Politicians Are Finally Paying Attention To Asian-American Voters — But Will It Be Enough To Earn Their Votes?

For as long as I can remember, my hometown of Yorba Linda, California, was something of a Republican haven. Former President Ronald Reagan himself once said “all good Republicans go to die” in Orange County. He was place on Earth and raised right in my district, CA-39.


As soon as we first moved to Yorba Linda over 15 years prior, most of them of our neighbors were white; today, most of the households on our street are Asian-American families. Between 2000 and 2018, the variety of Asian-American people residing in the area grew from 11 percent to 18.5 percent, and that has coincided with how the district votes. There really are currently more registered Democrats than Republicans in the county, and two years back, key Republican districts in Orange County flipped blue: Gil Cisneros, Katie Porter, and Harley Rouda were among the Democrats who beat out their Republican adversaries on platforms that touted public safety, health care, and tax reform.


I wasn’t surprised. Young Asian-Americans from the 1.5 and newer generations usually are more liberal than our first-generation parents and grandparents, who understandably prioritized economic survival. My family member immigrated To the
U.S. Any time Once I was 5, and my parents threw their all into setting up my dad’s new dental organization inside of the American system and making sure I was on the path to get into a good college. As young Asian-Americans carve out our own lives in a precarious economy, several of us have an invested interest in the multitude of issues impacting our everyday lives.


Asian-Americans constitute 5.6 percent of the total U.S. Population, although we’re also the fastest growing minority order. More of us are turning out to the polls every year, and politicians are finally taking our votes seriously, as they should have all along.


Take California. For the opening time in its history, the state will hold its primary on the opening Tuesday in in March — also referred to as Super Tuesday — as a substitute opposed to months later in June. Asian-American comprise 16 percent of eligible voters in California, the hugest bloc of any state in the nation. And in a race in which momentum is a key factor in determining a candidate’s so-called electability, campaigns looking to the young Asian-American population. Simply put, these voters could help determine how California’s whopping 495 delegates are distributed among viable candidates.


in the event you ask these voters what issues they care about, you’ll get a span of answers, like health care and immigration, especially given that around 1.7 million undocumented people in the U.S. Are Asian. As soon as it comes to the government, according to Pew Statistics Center, 55 percent of Asian-American respondents prefer a big government with more social services, like Medicare for All; by contrast, only 39 percent of the general public feels the same way.


“I think [my parents] lean a little more conservative, although most of their social values align with the Democratic Party,” Steve Kang, the vice president of the Korean American Federation of Los Angeles (KAFLA), told MTV News. By contrast he is “more aligned to the Democratic Party.” That is indicative of a larger trend: Millennials and members of Generation Z have also grown more progressive across the political spectrum, although up to 44 percent of Asian-Americans are not formally affiliated with any political party, a slightly higher percentage than the 39 percent of the total population who call themselves independents.


Because campaigns can’t afford to disregard or take for granted the votes of young Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders any longer, several California-based nonpartisan groups, like VietRise and KAFLA, and also because the local branches of the Democratic and Republican parties, are working to elevate their legislative power. Like most outreach groups, they concentrate on phone banking, door-to-door knocking, and other targeted messaging with an emphasis on offering intelligence in a multitude of languages. There’s also a push to recruit volunteers and personnel from inside the community.


“There are good things happening and not so good things happening,” Representative Ted Lieu, one of 20 Asian-American politicians in Congress, told MTV News. “The Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus is the biggest in U.S. History.” Nevertheless representation isn’t everywhere: He pointed to the fact that there really are currently no Asian-American Supreme Court Justices on the bench as just one example of where there really is still work to be done.Both the Orange County GOP and Democratic offices are staffed by or actively recruiting young Asian-Americans to work alongside more tenured politicos and make their voices heard in the decision-making process. And so they have representation in positions of power — Young Kim, who is Korean-American, is running for Congress as a Republican; and 24-year-old Catt Phan, who is Vietnamese-American, is a full-time organizer at the California Democratic Party in Orange County.


“It’s my place to prepare ensure that any time [young voters] are looking for a space, the space we allocate is safe,” Phan told MTV News. “We’re not closing the door on anyone who wants to have a conversation with us.”


I’ll admit: A piece of me feels pissed off it took this long for the political establishment to pay so much attention to voters like me, especially right after years of feeling isolated by the system. Asian-Americans have long been subject to persecution in the nation, between the concentration camps that forcefully interred Japanese-Americans soon after Pearl Harbor; the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 that temporarily suspended Chinese immigration; and the media’s demonization of Korean-Americans right following the Los Angeles riots of 1992. Up until 1952, Asian people couldn’t even become American citizens.


Nevertheless it’s also affirming to be able to see systemic changes that empower us — and other marginalized groups across racial and ethnic backgrounds. Any change matters, especially given that political structures also often disenfranchise susceptible voters in a task to preserve a white-majority status quo. However because the idea who takes up most of them changes across the nation, those systems are slowly being dismantled. It’s essential that campaigns find ways to connect with people of all identities and the issues that matter to them.


“I like to mention that in the event you move the Asian-American family member forward, you move the American family member forward,” Rep. Lieu mentioned. “They’re identical issues.”