Hi, I'm Nora Lopez, executive editor of the San Antonio Express-News.

Our guest today is Texas state rep Gene Wu of Houston.

Recently elected chair of the Texas House Democratic Caucus.

Representative Wu, a former Harris County prosecutor, has served in the House since 2013, representing a slice of Houston's west side.

He has been a vocal critic of the GOP, particularly on social media, where he frequent spars with GOP state leaders.

He has gained quite the following for his daily video updates from the legislative session on Reddit, often with a glass of whiskey visible in the frame.

Thank you, Representative Woo Gene, for being here today with us.

I know it's a really busy time right now.

The 89th legislature out of session just kicked off this week.

In fact, you're here today to, meet with your fellow Bexar County House Democrats to talk about your legislate of, priorities.

And we really want to hear about those and get into that.

But first, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and know your, Chinese, immigrant came here at the age of four?

Yeah.

It is, just an absolute pleasure to be in San Antonio.

The food here is lot just, I mean, I probably gained a couple of power just being here two days.

Look, we're going to get started in the legislative session this this week, and it is going to be, it's going to be interesting, right?

Because we have so many problems across our state.

We know that people are suffering.

People are not doing well.

People feel like they're not moving forward, and they're working themselves to death for their families.

And they're still worried about, can I put food on the table?

And that's what Democrats are going to be here to talk about.

That's what Democrats are going to work on.

We're going to go back to the things that we have always talked about.

But before that, let me let me just sorry to talk a little bit myself.

That's okay.

You know, I am, I am Chinese-American.

I was born in China, but, I came here as a very little kid, I think, like, either like 3 or 4 or something like that.

It's all kind of fuzzy to me, but, I, we lived in Houston for a long time.

I lived in Houston for most of my life.

Went to school, when the Texas A&M for my undergrad, for my masters of.

That was complicated, and then went to South Texas College of Law for my law degree.

And, before getting elected, I spent like three and a half years in the DA's office in Harris County, and I've been in the legislature for 12 years now.

And this is starting my 13th year.

And why did you decide to when you were in Harris County prosecutor, was that your first foray into, public office?

I was a I was an Ada assistant district attorney, but I actually worked in public service my entire life.

When I was in college, I wasn't ra I.

When I was in grad school, I was a hold director.

And and then, you know, all throughout I've always maintained and then the even in between law school or grad school and law school, I worked for the legislature.

Right.

I was the chief clerk for the higher education Committee.

And I did a lot of other stuff.

I've done fellowship in the governor's office and all these different things, and it's kind of in my blood.

And how has that shaped, your desire to be a lawmaker?

Yeah.

Look, people always ask me, why do I do the things I do?

And people who are around me see how hard and how many sacrifices lawmakers make to do the job they do.

And the best way I can explain it is I'm the guy that if I'm walking down the street and a newspaper just blows by on the ground, I'm picking it up, picking it, because the answer really is if I don't pick it up, who will?

Right?

Why should I leave that responsibility to protect my community to someone else?

Why shouldn't I do that right?

And that's the kind of way I view my position and why I ran.

And what keeps me going then, is we have real people to protect.

We have a community to defend.

We have a future to built.

Somebody has to do it.

Your district, in, Houston, a very, very diverse ethnic community.

I think I read that, like some 50 languages are spoken in one particular community of a four mile radius.

With the threat of mass deportations.

How do you see that playing out in in your own district?

Yeah.

Look, some of my high schools speak up to native languages.

And our community, my my district is about 55% Latino.

We have people from all over the world.

We're about 80% immigrants in in my district.

And we have people from all over Africa, Asia, Latin America.

And we have and among among all the people in my district, I'd be probably easily a third or documented.

Right.

These are the people who would take care of your lives, who make your food, clean your house, cut your lawn, watch your kids and do all these different things.

Right.

These are the these are the immigrants that everybody around.

Even Republicans say, oh, those are the good ones.

Those are the good ones.

Nothing's going to happen to those.

It's what they say.

They swear that nothing will happen to them.

But you don't watch their fear is great.

Their fear is real.

They don't believe.

They don't trust them when they say, oh, we won't touch you.

They're going to.

Those communities are going to be disrupted.

There is real palpable fear in those communities of what's going to happen.

