Candidate for
Member of the State Assembly; District 16

Audie Elizabeth Bock was elected to the 16th District seat of the California State Assembly on March 30, 1999. She is the only Independent in California's legislature. Assemblymember Bock is a lifelong resident of Alameda County, educated through the Berkeley public school system. She holds a Certificate in Non-Profit Management, Executive Director, from the University of San Francisco; an M.A. from Harvard University in East Asian Studies; and a B.A. from Wellesley College in French. She is trilingual in French, Japanese, and English.

The granddaughter of Austrian educators and American Baptist missionaries to Japan, Assemblymember Bock has dedicated much of her life to the study of East Asia. In 1976, she was awarded the Fullbright Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowship to study in Japan. While in Japan, Ms. Bock became involved in Japanese cinema. She was film director Akira Kurosawa's official translator in the United States and translated live for him in 1990 at the 63rd Annual Academy Awards Ceremony as he accepted a Lifelong Achievement Oscar. A motion picture distributor and a writer, Ms. Bock also authored several books including a translation of Akira Kurosawa's memoirs and a textbook on renowned Japanese filmmakers.

After completing her master's and doctoral research in Japan, Assemblymember Bock went on to teach at Harvard University and Yale University, after which she returned to Alameda County to teach at U.C. Berkeley. Since then, Ms. Bock has taught at U.C. Santa Cruz and the University of Washington, Seattle. Since 1995, Ms. Bock has taught in Ethnic Studies Departments of the Peralta Community College District in Oakland, mostly at Laney College.

Ms. Bock is a member of the Assembly Judiciary Committee, the Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials Committee, the Human Services Committee, and the International Trade and Development Committee. In addition, she is Vice Chair of the Select Committee on Low Performing Schools and a member of the Select Committee on Adolescence and the Select Committee on California Ports.

As the single parent of a school-age child, Assemblymember Bock has a strong commitment to public education. As a graduate of the California public school system, Ms. Bock remembers the quality of education that a student could once obtain in the state and is committed to restoring California's educational system to what it once was. Redirecting school funding from the bureaucracy to the classroom and attracting and retaining qualified teachers are just two of the ways in which this goal can be accomplished.

Assemblymember Bock is also a proponent of universal health care. Currently, over seven million Californians are without any form of health care insurance. Ms. Bock believes all Californians are entitled to primary health care services that are easily accessible in their own neighborhoods. Consequently, she advocates for the expansion of the number of neighborhood clinics and the restoration of full-time nurses for every public school.

"Healthy people are part of a healthy environment," Bock asserts. "The social costs of harming the environment are too high to endure any longer." Assemblymember Bock supports a legislative agenda that aggressively addresses the continued decline of our environment. Ms. Bock has been actively involved with citizens groups, industries, and state agencies in working to reduce the pollutants affecting San Francisco Bay's air, water, and surrounding communities.

Assemblymember Bock lives in Piedmont with her 16-year-old daughter, Felicia Marie.