LOW PROFILE The Minority of Minorities

A 10TH-FLOOR CORNER OFFICE in far North Dallas provides a magnificent view of the city. The noonday sun streams through the glass and calls attention to pictures of President Bush and former President Reagan, each posed with a confident-looking man.

The photographs stand conspicuously on the shelves pushed against the wall. On a round table, a stack of message slips, open books, and papers wait to be read. On a desk facing the windows, the telephone lights up with calls from Taiwan and Hong Kong.

The man who takes the calls is Robert Hsueh, 40. director of the international and immigration law section at Smith & Underwood. Hsueh (pronounced Shoo) shuttles to and from Taiwan. Hong Kong, and Korea, bridging the investment goals of American and Asian entrepreneurs.

Hsueh also has immersed himself in politics-with a new role as incoming national chairman of the Asian American Voters Coalition.

He did not plan on such a life. Following in the footsteps of his sister, who came to the U.S. to study, Hsueh started at Southern Methodist University’s School of Law in 1975. The dean of Soochow University, one of Taiwan’s best in the field of Anglo-American law, had recommended it.

Hsueh had no intentions of building a career here. After all, with a father who was a lieutenant general and an uncle who was a four-star general in Chiang Kai-Shek’s army, Hsueh grew up well connected in Taiwan.

At SMU, Hsueh found himself drawn to issues that concerned Chinese students and, later, to those affecting the larger Asian community. As president of the Chinese Student Association, which had about 50 members then, he organized picnics where Chinese law students offered free legal consultation, mainly to Chinese immigrants.

Gradually, Hsuch realized Asian-Americans needed to band together, to be a part of mainstream politics.

“I felt they had been done injury to or taken advantage of because of their ignorance of the law in this country,” says Hsueh. He remembers the story of a retired major of the Vietnamese army who immigrated to Dallas with his family. The man disciplined a daughter who came home at 2 a.m. by beating her. The marks left on her body were noticed by her teacher, who reported the incident. This led to arrest and a day in jail for the lather. Feeling disgraced, he committed suicide the day after his release.

But Hsueh had no plans of tackling such problems himself, Even after his parents’ move here, even after graduation, even after getting his green card, Robert Hsueh dismissed thoughts of becoming an American citizen. He feared he would offend his father. The worry was unnecessary. In 1982. Hsueh, his father, and mother became American citizens.

The political plate in Dallas had already begun to sizzle, but Asian-Americans were nowhere near the table. In 1984, Hsueh became the first chairman of the Texas chapter of the Asian American Voters Coalition, an umbrella organization for Filipinos, Laotians. Vietnamese, Indians. Koreans, Thais, and Chinese. The 50,000 or so Asian-Americans in the Metroplex faced several problems: low voter participation, lack of experience in local political circles, and insufficient access to policy-making positions and processes.

Urging complacent and indifferent Asian-Americans to become more involved has become almost an obsession for Hsueh. The Asian-American Leadership Conference, the National Republican Asian Assembly, the Center for Non-profit Management, the 1990 National Census Advisory Committee on Asian & Pacific Islander Populations- all now get his attention.

And his optimism is at its peak. He says the more than 150,000 Asian-Americans now in the Metroplex (319,000 in Texas according to the latest census) will be visible during the November mayoral and city council elections. “We will be the swing vote,” he insists.

Asian community leaders will endorse the candidates-liberal or conservative-whom they perceive to be most sensitive to their concerns, Hsueh says. The endorsement will follow a forum to be held in early October. The coalition also will push the federal government to enclose registration cards in the naturalized citizen packet. Hsueh says.

Despite the deep divisions that plague some Asian communities, Hsueh says he is confident Asian-Americans will come together. He is unperturbed by criticism from some Dallas Chinese-American leaders who say, off the record, that there is no respect for him.

“They want me to serve Chinese community interests only,” Hsueh says. Other Asians praise his leadership, saying the detractors resent Hsueh’s time in the limelight.

When he has that limelight, Hsueh talks about the covert discrimination Asian-Americans have faced in Dallas. “It is not apparent. But you can feel and sense it. It’s like they see me but they don’t.”

He cites a Greater Dallas Community Relations Commission preliminary report on low-income housing that omitted Asian-Americans. Those who prepared the 1985 report only had to look at the East Dallas apartments and other refugee settlements to find them, he says.

“My dream is for Asian-Americans to be able to bring their values and good points here to help this country… I want to help Asian-Americans attain the political, economic, and social statuses they deserve in this country.”

The isolation of Asian-Americans has exacted high political costs. While Hispanic and African-American leaders are reaping the fruits of their aggressiveness, Asian-Americans are only starting out. For instance, the recent settlement of the 14-1 issue is “less an advantage” to the Asian community than the 10-4-1 plan, says Hsueh. Because Asians are scattered across Dallas- and the Metroplex-no single city district can have a majority of Asian-Americans.

The redistricting issue has soured relationships between Asian-Americans and the African-American leadership. At a Citizens Charter Review Committee hearing, Hsueh was told by Councilman Al Lipscomb to go home where he belonged. Hsueh says, “They tell us to go home, they forget this is our home. too. They also forget that just like us. they came from a different continent.”

But 14-1 is a given Hsueh can live with. “I hope that the majority in (he single-member districts also listens to the minority of minorities, the Asians.”

Hsueh also believes that his community’s feelings against African-Americans could be erased by a regular forum that he is willing to initiate. Such meetings would eliminate misunderstandings and stereotyping, and pave the way for renewed cooperation.

Rather than citing the usual melting pot analogy. Hsueh offers his own theory. “We are more like a salad bowl-we jump in as lettuce and we still remain as lettuce, but we can mix together with the other salad ingredients and make the salad taste better.”

He summons up another analogy to explain why he won’t turn back from his goal.

“An old Chinese saying says that when the leaves fall from a tree, they will go back to their roots. There is a new way of saying it. When the leaves fall, in that place where they fell will grow a new tree.”