People are talking about should we just leave our kids here?

Even without us, it might be better for them to stay here than the force back to El Salvador, right?

Or to Guatemala or to Nigeria, or to anywhere else around the world.

Right?

It's better for those kids to be without their parents and being forced to go back to a place where they might die.

And so we're looking at family separations.

Yes.

Because, I mean, we from even before being sworn in in Trump's administration.

His people around him have said, oh, we'll just send legal kids with the parents.

We won't separate them.

We're going to force entire families to go.

Right.

And that's a real shame.

And, you know, those are some, you know, for people we say are the good ones.

That is something truly horrifying to say to people who have been here for decades, who have done their job well, who have worked, who have paid into our taxes, who have kept our society running, who have done everything they can to be good people.

And the only difference between them and anyone else is a single piece of paper.

And what we're what we've always ask for is for the Latino population, for the Asian population, for the African population.

Have a little grace for people who are fleeing poverty, who are fleeing death, and people who are just coming here to be good Americans and have done so, I think give them a little grace.

Where do you find that balance, though, that middle ground?

Because, for better or for worse, there are real fears from the community about, a mass number of immigrants coming over.

People have seen those photos, you know, of tens of thousands of people, you know, an eagle Pass.

How do you balance those fears with, legitimate fears with this reality that we're now looking at mass deportations?

And let me tell you, this for anyone who's watching.

The most important thing to know that all of these disasters are manmade.

These are artificially created disasters.

When you were seeing those pictures.

You are seeing things were done by our leaders.

We have asked and begged for immigration reform for almost 30 years now.

Right.

We thought we were close under Obama, but Republicans blocked it.

We thought we were close.

Other places Republicans blocked it.

And so for people to complain about the situation that they themselves helped create is shameful.

And what the most important thing to do remember is, if we want for those things to be fixed, we have to have people who are willing to fix it.

But the problem is that this artificially generated problem artificially created the problem because we could have fixed this.

We could have fixed it.

It gets votes.

It drives fear.

And fear is a great motivator.

And so they're using this.

They're purposely people are purposely keeping the system broken in order to have power.

I see the valley, which I'm actually, I'm originally from, the Rio Grande Valley.

I grew up in Edinburg, Texas, and I look at my family as a way to gauge what's what's happening.

And, and that's historically been a very reliable, you know, Democrat, stronghold.

And, but you're losing ground.

Yes.

And, and I think at the end of the day, it really does come down to that, sense of not being, economically.

It's safe.

My my relatives, you know, work in the oil industry.

They travel to Midland and then they come back on the weekends.

So they worry about that.

Other another third of my relatives, it seems, work in law enforcement.

So they are grappling with, the immigration issue.

They feel like they are living it.

They are experiencing it, and they're not getting any release.

Yeah.

And again, all of the things that they are experiencing, those are manmade.

Those are situations created by us, by the by the people in charge.

Right?

The people who have control or control in this country have created that situation and kept it in place.

We could have fixed it.

We could to fix it decades ago.

But we choose.

We chose not to.

And here's the thing.

And you said that they have concerns about their economic safety.

Absolutely.

This country, from its inception, has found ways to find found ways to blame things on other people from from the time that this country began with laid it on the Irish.

Then we blamed it on the Polish, then we blended on the Italians.

And when those groups or any good for to be scapegoats, we we blamed it on Latinos.

We blamed it on Asians.

Right.

And we're finding new groups to blame.

And did the blame for Asians to blame for Latinos that's coming back around.

It's coming back around again.

And so instead of actually addressing those economic issues.

Right.

And there are concerns about jobs.

They're concerned about wages concerns about cost.

We can fix those.

We can work on those.

We don't have to blame it on someone else.

Right.

Because if you look at what happens to those people who are coming in, they work, they move to Houston.

They get jobs.

Right?

Right.

And they they they keep every help, keep everything going.

And so does everyone else.

And just to say like, well, everything in life is that one group's fault.

Right.

Think about who is telling you that.

Think about who is directing that message and that message.

That message doesn't just end there.

That message will come back around because for the greater audience out in America, what people don't understand the difference between legal and illegal.

They just see Latinos.

So they're going to.

So while some Latinos are blaming the the new immigrants coming in.

Everyone else now is looking at the Latino community and go, this is your fault.

