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So, today is September 25, 2020. My name is Chelsea Li, and I'm here with Mr. Salhotra. And we will be conducting a full length interview.

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Let's get started. I will be dividing up the interview into like cert—several sections. We're starting off with his like kind of early life. So where and when

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were you born? Can you describe the household and neighborhood you grew up in? Yes. So I was born in California, near San Francisco, in 1990. And I don't really remember too

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much about that, because we moved to Houston when I was one. So we moved to Houston, you know, we initially lived in an apartment on Westheimer. 7979 Westheimer, actually, and,

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you know, that was, we lived there for only a few years, and then moved to Bellaire, where we have lived, you know, ever since, my family.

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I lived there through high school, then went to Rice, and then did go away for three years of law school, but then came back to Houston. You know, I would say that there's a very

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supportive community. There were not a lot of South Asians initially in Bellaire as they are today, you know, now there's several thousand or a few thousand, I should say.

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But yeah, you know, at that time there, I think we were a little less. So, but yeah, I mean, ultimately, it was a very, very, very, very fortunate upbringing, I

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should say. Yeah, okay, we're gonna go a bit into the background of your parents. So what were your parents’ occupations? And what were some of the values that they emphasized in your upbringing? Yeah, so you know, my dad

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came here from India, for graduate school. He was an engineer by training in India and came here for graduate school, and is—and was, of course, when I was growing up,

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still is an environmental engineer. And my mom came here when she was about 12, with my grandparents. So she did kind of the rest of you know, middle school, junior high, and then, you know,

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then high school, of course, and college here, and she was, and is, a professor at the University of Houston downtown campus. And so, you know, education was a very critical and key value that was

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emphasized, you know, both from my mom, you know, her experience as a professor, and then my dad was a consultant, but did do a lot of sort of trainings for different people in the field. And so teaching

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and education was–was–was certainly something that he—that was important to him. So–so education is a critical value. I would say the second one is family, you know, every winter, we would spend time

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with family in the summer, we'd spend time with family. So that became a very core part of–of our value system. And then, you know, you know, I—we are Hindu. And so, we did go to temple.

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And ironically, I think, actually, you know, I wouldn't say that, I–I—sorry, I will say that initially, we were kind of forced to go to temple and Sunday school, you know, and so on.

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But I think, as I got older, and even now, it's sort of become more of a personal choice. And so while I don't think like religion, per se, was a value, I think spirituality certainly was one.

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And then I would say, maybe the last one was, you know, particularly from my mom, the spirit of service. So, you know, she chose to teach, you know, at UH downtown, of course, which is largely a university—which

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the university largely composed of first generation and or students of color, and or lower income students. And so she always had that, has that sort of focus on service.

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I think that, that is certainly, you know, become something I care a lot about. Yeah, for sure. So speaking more about education, I saw that you attended Rice. Can you speak a little bit about your experiences, any challenges you faced or anything you learned

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in particular that stood out? Yeah. So you know, I—you know, as I said, I–I—so I grew up here, you know, went to high school and then applied to college and ultimately decided on

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Rice in part because I think I was not ready to leave Houston, I was really liked Houston, love being close to home. And so Rice just felt like the right fit. And so spent time, obviously at

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Rice, you know, it was, it was a great experience on a couple different levels. One is, I really kind of developed my passion. So you know, coming into Rice, I was

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not so focused on public service and politics and education as I am now. And I think those—that sort of passion came from my time at Rice.

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So whether it was some of the classes I took, sociology department for example, with Professor Turley, or some of the experiences I had, whether researching at the Baker Institute at Rice, or taking a semester off to intern in DC.

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Or, of course, some of the friends I made who, you know, had done Teach for America before me and sort of inspired me to, to go into—or to even learn about it, because I didn't know about it before coming to Rice.

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So I’d say in that regard, I learned a lot about myself. You know, I think in terms of the challenges, I would say that I think one thing that I struggled with, at Rice, you know, I was very lucky, I–I–I did

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not—I felt that I had been prepared academically for Rice coming from St. John's, for high school. So I felt very lucky in that regard.

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I also was lucky that I had some AP credits. And so I was able to kind of place out of some of the distribution requirements, so I could really focus on classes that I was very interested in.

