John Choe
20th Council District - Queens
John has spent his whole life fighting for everyday New Yorkers, as a community activist for racial justice and affordable housing, advocating for language laws as the Chief of Staff to John Liu, and current non-profit leader helping immigrant small businesses.
John was born in South Korea and immigrated to New York as a teenager. When they immigrated to New York, his father was an auto mechanic, and his mother was a seamstress. Like many immigrant families in District 20, they worked hard to earn a living and eventually started a grocery store.
John went to SUNY Binghamton and then earned his Masters in Public Policy at the University of Chicago. He was also a post-graduate Fellow in Public Affairs at the Coro New York Leadership Center. Currently, he is an adjunct professor at Queens College in NYC.
John first served the Flushing community by working for John Liu, former City Councilman and current NY State Senator. When Councilmember Julia Harrison made racist comments towards her Asian constituents in 1996, John organized protests in District 20 and City Hall. This experience led him to campaign for John Liu, who became the first Asian American elected to the NYC Council in 2001. John served as Councilmember Liu’s Chief of Staff, organizing campaigns against social injustice and fighting for legislation like NYC’s first language access law.
In 2007, John created the Flushing Interfaith Council to promote religious tolerance for all communities. In 2014, John transformed the One Flushing project into the Greater Flushing Chamber of Commerce, a non-profit that supports small businesses in Flushing. John has been running it for over seven years.
When the Chamber joined the Flushing for Equitable Development & Urban Planning (FEDUP) Coalition, John organized alongside other community organizations against gentrification, the process in which poor people are forced out of their neighborhoods. Today, he continues to fight for residents and small business owners who are being displaced by skyrocketing rents and luxury developers. He is also an adjunct in CUNY Queens College.
COVID-19 heightened issues in District 20. Many long-time small businesses have shuttered. Thousands of people line up in the streets of downtown Flushing every week for food. Anti-Asian hate crimes are rising and the City continues to fund a racist institution that has taken too many Black lives.
District 20 community members deserve better. That’s why John is running for City Council—to put everyday people first, with solutions that are long overdue.