So what can you do?

I mean, you're coming in.

Yeah.

The party is your party is weakened.

You lost to, two members.

The GOP party is strengthened.

There appears to be, a lot of support for the message that they have been giving.

How were you going to navigate this session?

So I can't control what Republicans do, but I can help guide Democrats on what we're going to do.

And what we are going to do is very clear.

We're going to fight for the middle class.

We're going to fight for our schools.

We're going to fight to keep our hospitals open.

We're going to fight to fix the grid.

We're going to fight for minimum wage increase.

We're going to fight for better jobs.

We're going to fight for new jobs that are meant for the 21st century.

Right.

And those are the things that people actually care about.

Those are the things that actually improve people's lives.

And when people say, what do you do about that?

You say, we're going to make sure people are doing okay.

Democrats are going to make sure that people move forward.

Make sure that all Texans, if you work hard, we want you to see gains.

We want you to have a seat at the table.

We want you to get ahead.

Right.

And that's what we're going to work for.

Republicans want to talk about banning books, drag shows, whatever they want to do.

Fantastic.

Let's go do that.

We're going to work on the issues that make our lives better.

Can you tell us about any bills that you're, talking about introducing that you think will, have an impact on?

I mean, absolutely.

And there I mean, there's we've probably filed several thousand bills now and without, you know, praising each individual members bills.

Let me just say in general, these these are the big, big things that Democrats are going to fight for.

And it could be any number of bills.

Number one, the biggest, the 900 pound gorilla in the room is education funding.

Last time Governor Abbott took school funding as a hostage in exchange for passing his billionaire friends request of doing a voucher program in Texas.

The the the the population and the legislature said, no, we're not going to do that.

So he shot the hostage and schools had to cut and cut and cut.

I mean, schools went from five days a week down to four days a week.

And there is nothing left to cut.

And if the Governor Abbott holds education hostage again for vouchers, this is going to be the end.

The schools that went from five days to four days are probably not going to go down to three days.

They're probably just going to close their doors.

It's an inevitable although this year, I mean, given the numbers.

Yeah, I don't know.

The question isn't really for politicians.

The question is for the people.

When the people are tired of it.

Politicians will change when the people start paying attention.

They will behave differently.

When the people start protesting and start marching, they'll get the hint.

But at least for now, the people have elected people that support the governors efforts for vouchers.

And I think they voted for that.

And they supported them because they believe they well, I think falsely believed they were lied to, that they told they were told I will fix these problems, will take care of it.

Republicans have been in charge, have had an iron grip on this state for 30 years, 30 years.

And to say, we're going to fix these problems.

Come on.

You've been in charge for 30 years.

Shouldn't you have fixed it 25 years ago?

But just like the border issues, just like immigration issues, these problems are artificial.

They didn't just exist on their own.

People made them.

People made them for a reason.

Right.

There are forces on the other side who literally do not want the state to be in the business of educating children at all.

And some of those voices are winning.

Those voices are getting louder and louder.

Right.

And you saw this last, this last time.

One day you had the Belcher vote by 24 Republicans.

24 Republicans had the courage to stand up to the governor and say, no, our schools, our communities are more important than your donors, mostly from rural districts, because they know exactly that it's going to have a huge impact, because poor is poor, because poor people who are in rural communities, even though they may be voting Republican, are no different than poor people in cities.

We all need the same things.

We all need a robust public education so our children don't have to be poor anymore.

We all need hospitals because we shouldn't go bankrupt because somebody broke their arm.

We need a proper grid infrastructure because we can't survive another seven days without power.

You know, this past week has been very cold.

There's no difference between rural people and city people.

When if you work and you depend on that paycheck every single week to survive.

We're the same with the same people.

Let's talk about messaging a little bit and social media.

You are an avid social media user.

You, have gained a lot of, followers, a lot of popularity.

You, post, during the session, a little sort of, diary, video diary where you're talking about what happened, how, how have you managed to embrace it?

And what do you see?

The effects of it, of your messaging.

I saw I embraced it because it's effective.

I embrace it because especially as a minority member of the minority, it allows me to have a voice when normally I would not.

When I first started in the legislature that my first session, Twitter was basically brand new at the time, and virtually no other members were doing it.