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However, I will say that one of the things that I struggled with at Rice, is I sort of, I guess, initially focused on trying to get to know as many people as I could, and I didn't have as many close and deep connections as I

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would have liked. And that's something that changed kind of towards the end of college. And certainly, in like my future experiences I really prioritized making deeper connections with fewer people, of course. So, yeah.

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You mentioned Professor Turley, and I had her last semester. So that's super interesting. But what subjects were you interested in studying? And what did you end up majoring in?

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You know, came into Rice wanting do business. And that was because I’d taken an economics class in high school and really enjoyed it. And so I thought business was kind of a natural, natural,

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you know, next step. And so I, you know, obviously, as an economics major, and then I had wanted to do the business minor, as well. And, you know, sort of began that path, I took kind of one of the initial courses for the business minor, and I really loved economics, but you know, then I, as I said,

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took a semester off from Rice, the fall of my sophomore year, to intern with Obama, at the White House when he was president, President Obama. And so that experience really pushed me more into the public service,

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excuse me, bucket, if you will. And so that led me to sort of move away from some of the, from sort of—disregard the business minor, and I added a policy studies major, which I—now is maybe

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the social policy analysis type major. But, but so–so–so I ended up graduating with economics, which I always was interested in and social policy analysis, which or I guess, policy studies, which came from, I think, my experience kind of thinking and working in in policy.

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Yeah, I guess thinking back to that time in college, were there some, like defining moments that you would say really stood out to you? Yeah, so, I would say like, so my

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freshman year in the fall, I—like, week two of school, I ended up getting Swine Flu, which is at that point was like a big thing. And so I ended up missing some classes.

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And I remember one of my classes, I don't remember the professor's name, and you'll probably see why in a second, had a homework assignment. I couldn't do it. It was a political science statistics class. And I couldn't do it because I was sick.

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And so I emailed her, I was like, week two of school and I said, you know, “hey, wasn't able to do it.” And she said, “well, no problem. I'll give you a zero on this.

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And you can make it up in future assignments, ‘cause it’s only one small homework assignment.” And that's when like, I was like, super like into the grades and like every single assignment had to be super, you know, yeah.

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So I ended up dropping out of that class. So in the add-drop period, like randomly added Leadership 100, Leadership 101 or something, Introduction to Leadership. And that class is, you know,

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I've built a great relationship, the professor, no longer there now at MIT, but that's the class where I learned about the White House internship. So it's really a seminal class for me, and wouldn't have happened if I had just—so that was one really pivotal moment for me.

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I'd say a second is, you know, when I applied for the internship, the first time I got rejected, and so that was tough. But–but it was, sort of led me to kind of reapply for a second time, where,

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you know, I succeeded through a lot of help from friends. You know, I think then, in my senior year, I was sort of deciding kind of what to do after Rice. And, you know, initially, I'd been very interested in applying to fellowships

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abroad, Rhodes, Marshall, etc. And I applied to five different ones, I think my senior year, maybe four, and got rejected from all of them. And that's, I think, what helped me find, really

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what I was passionate about, led me to Teach For America, which I was interested in, but–but I thought, hey, let me go to the fellowship. And I'll come back and do TFA. But–but that was life changing, pivotal moment.

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And then I think the last one would be, you know, I was deciding at the end between a consulting offer and Teach for America. And I remember meeting one of my really good friends, we were just talking, and we had a

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long talk at his house about kind of, like, what do you want to do? Like, what makes more sense? And I think sort of

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that really pushed me to pick TFA, which has been a life changing experience for me. And I was going to move on to the law school topic, but I guess you also mentioned TFA. So did law school come before that or after?

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Can you explain a little bit more about what happened? Yeah, so graduated from Rice in 2013. Did TFA for two years, 2013 to 2015. And then went to law school 2015 to 2018.

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Yeah, so I guess what motivated you to pursue law school after TFA? You know, so I started teaching fall 2013. And I loved it.

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And I loved those two years, deeply, every day, getting to work with students and getting to, you know, have an opportunity to try to help them. You know, I was teaching high school math, so really helped them, you know, kind of get ready

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for college, quite frankly. But I think what I saw was two things. One is there were many other issues outside of education, that were affecting students,

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whether it was housing, or living in a food desert without access to clean food, or not clean food, healthy food, whether it was immigration, whether it was flooding et. cetera.

