According to a report released by the Pew Research Center on May 7, the number of eligible Asian voters in the 2020 election has reached an all-time high. In the past 20 years, the number of Asian American voters has surged by 139%. Compared with all other major ethnic groups, Asian Americans have become the fastest-growing group of qualified voters. It is reasonable to say that Asian Americans should be the target of the two parties because, in concept, Asian Americans can not only agree with the Republican Party’s belief of paying attention to family values and encouraging individual efforts but also like the Democratic Party’s policy of taking care of vulnerable groups by the government. They belong to voters who can swing on both sides. However, in the national election of the presidential election, few candidates specially visit the Asian American community to curry favor with each other.
Although the population of Asian Americans is growing rapidly, about two-thirds of Asian Americans in New York state have never received active contact from political parties, and they are still facing the dilemma of a small number of Asian representatives, poverty, inadequate census, insufficient educational resources, lack of psychological or hepatitis B medical resources. As a minority group, Asian Americans are also ignored by government departments. Hope to measure the reality of the community through accurate data, in order to develop programs to deal with the plight of the community.
Christine Chen, executive director of the Asia Pacific vote, a non-profit group, said the group has accumulated enough influence to have a profound impact in some ethnic and swing constituencies. Although Asian voters are diverse, the vast majority of them are made up of six groups of origin – Chinese, Filipino, Indian, Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese. What makes these eligible voters unique is that they are the only group with a majority of naturalized immigrants. Another prominent feature of this group of voters is that about 71% of them speak English at home, or say they speak English “very well”, which is lower than that of all other major ethnic groups. However, if we continue to classify, the proficiency of English varies greatly among different ethnic groups. 91% of Japanese say they speak English “very well”, but less than half of Burmese say so. Therefore, in terms of political participation, due to the lack of election information in the mother tongue, there are not many activities to contact Asian voters. In 2018, apiavote contacted some Vietnamese voters in Orange County, California with limited English proficiency before the election. They want to vote, but they don’t know who’s running, and obviously, no party has contacted them.
Apiavote pointed out that there is still a lack of investment in community organizations and non-profit organizations of Asian Pacific descent with citizen participation. In the past 10 years, Asia Pacific non-profit organizations have only begun to have funds to implement the voter participation program. Compared with other communities, investment in Asian communities is still very low.
Asian American legal defense and Education Fund Fund (AALDEF) once said: that the voting situation of Asian Americans is always ignored by the mainstream media, so it is directly classified as “other categories” in many ethnic analyses. This gives politicians and society a bad impression that Asian Americans do not actively vote. The alternative label directly affects the degree of concern of elected officials for the needs of Asian communities. When Asian Americans vote, they also encounter many difficulties and obstacles that are rare to other ethnic groups. AALDEF received complaints from Asian voters, including lack of on-site translation and translated election materials, misspelled or recorded names, being required to provide US citizenship certificate or multiple identity documents, differential treatment or wrong information provided by polling station staff, and being led to the wrong voting place. These problems directly affect the voting experience of Asian voters, some of whom may no longer participate in the voting because of their bad experiences.
As for the just-concluded U.S. election, Nelson’s report cited another Asian American voter survey in 2020 led by the Apia vote. Half of the Asian American voters had no contact with any major political party before election day. This includes: not using the language most suitable for Asian Americans to communicate with them, and using applications for messaging.
Restricted contact from both partisan and non-partisan undoubtedly accounts for Asian Americans’ inactivity in political participation. According to the National Asian American Survey, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders were less likely than Whites or Blacks to be contacted by political parties. While more than 40% of respondents who are Whites or Blacks affirm that they have been reached out to by political parties, only 29% of Asian Americans have the same experiences. The variation also exists in the engagement between non-partisan organizations and different racial groups. The limited outreach to the community in political campaigns does not correspond with the rapid growth of Asian American population.
Except for the lack of contact from the campaigns, barriers to voter registration have been another obstacle for Asian Americans to participate in elections. In the 2016 presidential election, thousands of voter registrations from Asian American applicants in Georgia were rejected due to the slight mismatch between their names and spelling on other identification forms. Further, many less-educated Asian Americans are stroked by the language requirement of voting by mail, worrying about the potential confusion. Others may face unreasonable discrimination because of their minority identity. For example, a statute in Louisiana required foreign-born citizens to submit proof of citizenship to register to vote. This unequal statute that targeted naturalized immigrants was finally repealed after advocates filed a lawsuit. Some of these barriers arise from cultural differences, however, they enhance the disparity between ethnic minority citizens and other groups.