But what I realized is that if I sends a message out, then the process is because the press is on Twitter, and so they see what I'm saying and don't add it.

And so, like one of the first bills, they had comments from the speaker, comments from the chair, and then some freshman member had a Twitter comment.

It got added into the article and like, hey, you know, but but for Democrats, what we're trying to do for the Democratic caucus as a whole, for all Democrats, is to change the way we work.

A lot of us, still operate like it's 1990, right?

And we say, well, we're just going to talk to TV or just contract the newspapers and that's it.

Well, the world doesn't work that way anymore.

And we saw this in the last, this last election that bloggers, that podcasters, that YouTubers that the media is no longer concentrated in one spot.

And there are new battlefields all over the world and all over our media, and we have to engage in all of them.

And you joust, if you will, with your, with the state GOP leaders in.

You've had several viral moments, most recently, you, kind of were out there, you were on a podcast.

Yes.

And you were talking, you were talking about how, there's been this wedge, historic wedge, between the Asian community and the black community.

And how you really believe that is all minorities, you know, Asians, blacks, Latinos.

If we all came together and recognized that we were under the these are your words, under the same oppressor.

Yes.

That then we would begin, winning.

Were you surprised by the response to to those those comments that you made?

I was actually surprised, actually, the comment that got me the, the got the most attention was saying those.

I think me saying that I want the Asian-American community to recognize that much of what they have today, much of their opportunities and their rights and their freedoms was earned for them, was paid for them in blood by African-Americans who fought in the civil rights movement and for Latinos who fought in the civil rights movement.

Right.

Asian Americans didn't really start coming to this country until 1965 because the Chinese Exclusion Act was still in effect until 1965.

So only 105 Asians were allowed into this country a year.

Them right.

And so most Asians that have arrived in the 80s, 90s or met, actually most of them came in the 2000s have never seen an America where Asian people weren't welcomed.

And so they have this idea that everything is wonderful, everything is great.

They have this movie Vision of America where everyone has everything they need.

Everything gets along and they don't see the strike.

They never saw the hard work it took for people like Cesar Chavez right to be to protest and to fight and to get beaten for his actions.

Right.

They never saw that.

And so they they say, oh, well, we earned this.

This is us.

This is we got this.

No you didn't, baby.

Right, people, before you fought like hell for it.

People got beaten.

People were killed fighting for these rights.

And now they need to recognize that just down the street from us, Crystal city, the Japanese internment camps from the 40s.

Right.

There's a very long, violent history that many people don't see in recent decades.

And here's the thing.

Most of our own people or our Americans don't even remember this history at all because our textbooks gloss over it.

Our textbooks don't, especially now under the new censorship, that they don't want kids learning about civil rights.

They don't want kids learning about what happened to their people before civil rights.

And right.

Because if they knew, they would be angry.

And so as little as Americans know about the history of how Asians and treated Asians who just got here, who didn't even go through our American education system, don't know at all.

And they need to know what will success look like for you in June when we end this session?

Success for me, looks like Texans have access to better jobs.

Texans have access to higher wages.

Texans have access to reasonable health care.

Texans have access to the best education system in America because right now, we're sitting on the largest surplus in American history.

But yet we're one of the worst funded school systems in the entire nation.

Okay.

And the real burning question here is whiskey.

Yeah.

What's your favorite whiskey and why is it so prominent in your, updates?

Mean, like.

We'll see.

Come on.

Okay.

I am a huge, huge fan of Texas whiskeys.

We didn't last, like, five, ten years.

Texas whiskeys have gone from, like, bottom shelf to the top shelf.

And there's a I can't remember the name, but there's a San Antonio distillery here that is just wonderful.

And I really I apologize for not remembering the name, but, I love Texas whiskeys because it's kind of like a blend between Kentucky bourbon and Canadian rye.

It's all just like a little bit of everything.

It's Texas.

Yeah, it's our own distinct taste and flavor.

I love it, and it just makes me so happy to sit there with my colleagues or my friends and just have a sip and say, hey, this came from us.

We made this Texas proud.

Hell yeah.

Thank you Gene, thank you so much Nora thank you for being with us here today.

If you have a comment about this show or suggestion for a future guests, please email us at Texas talk@klrn.org.

Until next time, I'm Nora Lopez.