By Mateen Kaul
American Muslims in Fremont backed Senator Barack Obama’s push for the Presidency, but not his advice to vote no on Prop 8.

By Adelaide Chen
Four generations of the Moal family have had an auto business on East 12th Street since 1946. Since then, two major changes have taken place. The company now specializes in building custom cars, and the area is no longer zoned for industrial use.

Chinese immigrants presented Kung Fu and Lion Dancing performances in a flag-raising ceremony in front of Oakland’s City Hall to mark China’s National Day on October 1.  Click on the photo to play the slideshow.

By Will Jason
New estimates released Nov 7 show the Presidential election may have set a 36-year record for the rate of youth voter turnout. And the University of California, Berkeley appears to be one of the top contributors to that record among the nation’s college campuses, according to registration statistics and interviews.
Up to 53 percent of eligible young voters—ages 18 to 29—took part in the Nov 4 election, according to estimates from the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE). They favored the winner, Barack Obama, …

Reported by Tyler Sipe and Karen Weise using Federal Election Commission filings database between Jan. 1 to Sept. 30, 2008.
Graphic by Weise
Biographies by Sipe
Fremont residents donated about $739,809 to various political campaigns during 2008, according to newsmeat.com.  Fremont zip code 94539 contributed the most to political campaigns, amounting to $337,610, according to the Web site.  Below is a list of short biographies of Fremont’s top 10 political campaign contributors, in addition to where their money flowed.

By Angela Kilduff
Like any superhero, mystery surrounds the true identity of the Vagina Lady. She makes appearances at Bay Area events wearing a cape and a plush, pink vagina costume nearly as tall as she is. Even among the unusual characters San Francisco is known for, she stands out in a crowd.
In her other life, Julie Vanadis, 30, is a writer and editor. Her co-workers don’t know about the character she plays, so she uses an alternate last name in interviews.  She prefers to keep her personal life and role …

By Karen Weise
Even for S&M fans, the pain of the current economy can be too much.
At last weekend’s Exotic Erotic Expo and Ball, a tradeshow and party billed as a “Celebration of Flesh, Fetish, and Fantasy,” small adult entertainment businesses said they are facing bleak balance sheets, with declines in customer spending and decreased access to credit for their own businesses.
Sitting behind a display of vacuum pumps for penis enlargement and erectile dysfunction, Dr. Joel Kaplan bemoaned the downturn his business has faced this past year. Kaplan said his regular …

High School Junior Andrea Shyu did not even know who the mayor of Fremont was before signing up to volunteer for his re-election campaign. Now, the 16-year-old spends up to eight hours a week canvassing door-to-door and putting up lawn signs.
Shyu is one of 130 students Mayor Bob Wasserman’s campaign recruited from high school classrooms and at school activities fairs. The campaign offered students like Shyu community service credit, an “intern” title for their resumes and college recommendation letters. While this all seemed like simply offering students campaign experience and …

By Guo Shipeng
Li Zhijian was a millionaire in local currency terms before he emigrated to Oakland from the southern Chinese province of Guangdong in June.
Like many fresh immigrants in  Chinatown who come to America for a better life but are overwhelmed by cultural and social differences, the 45-year-old former construction contractor is struggling with elementary English classes in an adult school in the hope that he could find a paying job soon.

By Mateen Kaul
People dressed in traditional Indian clothes celebrated Diwali with food, music and prayers at Fremont’s Hindu Temple on Saturday night, October 25.