Courting the Asian-American Vote

I really hate the paradigm of the “hyphenated American”. And I really hate talking about race and politics in such limiting terms. And in an election year where we are debating whether or not a certain presidential candidate will take us into a “post-racial” era (as Matt Bai talks about in the next NYT Magazine), any discussion about how one tries to appeal to different ethnic communities seems to be both very silly and very relevant at the same time.

But Megan Shank of Newsweek wrote one of the first pieces of this cycle on the mystery of the Asian-American voter, and more importantly the mystery of the Asian-American non-voter; as Shank describes, “both naturalized and U.S.-born Asian Americans have lower rates of voter registration than do non-Asians.” As an "American citizen of Korean descent" (that’s my way of getting rid of the hyphen), I felt compelled this one time to respond and really start a discussion about what makes Asian-Americans tick.

Now, what I am about to opine on comes from a combination of life experience being raised by Korean immigrants, my limited experience of dealing with Asian communities around the nation, and maybe some bald assertions about what Asian-Americans care about.

(Sidenote on the title of Shank’s article: it’s “Crouching Voter, Hidden Direction.” Some might find that offensive. I find it hilarious.)

Shank starts out by describing the potential demographics:

“Their numbers might be small compared to other ethnic groups—only 5 percent of the total population—but they’ve been growing nine to 10 times faster than the general population, according to the U.S. Bureau of the Census. That could swing the ballot in key states, according to ‘Awakening the Sleeping Giants?,’ a recent report by researchers at UCLA.”

But it seems as though Shank assumes that larger and growing numbers will automatically lead into some sort of political power. Nothing could be further from the truth. First, the netroots of the Left and the extremist environmentalist movement have shown that a small group only needs very good organizational skills to make an impact. Furthermore, it seems that different ethnic groups have different senses of where “community” lies in their list of priorities. It is obvious that African-American and Latino-American citizens place community about as high they do family. From my experience, this is not true for Asian-Americans. The reason one probably does not see large organized political movements from Asian-Americans is that they place family as the highest priority, far above any other item. Pride in being Chinese, Korean, or Thai ranks far less than the pride in being part of your family. Succeed, and you bring blessings to your family; fail, and you bring shame.

In that light, if any candidate and any party want to court the Asian vote, “family first” should be the two words used in any policy item. Conservatives can put families first by demanding accountability in education. Conservatives can put families first by making our streets safer for our children to walk on. Conservatives can put families first by making sure there are jobs that can provide for families.

Shank brought up further analysis from the California Democratic primary results, mentioning that Hillary Clinton won 71% of the Asian-American vote, which was 12% of the state’s electorate.

“Clinton likely resonated with Asian American voters in part because she worked within cultural norms, giving ‘face,’ or respect, to their communities and working through what Chinese refer to as ‘guanxi,’ or connections. ‘We felt loyal to Hillary and guilty when she lost,’ says John Liu, New York’s first Asian American city councilman.”

“Chris Wang, director of the Queens Nan-shan Senior Center, which operates under the auspices of the Chinese-American Planning Council, says the center’s 4,000 naturalized citizen members don't vote based on a candidate’s platform as much as on whether ‘that candidate has spoken directly to them and recognized their validity as citizens.’”

If Shank is right, it’s refreshing to know that Asian-Americans respond well to retail politics. (Side question: Have Republicans been historically better than Democrats at retail politics or not?) The problem here is that because there is relatively very little community organization among Asian-Americans compared to other ethnicities, it might be seen as inefficient for any candidate or party to reach out to that community.

But one thing is for sure: there are a lot of Asian-American small business owners. And I’m not only talking about the specialty Asian grocery stores and Chinese restaurants and Sushi bars in small towns. There are small businesses like banks, insurance companies, and other service-oriented industries that cater to specific ethnic groups in large cities, like Los Angeles. (Take a drive down Olympic Boulevard, and look at the billboards advertising Korean personal injury lawyers.) The message to these small business owners has to be about “freedom”. Conservatives cherish the freedoms that Asian-Americans sought when they immigrated here, the freedom to start their own business without government getting in the way too much. Conservatives will fight for the freedoms to do what you want with most of your money, instead of liberals who want to raise the corporate income and self-employed income taxes. (If anybody wants to spread a pro-business message to these groups, the best GOTV operations I’ve seen have crossed business license lists with voter registration lists.)

The best observation that Shank provides is the irony that Asian-Americans do not want to participate in politics for overtly political reasons.

“There are more insidious psychological obstacles. Coming from nations where democratic engagement has been actively discouraged or eliminated, where politics has wrecked fortunes and ruined families, many Asian American voters remain reluctant to get involved.”

This is very true for the generation that immigrated here. But what about the 2nd and 3rd generation Americans of Asian descent? The two states where we see large groups of grown American-born citizens of Asian ancestry is Hawaii and California. I would say that some of them have decided to become involved because they have embraced their parents’ decision to assimilate in a political fashion. Others have decided to continue to not be involved because they have embraced their parents’ decision to only assimilate in an economic fashion. Shank mentions the uptick in Asian youth being involved in politics, but what is going to make them tick?

I mentioned in a previous post that we have to start identifying new voters who have registered this cycle and last cycle, Asian-Americans included. It is still a mystery to me as to how to get more Asian-Americans registered to vote. Maybe it will take a leader within that community to essentially go door-to-door to Asian businessmen and businesswomen to get people to sign up. Shank seemed impressed by the fact that Obama campaign “clearly recognizes the need to reach out to the Asian American community.” I visited his Asian-American website, and clicked on his Asian-American agenda document. It focused on education, the economy, health care, immigration, and protecting home ownership of all things. But once again I felt bothered.

When I ran for the state legislature two years ago, I met with a group that represented part of the Korean community. One of the members asked me straight up: “We don’t feel that you’re Korean enough. What are you going to do to ensure that you will be engaged in Korean issues?” Korean enough? Korean issues? Really? Something else that bothered me was a poll that we ran where we asked would you be more likely or less likely to vote for a candidate if he were an Asian-American. The results: 70% no change, 5% less likely, and 25% more likely. 1 in 4 voters said that they would be more likely to vote for me just because of the way I looked. Unsurprisingly, nearly 80% of those who said “more likely” were self-identified as “somewhat liberal” to “very liberal.”

So I guess I’ll end where I started, with my peeve when it comes the intersection of race and politics. I understand that it’s a discussion that needs to be had. If there’s one thing that Asian-Americans want, it’s respect, and as Shank describes, a validation of their citizenship. I often tell folks that the reason I am a Republican is that the Left is interested in what I can contribute as a Korean-American or Asian-American; the Right is simply interested in what I can contribute as an American.

If we talk about family and freedom, and if we start working hard to identify voters, this is a voting bloc that we can win over. But it’s a voting bloc that would rather not be treated as a bloc.

Discussion and disagreement are always welcome.