The Political Participation of Asian Americans

Voting Behavior in Southern California

Pei-te Lien

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781317776925
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Despite the size and relative prosperity of the Asian American ethnic population, the participation of Asian Americans in electoral politics has been low. This study explores the relationship between ethnic identity and political participation on three levels-between the four major racial/ethnic groups of the American nation, inside the multi-ethnic Asian American population, and within a specific Asian American ethnic group (Koreans).
Empirical analysis of surveys dealing with ethnic identity, experience, and voting behavior reveals the complexity of Asian American identities and the importance of both positive and negative experiences in shaping political participation. While, in general, individuals of Asian descent tend to participate less in electoral politics, the political involvement of those with a stronger sense of pan-Asian or specific ethnic identity are more complex. Political participation can be increased by a greater sense of group consciousness and identification of interests with either the panethnic group or a specific ethnic group. Most importantly, the socio-political context shapes the impact of ethnicity on political participation. The experience of Korean Americans in southern California exemplifies this process-Koreans, often victimized by hate crimes, were politicized by the riots following the trial of LAPD officers in the Rodney King incident.
The study concludes with a discussion of the meaning of electoral participation and financial contributions for Asian Americans, and of the role of political parties, interest groups, and media in the mobilization of Asian Americans into mainstream politics.
(Ph.D. dissertation, University of Florida, 1995; revised with new preface, and foreword)

Chapter 1
Introduction

The Current Status: A Two-Tiered Picture

Although the first Asians arrived in present-day America long before the European immigrants,¹ Asian Pacific Americans (Asians, hereafter) have not been considered as a viable political force in the mainstream electoral politics until recent decades when changes in U. S, immigration policies and laws as well as economic, social, and political forces within and outside the United States converged to forge a new and accelerated era of Asian immigration (Daniels 1988; Takaki 1989; Chan 1991; Reimers 1992; Hing 1993; Ong, Bonacich, and Cheng 1994; Kitano and Daniels 1995). The 1990 Census provides some of the strongest evidence of the Asian emergence. The Asian and Pacific Islander population rose from 3.5 million to 7.3 million over the decade, with about 71% of the growth coming from immigration (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1993a). The Asian rate of increase of 108% between 1980 and 1990 was the fastest among all major U.S. groups. This rate was about twice that of Latinos, six times that of blacks, and 20 times that of non-Hispanic whites (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1993b). In five states (Hawaii, Maine, New Hampshire, North Dakota, and Vermont), the population of Asians equaled or outnumbered that of Latinos and blacks combined. It has been projected that if the current rate of growth holds—which is a likely scenario short of major changes in immigration policy and/or the global political economy—Asians will comprise about one-tenth of the nation's population by 2050 (Ong and Hee 1993).

In an electoral democracy where numbers count, this explosive increase in group size can be an indicator of the rising political power of Asian Americans. Moreover, the phenomenal growth of the Asian population has been accompanied by a remarkably high level of socioeconomic achievement in the aggregate. For instance, in March 1994, among persons aged 25 years old and over, the percentage of Asians with four or more years of college (41%) was almost twice the percentage of non-Hispanic whites (24%); their median family income of $49,510 among married couples was $4,270 higher than that of non-Hispanic white married couples in 1993 (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1995a).² Similar trends of Asian achievement were reported in a previous survey conducted in March 1991 (Bennett 1992). Most studies on American mass political participation often emphasize the defining impact of socioeconomic status—especially the role of education (e.g., Verba and Nie 1972; Milbrath and Goel 1977; Wolfinger and Rosenstone 1980; Conway 1991a). Judging from their high levels of education and family income, Americans of Asian origin would be expected to have high rates of participation in electoral politics.

