(Summary: Ending the marginalization of Asian American voices and stopping the monolithic portrayal of Asian American political attitudes would be great strides toward eliminating the conditions that sustain the "bloc vote" mentality.)
All this week, CNN has been hyping Anderson Cooper's special report on "Race, Gender and Politics." As expected, Cooper and his guests mostly rehashed the same arguments and opinions they've made four or five times a day for the past month. What has stood out for me, however, is that Cooper has been the national television news figure most interested in reporting on Asian Americans. (Sadly, that's not saying much.) A couple commentators made the obvious but still necessary point that we should not jump to quick conclusions or reproduce stereotypes about how Asian Americans think and act. No one pointed out that Asian Americans have switched dramatically from Republican to solidly Democratic over the past three to four presidential election cycles. Overall, Cooper's reporting has exposed how little the media understands the political dynamics within Asian American communities.
Cooper's main goal has been to explain why exit polls from the California Democratic primary showed Asian Americans voting nearly three-to-one for Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama. It began with his anchoring coverage on the night of Super Tuesday. As pundit David Gergen was discussing the significance of the Latino vote to Hillary's win in California, Cooper interjected that she also registered a sizable win among Asians. Gergen's tangential response was "well, they're in play here, too." Then, Gergen continued with his point about Latinos. This was, of course, a misstatement. "In play" for the political pundits analyzing the horse race means that the battle to win a state or a demographic segment of the electorate is highly competitive, not lopsided. What Gergen really meant by the Asians are "in play" comment was something more like, "We don't normally view Asian voters as significant, but here's one isolated case where they happened to make a difference."
Next, Cooper did a very short feature on Asian American voters during his February 8 show. In its entirety, the segment consisted of brief comments by four random Asian Americans plus 38 words from a political science professor whose primary area of study is Latinos in politics. The consensus: Hillary Clinton is better known because her husband was president; also, recent Asian immigrants might be uncomfortable with the idea of change and maybe a little wary of a black candidate. In response, an Asian American political action committee called the 80-20 Initiative launched a petition against CNN saying it was "outraged" by this "2 minute segment."
CNN subsequently interviewed a representative of the 80-20 Initiative, S.B. Woo, for the "Race, Gender and Politics" special. Woo delivered the night's big new thesis: the strong Asian American backing of Clinton in California was the result of none other than the 80-20 Initiative's campaign to organize Asians into an ethnic bloc vote for Clinton. The group has declared on its website, "Let the word go forth that we've learned how to reward political leaders who share our rightful concerns, and punish those who don't." While Woo is no doubt overstating his group's influence, the actions of the 80-20 Initiative help us to appreciate in the crudest manner how a particular type of ethnic identity politics functions. Since Anderson Cooper fell well short of "explaining it all," I'll try to demonstrate how this works.
First, a group of self-identified leaders get together and declare themselves the representatives of their ethnic (or other form of interest) group. Second, the group identifies a narrow set of positions purporting to represent the self-interests of the entire group. In the case of the 80-20 Initiative, the group asked candidates to pledge to "break the glass ceiling" for Asian Americans in employment and "nominate more Asian American judges." All questions on these points singled out Asian Americans. The 80-20 platform is not couched broadly as a civil rights initiative; it's only a call for the government to give certain Asian Americans treatment already afforded "other minorities." Third, the group takes it platform to the candidates and chooses a horse in the race. (A variation on this theme is petitioning a media outlet to remedy its allegedly biased coverage by devoting airtime to your group and its cause.) Fourth, the group attempts to mobilize a bloc vote by arguing that the chosen candidate best represents "our" interests. Finally, if the candidate wins and the group is seen to have delivered the vote, the symbolic representatives of the ethnic group get in line to cash in their rewards (e.g. patronage, federal appointments, dinner at the White House).
What must be emphasized regarding the relative success of the 80-20 "bloc vote" campaign is that minority interest group politics of this nature conform perfectly to the niche marketing and service-delivery model of politics practiced by head Clinton strategist Mark Penn. Winning the 80-20 endorsement was but one part of a broader Clinton strategy to win endorsements from minority politicians, court ethnic community leaders, and advertise in ethnic media. This largely top-down approach seems to have worked in this instance (though it might have fallen short if the Obama team had developed a better ground game among Asians and Latinos in California). Yet, the primary results are also proving that so many Americans are tired of politics framed by narrow self-interests that ignore the intersecting relationship between race, gender, class, sexuality, ecology, education, health care, and a million other issues.