From the candidates’ perspective, similar challenges exist. According to National Public Radio, 99 Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are running for federal offices in 2020, compared to 48 in the 2018 midterm elections. Even though 2020 has marked a record number of Asian American candidates running for political positions, these candidates are facing anti-Asian racism because of COVID-19.
In 2018, Harvard Business Review has published the article Asian Americans Are the Least Likely Group in the U.S. to Be Promoted to Management. This article has examined the Silicon Valley tech companies to reach the conclusion that Asian Americans are less likely to be promoted to top management, and the authors suggested that this also happens in other industries. (Buck Gee and Denise Peck, 2018 ) Asian Americans are usually stereotyped as good workers, but not good leaders, according to Dr. Anthony Ocampo, a sociology professor at Cal Poly Pomona. (Kimmy Yam, NBC news, 2020) Asian American is less interested in running for political positions compared to other races, and that’s why Andrew Yang’s presidential campaign marked the historic moment that the first-ever Asian American man running for president, and has shown the possibility that Asian American can pursue the highest position in the U.S. politics.
The good news is that Asian American youth are shown to be more actively engaged in politics. Teenagers are using social media platforms to engage in political campaigns and initiate political discussions with their parents, especially first-generation immigrants. They actively volunteer for political campaigns and encourage the members of their communities to vote. Organizations such as APIAVote support Asian American teenagers to be involved in politics and organize conferences nationwide to help Asian American youth gain a habit of voting, as well as encourage young Asian Americans to explore a career in the public sector.
Nevertheless, the lack of Asian Americans among voters is still a problem that requires to be addressed immediately. There are several solutions that can be potentially effective in increasing the number of politically active members of the Asian American community if they are implemented properly, taking into consideration all the important aspects. The first one is erasing all of the existing barriers to voting, especially in the area of equal access to information for people who do not speak English or experience difficulty communicating in it. According to the Voting Rights Act, some jurisdictions and counties are required to provide voting materials in the languages of minorities who live there (“Language,” n.d.). Moreover, there is also a law that states that a person can invite another individual to assist them in the voting booth. Yet, many people are not informed about these rights and thus do not participate in an election, fearing that they will not understand the rule of the procedure.
Additionally, as was mentioned before, both Democratic and Republican parties are not attempting to actively engage with Asian Americans and, as a result missing a large number of potential voters. These parties have to develop clear strategies which would consider the cultural aspects of each community and would involve distributing information in the language most appropriate for the people who live there. It is clear that not all Asian Americans can speak English very well, but it does not stop them from sharing the same values promoted either by Democrats or the GOP. The parties may establish departments that would target specifically Asian Americans and hire professionals who possess cultural proficiency and can speak with the potential voters in a language they understand.
Finally, the low turnout among Asian American voters may also be attributed to voter suppression and issues concerning registration procedures. For example, in 2016, thousands of Asian Americans were rejected registration by the state of Georgia simply because their names in the registration applications differed from those present in their identification documents. This occurred because their names were translated according to different romanization systems (Chen, 2018). Such situations are not rare and happen as a result of institutionalized problems and need to be resolved by updating the existing laws and registration rules. Language is once again the most significant barrier which can be overcome by introducing innovative solutions which reflect the needs of the voters. One of the possible ways to fix the issue of voter suppression among Asian Americans and other ethnic minority groups is the system of automatic voter registration. It would not require citizens to fill in any forms to receive a chance to vote and instead would make them eligible to vote without any additional prerequisites.
Despite growing in numbers, Asian Americans still remain a demographic which does not vote at the same rate as other ethnic groups, especially White Americans. The data on young Asian Americans shows that the new generations are more likely to participate in the election process, yet there is still a substantial portion of the population that does not engage in the political sphere. There are several solutions that can be proposed to encourage more Asian Americans to vote and be active in this sphere. The most apparent one implies that Asian Americans must receive information about elections and candidates in their native language. Moreover, they have to be given voting forms in the language most suitable for them or be assisted by a professional or family members. Political parties have to introduce strategies for promoting themselves among Asian American voters and hire people who are familiar with the culture of this demographic. Finally, Asian Americans must be granted an equal right to participate in elections without facing any voter suppression. This can be done by implementing automatic voter registration, which would remove the bureaucratic barriers currently preventing people from voting.
References
Chen, A. (2018). A snapshot of how Asian-Americans are changing the south. The Huffington Post. Web.
Language rights in voting. (n.d.). Asian Americans Advancing Justice. Web.