In California, a state which accounts for 40% of the nation's Asian population, and particularly in Los Angeles County and its vicinity, home to the largest settlement of Asians in the mainland, the story of boom and prosperity is familiar. From 1980 to 1990, the state's Asian population grew from 1.3 million to 2.8 million with an increase rate of 128% (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1993c). It is projected that by 2020, Asians in California will number 8.5 million or about 20% of the state's population (Ong and Hee 1993). The percentage of persons aged 25 or over who had at least a bachelor's degree was higher for Asians (34%) than for non-Hispanic whites (28%) in 1990. The Asian median family income ($39,769) in 1989 was slightly higher than that for non-Hispanic whites ($39,032). In Los Angeles County, home to one-third of the state's Asian population, Asians again surpassed all whites in the percentage of those with higher education or family income.³ And some have not been keeping the wealth just for themselves.

Journalistic accounts began to emerge in the mid-1980s on the disproportionate amount of campaign money donated by the Asian American community in relation to the size of the population. Lew (1987) observes that whereas Asian Americans constitute no more than one-tenth of the population in California, they often contribute 20-30% of the total campaign fund collected by a supported candidate. This figure can be much higher when the contributions are for Asian candidates. Tachibana (1986) reports, for example, that 75% of California's former Secretary of State March Fong Eu's campaign money and 70% of Delaware's former Lieutenant Governor S. B. Woo's fund-raising coffer came from Asian contributors. Formal and informal interviews conducted by the author in March-May 1996 with major Asian American elected officials and fund-raisers confirmed the continuation of this trend well into the 1990s.

Because of this demonstrated strength in campaign finance, both Asian and non-Asian political candidates now make special efforts to campaign in Asian American neighborhoods while highlighting Asian American concerns. Beyond state or local politics, Asian contributions made to national campaigns have been remarkable as well. Nakanishi (1997) reports that in the 1988 and 1992 national elections, Democratic and Republican presidential candidates shared about equally in the over $10 million dollars contributed by Asians. This makes the Asian American community second only to the American Jewish community in terms of the amount of campaign money raised by an ethnic minority group.

These figures help support the "model minority" thesis of Asian Americans established first by the mainstream media and picked up by politicians and the public in the wake of the Civil Rights Era, when the successes of Japanese and Chinese Americans were juxtaposed against the less advantaged situations of blacks and other minorities.⁴ Yet the current status of Asian Americans is a controversial issue. There is no doubt that the legal status of Asians has drastically improved since the 19th century and the earlier part of the 20th century when formal and blatant discrimination and exploitation were the norm of practice (Chan 1991; Kim 1992; Almaguer 1994; Kim 1994; McClain 1994; Okihiro 1994; Salyer 1995; Kim 1996). Relative to other minority or even majority groups, Asians in the aggregate have clearly experienced a remarkable degree of economic success (Ong and Hee 1994). There is also little doubt that the election and appointment of Asians to federal, state, and local positions in recent years have become less novel. In fact, a review of the growing impact of Asians in American politics in terms of the number of elected and appointed officials in the last two decades identified a total of over 300 elected officials from 31 states and over 1,000 major appointees in 1996 alone (Nakanishi 1996). Today, in addition to their traditional presence in Hawaii,⁵ Asians have become viable participants in many small mainland cities such as Fullerton, Monterey Park, Torrance, and Westminster in California, Mesa in Arizona, Fairview in Oklahoma, Carbondale in Illinois, Rochester in Minnesota, and, to a lesser extent, major urban areas such as Seattle, San Francisco, Houston, Omaha, Los Angeles, and New York,

If naturalization is an indicator of one's desire to become integrated into the American system, scholars concur that Asians in the aggregate have the strongest commitment to do so. In the last three decades, Asian immigrants petitioned to become U.S. citizens much sooner and at a higher rate than their counterparts from other areas of the world (Barkan 1983; Portes and Mozo 1985; Jasso and Rosenzweig 1990; Portes and Rumbaut 1990). However, a recent analysis of census samples finds that naturalization rates vary greatly across major Asian ethnic groups (Ong and Nakanishi 1996).⁶ Among them, Japanese immigrants exhibited the lowest rates and Filipinos exhibited the highest rates of naturalization between 1970 and 1990. To speed up new citizens' process of involvement in electoral politics, a rising number of community organizations and major political parties have launched naturalization and voter registration drives and hired Asian recruiters in major urban areas in California, Illinois, New York, and Texas (Espiritu 1992; Nakanishi 1991; 1997).