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And so I think that was one thing, the second thing I realized was, you know, being a teacher is great. But it is more kind of day to day, and it's more micro level. And while I loved it,

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there were these big macro challenges. In, I mean, just in Houston, ISD alone, there's 200,000 plus kids. And so, you know, while being a teacher is great, having that impact is critical, you know, scale is such

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a big part of this, and sort of making sure we can get to that level. And so I think what I kind of have spent time kind of thinking about, what kind of pushed me to law school, is that desire to sort of, A,

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learn about and impact areas beyond education, and B, to move from the micro kind of day to day impact to more about macro policy level impact. Yeah. So, I've heard about like, 1L in law school and stuff like that, how

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difficult was your experience? You know, I would say two things. I would say one is being a teacher, for sure, being a teacher was harder than the first year of being a lawyer, being a—sorry, being in law school,

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because you know, law school was academically tough, but emotionally and physically it wasn't as much. And so I will say that

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a lot of people—I will say that a lot of people are very competitive in law school, and so it makes it harder because they put themselves in some ways, in somewhat of a, of a—okay, I got to get the top

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grades, so I can make it to the law review, so I can get this clerkship so I can blah, blah, blah, or I gotta get the top grades, so I go to this law firm and do this, you know. Whereas for me, I was very clear that

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hey, like, I'm here to learn, and I'm here to—I'm going to come back to Houston. In the long run, I don't really want to do a clerkship, it doesn't matter to me to be on the law review, I'm much more focused on

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the political, on the public service, on the education, I do kind of work on some nonprofits on the side. And so I think—and then I found a small group of friends, some still my best friends who also had kind

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of that same mindset. And so it never really was that hard or competitive, in part, because I think we, as a group kind of didn't, you know, focus on that. Okay, a follow up question to that, then, what did you enjoy most or dislike most about

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your experience? In law school? Yes. What did I dislike the most? You know, what I liked, I'll start there, ‘cause like, those are on top of

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my head now, I'll–I’ll sort of think about the dislike one. You know, on the like side, one is, I'm at a place where, you know, everybody is focused on like politics and public policy and talking about that,

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like all the time, whereas at Rice, that is not necessarily the case. So that was one thing I really liked. You know, the second thing, as I mentioned, was this sort of small, close group of friends, that was, that

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was amazing. And–and you know, talk to those guys every day still, and so that–that is, that was, that was great. I think I loved, you know, one of the cool parts about law school is you start to learn some

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stuff. And then you can join these clinics where you actually apply what you learn to representing real people. And so I would represent folks who are getting evicted from their home, for example. And so that experience was super powerful.

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And then, you know, I'll be honest, I think part of what I liked was I was not in Hous—I mean, I sort of got to leave Houston for a little bit, spend some time in a different city, you always learn new things, meet new people, there are people from literally everywhere in

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Boston. You know, I think I disliked probably sort of that competitiveness that I saw from some of my, some of my peers. And then I think, I think sometimes law school becomes very theoretical, which I

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didn't necessarily love. Yeah. All right. Final question for law school. Why did you end up choosing Harvard Law School?

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And what was kind of like, the process of getting there, as well? As like, were there any distinct mentors that you remember? Yeah, so why did I—what was the process to get there, you know, law school is unfortunately, just

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like two things: LSAT and GPA. And so, you know, GPA is what it is, from college until the LSAT, you know, I took it, I took it twice, first time I didn't do as well as I wanted to. You know, I picked Harvard

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because, you know, at the end of the day, I wanted to be in a big city, because I wanted to sort of have that piece of the experience as well. Number two is I knew I wanted to take classes on policy.

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And so I wanted a policy school there. You know, three, my sort of three biggest political role models are Barack Obama, Joaquin Castro, and Julián Castro, and I was like, they all went to Harvard, you

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know, maybe there's, it's coincidental? I don't know. So, so I think that was, in all honesty, probably part of it. So, you know, that–that was sort of how I, how I picked it.

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You know, in terms of mentors, yeah. So I would say that there were, there were a couple. So one is, is a guy named Charles

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Ogletree. He was President Obama's professor when he was there, and we became close. And he kind of helped me learn about opportunities even back in Houston because he was friends with the mayor.

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And so that was, that really helped me get connected to Mayor Turner here in Houston. So he was one. A second one was a professor named Mark Wu, who I really got to know very well.

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He was, I think, one of the first—he became one of the first male tenured professors, Asian professors, in like Harvard's history, maybe. Pretty–pretty–pretty recent.

