SF’s Chinese community embraced Ed Lee as one of their own

Ed Lee wasn’t born in San Francisco, but that didn’t matter to the large Chinese community that adopted him as a native son.

“He was one of us,” said Norman Fong, director of the Chinatown Community Development Center, said Tuesday. “One of our guys made it to mayor.”

Lee became known in the Chinatown community in the 1970s as the civil rights lawyer who pushed residents of the Ping Yuen public housing complex to speak up and fight to improve conditions. He became a perennial volunteer behind the scenes at the Chinese New Year celebrations and then — as the city’s first Asian American mayor — moved front and center, boisterously and with a characteristic giggle, wishing the community a “gung hay fat choy.