In spite of the aforementioned indicators of progress, those who anticipate a corresponding growth of Asian participation in the American political power structure have so far been mostly disappointed. In terms of national office-holding, there have only been a handful of Asians—mainly Democrats, of Japanese descent, and from Hawaii or California—who have been elected to positions of power. Among the five voting members of Asian descent in the 105th Congress (1997-1999), for instance, four are Democrats, three are of Japanese ancestry, and two are from California.⁷ Results of the 1990 Bureau of Census Civilian Labor Force data (Equal Employment Opportunity File) reveal that only 1.4% of all legislators surveyed in the nation were Asians.⁸ At the local level, a 1987 Census of Governments reports that .07% of all elected officials nationwide were Asians (1988). This percentage rose to .13 when the same survey was administered in 1992; but it still compared poorly to the .42% for American Indians, 1.4% for Hispanics, 2.7% for blacks, and 95.4% for non-Hispanic whites (1995b). Similarly, an analysis using the 1991 "Form of Government" Survey indicates that only .2% of the nation's city council members or mayors were of Asian ethnicity (MacManus and Bullock 1993). Federally appointed offices have also been inaccessible. In the early 1990s, only 45 of the 8,200 staff positions in Congress were held by Asians (Feagin and Feagin 1993).

In California, from the mid-1960s and throughout the 1970s, there were usually two or three Asians seated in the state legislature. However, there were no Asians seated in the state legislature during the entire decade of the 1980s, leaving Secretary of State March Fong Eu (1974-1994) the lone Asian in an elected position at the state level until the election of Nao Takasugi to the State Assembly in 1992.⁹ Similar fluctuation exists at the local level. For instance, a Chinese American incumbent on the city council of Monterey Park (pop. 60,000, 57% Asian) was defeated in his re-election bid in April 1994, along with two other aspirants of Chinese origin, amidst reported fear of an Asian majority in the city council, where two of the five seats were filled by Asians in the preceding two years.¹⁰ A few years earlier in 1986, the first Chinese American city councilmember (Lily Lee Chen) was removed from her office out of similar concerns over the rising Asian influence in the city (Fong 1994; Horton 1995). The city nicknamed the "first suburban Chinatown" has since been able to maintain only a single Asian councilmember (Judy Chu). In the early 1990s, in a state where one out of ten residents was Asian, only 2% of the state's top elected officials could claim their origin as Asian; only three out of the state's 53-member delegation to Congress were Asian; and only 1% of city council and school board seats were held by Asians (Efron 1990). Even the highest ratio of political representation found in the 1990 Census Equal Employment Opportunity File—i.e., 4.4% of all legislators in California were of Asian descent—pales when compared to the group's 9.6% share of population in the state.

The lack of elected or appointed Asian officials is mirrored by the low levels of voter registration and turnout by the American public of Asian origin. A 1984 analysis of voter registration lists for three areas of high Asian concentration in San Francisco reveals that people with Chinese and Japanese American surnames registered to vote at far lower levels (31% and 37%, respectively) than the 60% registration rate found among the general electorate (Din 1984). Similar findings are reported in a Los Angeles study where 43% of all Japanese were registered, followed by 36% of Chinese, 27% of Filipinos, 17% of Asian Indians, 13% of Koreans, and 4% of Vietnamese (Nakanishi 3986a). In the city of Monterey Park, Asian Americans' overall rate of registration was 29% in 1984 and 39% in 1989; the increase was mostly accounted for by new Chinese registrants (Nakanishi 1991). One consequence for ethnic empowerment was that in the municipal election of April 1990, non-Hispanic whites constituted the largest share of voters even though they were third in terms of population ranking (Horton 1995).