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He's just a great guy who sort of combined, combined sort of the theory with the like bigger picture. You know, I had another professor, Tomiko Brown-Nagin, who was

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education law professor. And so I spent a lot of time with her. And then I would say the last one is a guy named Sabeel Rahman, who, I think it was the first time

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I'd ever had a South Asian male professor. And so to see someone who, you know, kind of looked like me and had similar passions, you know, that was, that was great.

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Okay, so kind of moving on into your early career, I see that you transitioned away from being an associate in corporate law? Can you tell me a bit about this decision?

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You know, so, you know, like, a lot of people in law school, you know, there's this hiring process. And so, you know, the law firms come out there, and, you know, they make this big pitch, right.

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And so, I think many of us think that sort of that's like, the default path. So I did a couple internships. And I just didn't really like it that much. And so I came back to Houston and, and decided,

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like, hey, you know, there's an opportunity to win the city council seat and I—politics, something I'm really passionate about, and I think I'd have a shot at it, and then you know, could do a decent job. And so let me—and the law

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firm was super supportive, and–and kind of let me defer my job. And so I deferred it, and then, you know, we ran this campaign, and–and I think, ultimately, the decision was, hey, you know, I can always go back to the law firm, but there's not necessarily going to be this

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exact same opportunity to run. And so, you know, decided to, decided to defer and–and–and jump in. Yeah. I guess, following up with that, do you see yourself ever returning to corporate law?

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You said you didn't really like the whole—no, okay, straight up no. Okay, great. Also, okay, so, this might be a bit more personal, but how were you able to kind of persuade your parents? Or did you even have to persuade your parents to let you pursue

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politics and nonprofit work? Yeah, you know, it's an ongoing, it's an ongoing process. You know, I think that, you know, I think that–that their perspective, you know, coming–coming from India,

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with—where, you know, politics is often viewed as kind of a corrupt enterprise. And, you know, nonprofit is–is–is not seen with the respect that, I think it–it–it should be, quite frankly, and so,

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yeah, it's absolutely been a process. You know, I think what has helped is like, one, try to have like, a detailed plan of how I think this–this can work. I think the second is, you know, spend a lot of time talking

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about, hey, like, you know, I'm lucky that, you know, I could go back to a law firm if I had to. And–and–and so there's that. And then I think the third is, you know, I think,

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passion and energy and drive, those are kind of contagious. And so when someone sees someone in general, who is really passionate about something, they kind of get excited, and I think it's just multiplied significantly when it's someone you know and care deeply about.

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And so I think they've seen that I'm really passionate about this, and so, and so that's helped, but–but–but I would not say that it's a done deal. And I think that, you know, Asian Americans certainly face

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different pressures and do other–other communities, but I think also–also have different supports that other communities don't have, and so I think it's, you know, every, every community sort of has their—I guess, idiosyncrasies or–or–or

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perceptions, and I think every generation, it sort of gets a little less, I guess, I guess getting—gets a little less like, regimented and it becomes more sort of flexible. Okay, so kind of moving on to your non-profit

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work. I really appreciate your background. Can you tell me a bit about Momentum Education and your journey with the organization, please feel free to name your accomplishments of the organization since its

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inception, and any future goals. Yeah, so you know, we—when I was a teacher back in 2013 to 2015, some friends and I started a couple of organizations, to sort of—couple nonprofits to kind of

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help students get to and through college. And so neither of those had been super successful in part because we did not necessarily have somebody who was sort of devoting their life, like a true startup needs.

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And so, you know, in January after the election, sort of decided to combine all the previous efforts into one. And so we launched Momentum Education, kind of to help students get to and through,

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you know, post-secondary education. And so, you know, we basically helped students from the day they join, excuse me, ninth grade through the day they graduate from college, or vocational school, or community college, and

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get into the workforce. And so we help with things like mentorship, with things like connecting them to summer programs, with things like helping them get support on their college essays and resumes, to things like

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helping introduce them to different colleges over Zoom, because they don't have the wherewithal and the means to necessarily go visit, to introducing to different careers that perhaps they're not super familiar with, to connecting them to summer internships.

