He is a 6-foot-5 American Indian. She is a 5-foot-4 Chinese American. He is a firefighter. She is a politician. He lives in Southern California. She spends most of the week in Sacramento. And they have not spent more than three days together during the 1 1/2 years they've dated except for one vacation shortly after they met.
From the outside, it's hard to imagine how Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, D-San Francisco, and Jason Hodge, political director of the Ventura County Professional Firefighters Association, not only fell in love, but surmounted cultural, professional and logistical differences aplenty and tied the knot Nov. 11 (repeating their vows at a bash for family and friends Nov. 12).
From the inside, it was easy.
"We never argue, we agree on the same things, and we have the same passions - and passionate debates without attacks," Hodge said.
"It's nice to have someone you can talk to about your world and your life and you don't have to explain what you did all day, or why you're going to be home late or get up early," said Ma, who says she works 16 hours a day. "There's never a time when he says, 'Why do we have to go?' or 'Who are we going to talk to?' We both love people."
The pair met at the state Democratic Convention in Los Angeles in April 2010. Ma was at a VIP reception hosted by her boss, Assembly Speaker John Pérez. Hodge was attending the same reception with a friend, Kelly Calkin, then the political director of California Professional Firefighters, and a mutual friend of Ma's.
Hodge remembered thinking Ma was attractive, energetic and charismatic - and wanting to ask her for a date. Calkin remembered thinking that personally, a date wasn't a bad idea, but that professionally, it could spell trouble if things didn't work out.
Ma didn't even remember meeting Hodge that night.
The next night was a different story. "Everywhere I turned, he was standing there next to me," Ma said of Hodge. "He was on a quest."
They went dancing with a group of conventioneers and after midnight, parted ways. He texted her the next morning to say he had had a nice time. "Me too," she replied. "If you're ever in San Francisco or Sacramento, call me."
Hodge liked strong women and found himself charmed; he called her within days. Their next get-together was at a firefighters convention in San Diego a few weeks later, capped by an overnight on Catalina Island.
Three months after they met, they took a 10-day trip to Iceland to watch the girlfriend of one of Ma's colleagues play in a professional soccer match. On one of his visits to San Francisco, Hodge, a poetry buff, asked to visit City Lights bookstore, co-founded by beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Ma did one better: She arranged for a coffee and introduced Hodge to Ferlinghetti himself.
About seven months after they'd met, Ma proposed that Hodge accompany her on a political trip to Shanghai. He did, and one night as they walked the city's streets, made a proposal of his own: marriage. The long-distance couple hopes to spend more time together in the future - Hodge is running for state Assembly in 2012 and if elected, would be able to live with his wife in Sacramento during the workweek.
On 11/11/11, California Democratic Party Chairman John Burton, a longtime mentor of Ma's, married the couple in a private ceremony at Ma's home. The couple repeated their vows before co-officiants Bruce Macrae and Assembly Speaker Pérez, the bride's parents, William and Sophia Ma; the groom's parents, Hawk Hodge of Oxnard and Linda Millstad of Tennessee; and 350 friends at a Western-themed party at Long Branch Farms in Half Moon Bay. Ma has served for the past three years on the state's Agriculture Committee and rides horses on range tours.
That is partly why the couple opted for a down-home Texas barbecue where guests could wear jeans, ride mechanical bulls and participate in charitable fundraising poker games in the "saloon" rather than a dress-up affair in a hotel.
"We don't concern ourselves with fancy accoutrements - that's not us," said Hodge, allowing for one exception - the borrowed, 75-year-old native feathered American Indian headdress he wore in a nod to his Cherokee heritage.
"In the past, the guys Fiona dated tended to be intimidated by her or people around her," said longtime friend Alexis Wong. "Jason brings a sense of harmony. She's comfortable doing what she wants to do because he is supportive and understanding."
"Fiona," said the bride's beaming father, "has never been happier."