A statewide California ethnicity survey finds that Asians registered at 55% and voted at 48% in 1984; these rates are about 30% lower than those for non-Hispanic whites and blacks (Uhlaner, Cain, and Kiewiet 1989). In the June 1990 primary, the Asian registration rate of 39% was found to be the lowest among the four major groups in California (Field Institute 1990). In the 1992 presidential election, a Los Angeles Times exit poll indicates that the Asian percentage of the state-wide vote share was a dismal 3%, despite the group's 7% share of adult citizens. The situation appeared to be more of the same in the 1993 Los Angeles mayoral race where the Democratic candidate was an Asian (Michael Woo). Despite their 11% share of the city's voting-age population, Asians accounted for only 4% of the voters (Skelton 1993). Improved Asian vote share was reported by the Los Angeles Times exit poll for the 1996 presidential election, where 5% of voters identified themselves as Asians. Still, this represented only half of the percentage of adult Asians in the state.

Perhaps by far the most accurate estimate of Asian electoral participation rates is the Current Population Survey (CPS) series on the November elections since 1992 (Appendix A).¹¹ In 1992, of the sampled Asian population aged 18 or over in the United States, only 31% were registered to vote and 27% actually turned out at the polls. In 1994, the figures slid down to 29% for registration and 22% for voting. A major reason for the low level of participation may be that only about half of the Asian adult population are citizens. When citizenship status along with education and age are taken into account, Asian registration and voting rates increase substantially. However, there is still a 10-24% participation gap between Asians and whites.

Even in an area of American politics—donating money to political campaigns—where Asian participation in terms of the dollar amount given is not lacking, reactions to this emerging view of Asians as the "new moneybags" of American politics have not been entirely positive. From the Asian community's perspective, although they are known to contribute money in greater proportion than their share of the population, a big gap remains between what is promised and what is delivered to Asians—be it greater access to power or more high-level appointments that involve serious decision-making in government operations (Nakanishi 1991).¹² Moreover, the higher amount of money donated by Asians as a whole does not necessarily indicate that more Asians are involved in the political process. Comparing the extent of political participation between Japanese Americans in a California sample and the general population in a national sample, Fugita and O'Brien (1991) find that the rate of making donations among Japanese Americans is 26% higher than that of the general public. Yet, Uhlaner and her associates (1989) find that Asian respondents in California did not contribute money at a higher rate than their non-Hispanic white counterparts in the 1984 campaign.¹³ In fact, those specializing in raising funds from the Asian American community observe both immigration generation and ethnic gaps in that the foreign-born tend to contribute in larger dollar amounts than the native-born. This is particularly true among the ethnic Chinese, Asian Indians, and Koreans. By contrast, some communities, such as Filipinos, Southeast Asians, and Pacific Islanders, tend not to be able to contribute in as great an amount, but they may often involve a greater number of contributors.¹⁴

From the opponents' perspective, much of the money donated to or by Asians is on a shaky legal ground, either because too much of it comes from outside of the district and/or because it may originate from somewhere in Asia.¹⁵ Mainstream suspicion of illicit activities committed by Asians did not begin in the fall of 1996 or with John Huang, the first Asian American appointed by a major political party to a leadership position in charge of raising campaign funds from the Asian community.¹⁶ Almost all successful Asian candidates—such as Congressman Jay Kim and former L.A. city councilmen Michael Woo and S.B. Woo, among many others—have been implicated at one time or another with receiving foreign or illegal campaign contributions.¹⁷ However, nothing matches the scope of media and congressional scrutiny endured by John Huang and other Asian Americans close to the Clintons. This not only implies that some Asian Americans are perceived as approaching too...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Tables
• Figures
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Theories of Ethnicity and Political Participation
• 3. Methodology
• 4. The Political Participation of Asian Americans in a Multiethnic Setting: Results of the Southern California Survey
• 5. Another Look at Asian American Ethnicity: Integration of Korean Immigrants in Los Angeles, 1992
• 6. Does (Under-)Participation Matter?
• 7. Conclusion
• References
• Index