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You know, right now we have about 550 students who have sort of been supported by us or in the program, and that's only growing and so yeah, we're really excited to, you know, start in Houston and do a really good job, and then, you

00:26:32.710 - 00:26:46.130

know, slowly branch out, but I think, for us, the gold star and the North Star is, you know, 100% of our kids must graduate high school. 100% must matriculate some post-secondary education, whether it's four year, two year,

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community college, 100% need to graduate and 100% got to enter the workforce. And so until we're doing that, at a high level, I think we still have a lot of work to do. Can you tell me a bit about any initiatives, maybe that Momentum Education has taken during

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COVID-19 and like the pandemic? Sure. So, you know, we, you know, number one is, we started a team that is reviewing college application essays online.

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This is essential right now during COVID, because many schools are becoming test optional. And so therefore, the college essay takes on greater significance, quite frankly. The second thing is we dramatically ramped up scholarship giving, so we gave away about

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$25,000 this year to scholarships, we know students and families are in a really, really tough situation. The third is, you know, we did not plan to have so many career conversation events and

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college information sessions, and now we have like at least one or two per week. And so I think we've just sort of gone all in on the Zoom idea, about still trying to bring students the same level of programming that

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we would have brought them otherwise. And so, you know, I think I wouldn't say we're perfect, but I would say that, you know, we're just everyday trying to get little better. I—okay, so I also saw that you co-founded One Jump and SWAG to College.

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Can you speak a bit about these organizations? Yeah, so those are the two that came together to make Momentum. And so yeah, you know, we started One Jump 2013 with some friends, and SWAG to College 2015, you know, one of

00:28:24.080 - 00:28:37.660

them helping students with summer opportunities, the other one was mentorship. And, you know, they work stronger together now, where everything's under one roof, and we have, you know, I'm all in and this is kind of, true kind of startup founder

00:28:38.180 - 00:28:48.660

level commitment. And so, you know, I think–I think we just realized that independently, they were not gonna sustain themselves, but–but indivi—but together, you know, I hope we have a shot.

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I see. At what point did you find like the calling to dedicate yourself to serve the community? And did you have any role models during this process? Yeah. You know, I—you

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know, when I became a teacher, I think I sort of saw, you know, let me back up, when I was in eighth grade, I—so I–I–I used to, still sometimes do, stutter a lot. And so when I was in eighth grade, I had a teacher named Beth Sanford, who was

00:29:30.030 - 00:29:42.980

a theater–theater teacher, arts director, whatever, and so, she really helped me. She pushed me to try out for this play, The Little Prince, that I did not want to do, and ended up getting in and was The Aviator, which is

00:29:42.980 - 00:29:52.980

like a role with a lot of lines, basically. And–and–and it was very tough, obviously, for someone who stuttered, but she really helped me through it. And now you know, way, way, way, way better than what I

00:29:53.050 - 00:30:05.520

was before, in part, the large part because of her coaching and her support. And so I think that was the first moment, was like, wow, okay, a teacher can have a huge impact on someone's life, can like dramatically change someone’s life, you know, and then when I actually did become a

00:30:05.520 - 00:30:19.070

teacher, you know, I think I saw that I had students who, you know, shared the same aspirations as I did, whose parents were just as hard working, whose community wanted the same thing, but–but who just didn't have the same opportunities

00:30:19.070 - 00:30:33.620

I had. And I think when you see that vast inequity, I think that was when I said, okay, this is–this what I want to do, particularly around education, you know, and then I think, when you start doing this, you

00:30:33.620 - 00:30:44.490

start finding people who, you know, who you look up to. So, you know, I mentioned Julián and Joaquin Castro, both of them, you know, could have gone to a big law firm. And, you know, when I say role

00:30:44.490 - 00:30:57.120

model, of course, you know, Barack Obama, of course, big, big folks like that, who, you know, you don't get a chance to necessarily know super well, but you know, Julián and Joaquin, particularly Joaquin Castro is now a congressman, like, I got to know him pretty well.

00:30:58.590 - 00:31:10.730

And so he's someone who I really look up to, who–who sort of devoted his life to this. You know, I think Ruth Turley, someone who I look up to a lot, who, you know, has figured out a way to really, really focus her career on trying to make an impact.

