can’t be that difficult to conduct an election!” Little did I know that I would be getting into election administration a few years later and be humbled with the tremendous amount of election work performed by very dedicated folks.
When I interviewed for my first election position, I shared how my wedding had over 1,000 guests and how we had to carefully plan and coordinate our wedding ceremony and Chinese banquet. Later on, I found out that answer was the clincher for me getting the job!
Suffice to say, I caught the election bug during the previous Governor Recall election in 2003 when Arnold Schwarzenegger became the Governor of California amongst high voter interest. How things changed since then!
If you were not working in Election Administration, what do you think you would be doing?
Previously, I ran my family’s grocery business, which we sold just before my election career started. I was looking for a new career and elections just fell onto my lap. It had become a passion for me and I discovered myself doing it well. I think if elections had not found me, I would have found myself teaching martial arts.
What is your favorite hobby? And who is your favorite superhero and why?
The answers to these two questions are intertwined. As a youngster growing up in a small town in the Central Valley of California, my family was the only Chinese family there. Residents embraced us because we were providing groceries to feed their families. On TV at the time, other than stereotypical Chinese roles such as Hop Sing on Bonanza, Bruce Lee was the only Chinese actor who was “cool” and he became a childhood hero of mine.
When attending U.C. Berkeley, I had the opportunity to study Lee’s martial art, taught by some folks who had direct lineage to him. My desire to learn more was insatiable and I learned from just about every student of his, from Seattle to Oakland to Los Angeles, and I started to teach the art. I got to know Linda and Shannon Lee (his widow and daughter) and served as a board member on their Bruce Lee Foundation for many years. It went full circle for me bearing some responsibility for carrying on the teachings of my childhood hero.
My book, Bruce Lee – The Evolution of a Martial Artist, was the culmination of a five-year project to not only chronicle Lee’s martial arts development, but also his life. In doing so, I discovered how truly remarkable he was. Beyond the veneer of his good looks and powerful physique, I found a highly-intelligent, extremely-driven, charismatic human being of deep integrity dealing with the glass ceiling for Asian actors in Hollywood. His philosophy of “being like water” and “under the sky, under the heavens, there is but one family, it just so happens that people are different” are powerful messages to unite people and reminders of what we really need today. So he is my favorite human with superhero-like powers.