00:31:12.850 - 00:31:28.850

You know, and then I think about someone like Chris Barbic, who started Yes Prep, which is a charter school in Houston where I taught. And so Chris has become a real role model and mentor for me, on kind of how

00:31:28.850 - 00:31:45.470

to–how to start an organization, and how to really devote your life to something. You know, I'm reading a book right now about Geoffrey Canada, who started the Harlem Children's Zone in New York, someone who also, you know, I think very highly of, and so yeah, there's

00:31:45.470 - 00:32:01.310

a bunch of people who I, who I look up to, who’ve sort of taken this path of, you know, public service. I think now I'm gonna shift into more like City Council. I see that you ran for city

00:32:01.360 - 00:32:13.590

council, which is very impressive. Can you tell me a bit about your platform and why you wanted to run? Yeah, I mean I think for me, it always came back to, you know, we have these

00:32:15.960 - 00:32:30.330

vast inequities. And as a teacher, you know, I saw students who were often affected by issues outside of the classroom. So flooding, whether there was public transit, whether there was access to healthy food.

00:32:30.950 - 00:32:44.510

And so we were trying to—our whole vision was this idea of like one Houston, where everyone has an opportunity to succeed, not depending on where you grew up, or where you live. And so, you know, we spent a lot of

00:32:44.510 - 00:33:00.890

time talking about obviously, flooding, and–and–and of course, you know, economic–economic opportunity, as well, because we could have saw, like, what–what is, of course possible. And then kind of these, you know, quality–quality of life issues around, you

00:33:00.890 - 00:33:17.230

know, public transit or environmental justice. And I think, I think, for us, the big focus was, you know, how do we try to advance some policies that will help make the city more fair and provide more opportunities for

00:33:17.230 - 00:33:35.900

folks. During your campaign, did you find any areas where support like you felt you needed might have been lacking? Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, if we—you know, I ran pretty–pretty clearly as a Democrat, even

00:33:35.900 - 00:33:50.700

though it's a nonpartisan race. And so I think we didn't do as well, you know, among conservatives as we could have. So–so I think that's one, you know, and then I think, I didn't do a good enough job of,

00:33:51.980 - 00:34:07.200

you know, making sure that I visited every community and–and–and learned every issue and–and–and listened to every person, like I think we worked really hard, but sometimes we got kind of focused in certain areas. And so I think that–that was the second one.

00:34:09.420 - 00:34:30.000

And then, you know, I think, I think the final thing was, you know, we—I think we just didn't necessarily win over as many, you know, folks in

00:34:30.000 - 00:34:44.760

maybe Kingwood, or Clear Lake, for example, as we could have, and so if you look at kind of how I did clearly in the runoff against the incumbent, that was a—that those two areas were ones where, you

00:34:44.760 - 00:34:58.820

know, we–we could have done much better. Do you see more chances for like public service or running for another public office in the future? Yeah, for sure. I definitely am going to do that, again.

00:34:58.880 - 00:35:12.300

It's just a matter of when, you know, I think–I think–I think one of the things that people very fairly critiqued me for was, you know, he's young, he hasn't really done anything yet.

00:35:14.530 - 00:35:23.990

And so like, why is he ready for City Council? I think that's a fair, you know, it's a fair critique. And so I think we want to spend some time really building this up.

00:35:24.500 - 00:35:35.530

But yeah, I definitely think I will run again. Okay, so you were a part of the Life After Rice, Young Alumni Political Engagement and Advocacy Panel?

00:35:35.800 - 00:35:47.310

Oh, yeah. Like last week or something like that. Yeah. How was this experience? And what led you to want to participate? I think for me—it was great, first of all.

00:35:48.300 - 00:36:03.700

For me, it's always like, you know, I think about two things. One is like, people have an obligation to pay it forward, period, full stop. And so there were mentors who, who supported me, who guided me and took time to kind of help me,

00:36:04.320 - 00:36:14.930

you know, figure out where I wanted to get to, and sort of connected me to folks. And so I think I have an obligation to do that for others. And the second is, you know, Julián Castro, as I mentioned, someone I really look

00:36:14.930 - 00:36:28.160

up to, has a quote that says, “The American Dream is not a sprint, or a marathon, but a relay.” And so you know, I genuinely believe that we all have an obligation to kind of do whatever we can, but then also to pass the baton to the next generation.

00:36:29.870 - 00:36:47.440

And so anytime I get an opportunity to talk to people, particularly those who might be younger, like maybe students or whatever, I mean, I take that because I think—I genuinely believe that we have an obligation to sort of like, pass the baton. Yeah. So similarly, it's very, like encouraging to

00:36:47.440 - 00:36:57.860

see younger Asian Americans pursue public service in the US, because we seem to be kind of like an underrepresented group in the sector. And so

00:36:57.860 - 00:37:17.080

like, how important is it for like Asians to follow suit? You know, I think, I think that we–we just have to do a better job of saying, look, there's nothing wrong with wanting to be a doctor, or a lawyer, or

00:37:17.080 - 00:37:26.360

an engineer, like, that's great. And we–we–we should 100% support folks in doing that. But we should also 100% support folks in doing, you know, anything

00:37:26.360 - 00:37:42.070

else. And so I think, you know, nurturing people's passions and supporting them as they try to reach those. I mean, that's, that's what it's all about. And so, I, you know, I met someone who—recently, who

00:37:42.110 - 00:37:56.880

said to me, she said, so her daughter, Sou-South Asian older woman, mid 60s, probably, who really helped on my campaign, and we were chatting recently, and I just asked her, like what, what inspired you to like, volunteer a lot and stuff, she said, you know, “Raj,

00:37:58.160 - 00:38:12.090

my–my daughter is a baker, she left her job to become a baker and like run a bakery. And a lot of people in the community did not support that, like, you know, what's a baker, come on, that's not a big thing.” But she said,

00:38:12.090 - 00:38:21.860

like, you know, “I support her because, like, she's passionate about it.” And she said, “the reason I’m volunteering your campaign, it's like, we got to have more people who are pursuing their passion.” And like, I can't just talk the talk,

00:38:21.860 - 00:38:33.250

like, I got to walk the walk, basically. And that was her point. I–I thought that was like, incredible. And so I think for me, it's like, you know, if there are people, particularly Asian American, or really anyone

00:38:33.250 - 00:38:47.440

who's focused on their passion, like, I'm going to do whatever I can to help nurture it, because, I mean, in particular, if it's something that, you know, the community maybe doesn't support as much as it could. Yeah, so how can the community do better to kind

00:38:47.440 - 00:39:03.740

of inspire and support the younger generation to commit to not only public service, but as you mentioned, like passions? You know, like one is, I–I think one is like, sort of finding opportunities for young folks to meet

00:39:04.130 - 00:39:23.600

people who are older who have done that, you know, I think the second thing is sort of thinking about how can we create systems to help people, so like, for example, if somebody wants to run for political office, let's have a, like a support for like Asian Americans who want to

00:39:23.600 - 00:39:37.460

run, or Asian Americans who want to be, you know, have a startup, or an Asian American who wants to do you know, XYZ. You know, and then I think, I think third one is just kind of starting the dialogue. I think, I think, now, this is

00:39:37.460 - 00:39:49.160

sort of becoming more mainstream to have conversations like this. So you know, whatever people think of like Andrew Yang, it was a big deal that he ran for president, it was a big deal that the guy, you know, stayed at the law firm for six months and then left and then like,

00:39:49.160 - 00:39:59.760

like, worked in like a nightclub or something in part of like, what he did, right, or whatever. And so I think that, you know—and I think it's important to see Kamala Harris, you know, perhaps become, you know, the first South

00:39:59.840 - 00:40:12.960

Asian, the first African American woman, you know, to–to be Vice President, I think those would be big, big signs. And it's not just in politics. I mean, you can take–take nonprofit, so it'd be helpful to see folks

00:40:12.960 - 00:40:31.260

leading, leading nonprofits too and so—or, you know, whatever, whatever project, whatever project it might be. And so I think, I think that's kind of how I think about it. Okay, so transitioning into kind of like the pandemic, what are your views

00:40:32.040 - 00:40:48.420

about, and takes- takeaway from how the Houston community, Hou-Houston community was going through, like during the pandemic? And how, like the government kind of handled it? Well, I mean, I think on the local level, I think we,

00:40:49.860 - 00:41:04.570

just the community I think, I think we did well. And I think that, you know, the mayor and the County Judge Lina Hidalgo, I think they were pretty quickly, like Lina is pretty forwardly looking, in–in putting

00:41:04.570 - 00:41:13.790

some restraints in place. Now, of course, some of that was preempted by the state, which I think, you know, made some mistakes, like opening bars a little bit early, which probably led to the uptick.

00:41:14.810 - 00:41:27.160

Obviously, at the federal level, that response has been, you know, woefully inadequate, particularly from the White House, denying this thing and then, you know, saying, it's not helpful to wear a mask, and you should, like, ingest Lysol, or

00:41:27.160 - 00:41:39.630

washers, or like, whatever he said about that was ridiculous. And so, so I think that that's there. But I do think that like, now, you know, when I, when I go to, for example, I go to my office on

00:41:39.630 - 00:41:52.380

weekends, when there aren't too many folks there. And I see, you know—and so I'll go to Chipotle to pick up a burrito—everyone's wearing a mask, you know, or I look at the fact

00:41:52.880 - 00:42:04.920

that many religious organizations have come together to step up in this moment. Or I look at that fact that teachers are really figuring out how to be heroes in this

00:42:06.170 - 00:42:22.310

by teaching remotely and–and–and students and parents, and I think we've pulled together as a community, but I think what it illustrates is, the community can do a lot, but if you don't have the right support from the federal government, like state government, like it just becomes very

00:42:22.380 - 00:42:34.920

hard to sustain this. So you know, the fact that people don't have a second stimulus, you know, it's just ridiculous, or the fact that the state could not, you know, provide more supports for folks like a moratorium on evictions,

00:42:35.660 - 00:42:47.290

make it longer, granted, the CDC now did something. But I think the point is that communities are strong for sure. Religious organizations, nonprofits, companies giving so much, a lot of companies

00:42:47.290 - 00:43:00.010

locally doing a great job. But without an adequate systemic policy response, it's not sustainable forever. And I think we're seeing that, which is why, you know, over 200,000 deaths.

00:43:00.010 - 00:43:15.990

I mean it's just–it's just ridiculous. So what do you see for kind of like, the Hou-the future of Houston like, post-COVID? Well, I mean, I think it's gonna be very interesting, because we're a city

00:43:15.990 - 00:43:24.140

that’s just so much sprawl. But, you know, it’d be interesting to see, can people work from home? Can that continue? And if so, how does that change where people want to live?

00:43:24.410 - 00:43:37.570

I think, I think that's a very interesting question. And I think a second question is how do we think about diversifying the economy? You know, we saw obviously, the city was hit by the pandemic, but then also oil prices went down. So we can't, you know,

00:43:37.810 - 00:43:55.190

be a city maybe just reliant, or just be a oil capital, we want to be that whole energy capital, makes wind, makes solar. You know, I think the third is it'll be very interesting to see—Houston has such ma— significant disparities between income, often correlated with

00:43:55.190 - 00:44:08.120

race, it'll be interesting to see how those are exacerbated. Obviously, educational disparities are real, that's gonna only get worse. And so I think, I think there’s gonna be a real need for policies after,

00:44:09.760 - 00:44:23.940

after the pandemic. I have one final question. So you've already accomplished so much, from law school, to nonprofit organizations, to running for city council.

00:44:24.460 - 00:44:39.380

Do you have a vision of how you want to live for like, the rest of your life and what you want to apply—like where you want to apply like your talent next? Okay, the rest of your life is kind of a long way, but I guess just future.

00:44:39.780 - 00:44:55.380

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what I–what I think about every day is how do we build a city, a state, a country, a world where there's just more opportunities for all folks.

00:44:56.480 - 00:45:10.300

And where people are not left behind because of their socioeconomic status, or their race, or where they're born, or their religion, or their gender, or sexual orientation, or whatever. And so for me, it's every single day, I want to be doing

00:45:10.300 - 00:45:24.710

something that is helping folks get better opportunities. And I think for the–for the time being, I think that's going to be with Momentum, because I think we have an opportunity to really move the ball down the field for kids and families.

00:45:27.410 - 00:45:42.120

And I think the second thing is, that will always be there, is how can I continue to pay it forward, and pass the baton to the next generation of folks who are coming up, who are so passionate about, you know, wanting to kind of do their part.

00:45:45.220 - 00:45:57.200

Well I would like to thank you for your time for doing this interview. I will send you a follow up email with like more details about our archive and next steps. Do you have any questions for me?

00:45:58.200 - 00:46:05.070

I think I'm good Chelsea. Okay. All right. Well, take care. All right. I'll see you later. Keep me posted, whatever I can to help.

00:46:05.370 - 00:46:06.430

Bye bye. Yes. All right. Bye.