While there are some interests unique to ethnic groups, there are also ways to address these concerns within the context of struggling for a greater good and a higher purpose. Memo to Anderson Cooper: your next task, if you choose to accept it, is to find the tens of thousands of Asian Americans who see politics and activism in this light. Ending the marginalization of Asian American voices and stopping the monolithic portrayal of Asian American political attitudes would be great strides toward eliminating the conditions that sustain the "bloc vote" mentality.
Scott Kurashige is an associate professor of American Culture, History, and Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies at the University of Michigan and author of The Shifting Grounds of Race: Black and Japanese Americans in the Making of Multiethnic Los Angeles (Princeton University Press, 2008).
At the same time, as Asian-Americans we do share similar experiences, both by virtue of our traditional, family-and social-centered parent cultures and by our American experience, and can thus derive strength in claiming equality through our numbers.
If a demographic study were actually done on APIA's I'm willing to bet that our community follows the demographic trend overall of the Obama campaign's coalition...first the younger generation (mid 40's and under) along with the progressive APIA's and the general population gradually catching on.
Any statements that APIA's are less willing to vote for an African American is also pure bunk. That's what they said about the Latinos and now Gallup's most recent poll has Obama ahead of Clinton by 2 points.
In 2004, the Asian American community voted 3-to-1 in favor of John Kerry over George Bush. I was very proud of the fact. The explanation include various reasons, such as a high educational level and a lifetime of facing hidden types of discrimination that develops one's own powers of discrimination. Also, there is what I call the "Dilbert factor" whereby members of the Asian American study and work hard, yet hit a glass ceiling and start asking why.
As a John Edwards supporter, I personally am waffling back and forth between Clinton and Obama now. My powers of discrimination tells me that each of the two surviving candidates has a subset of Edwards's powerful and progressive agenda for America. My difficultly is comparing an apple with an orange: a candidate who has been swiftboated for 15 years by the Republican machine, and a candidate who has not yet been swiftboated. I would like to see what survives after Obama has been swiftboated, then I can compare.
By the way, I note with great displeasure McCain's backtracking on the vote on torture. Thus, McCain has been put "off the table" as they say in Congress.
“There are three classes of men: lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain.” Obama, McCain, and Clinton represent them respectively.
Obama appears to have greater appeal to the learned who has acquired imparting of knowledge, positive judgment and well-developed WISDOM - consisting of ideals and principles that govern all actions and decisions to maximize the LONG-TERM COMMON GOOD.
It is for LONG-TERM COMMON GOOD we EDUCATE our YOUTH. So be it that the learned seek PURPOSE in LONG-TERM COMMON GOOD and TRUTH in WISDOM, their choice of a president!
If you seek not WISDOM in a leader, what then, do you seek? If you hold not TRUTH, FAITHFULNESS, and SINCERITY as your first principles, what then, do you hold?
If you are A PARENT, AN EDUCATOR, OR A COMMUNITY LEADER, and if you seek not such LONG-TERM COMMON GOOD wisdom for children, family, community, society, country, or the world, what then, do you seek?
How can we let our CHILDREN follow such self-gratifying, calculating Clintons??
“There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands.”
“Therefore, the good of man must be the end of the science of politics.”
The TRUTH is, we must teach our children to BE TRUE.
“Love each other or perish.”
“Kindness in thinking creates profoundness.”
“From caring comes courage.”
“LIVE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD.”
Are these quotes by Confusious by any chance ?
The last one is misquoted. It was Mahatma Gandhi who said:" Be the change you want to see in the world."
I'm glad you've joined HuffPo's blog roster and I look forward to more of your posts.
So the idea that they are supporter for Clinton, who I think is a strong Democratic contender, is not surprising. It would have been refreshing, however, that persons who talk so much how they admire the educated, and have pushed to have their kids educated at our best Ivy League colleges, would at "least find Barack Obama an interesting candidate."
For those among them who always complain about how intra-race dislikes: Koreans vs Chinese and the dominance of the Japanese in the Asian culture, and how they were sent to 'camps' during WWII showing that 'side of them" was very revealing.
What a pity, indeed. We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to elect a visionary, a game-changing politician. Let us not sabotage it for our own selfish, parochail and egotistical ends.
Try being gay in America. Being merely marginalized would be a step up for us.
And perhaps worst of all: Such suppositions tend to be very inaccurate, projecting the assessors' views more than any reality.
I've been a supporter of the Republican party, but GW Bush's secretiveness, propensity to prevaricate, and disdain for the constitution has shifted me outside the republican ring. I am one Chinese American who is not against a black American presidential candidate nor am I against a woman.
However, when I peel back the onion skin of Hilary's (and Bill's) pandering to the Asian vote, the 80/20 group appears willing to overlook the scandals perpetuated by the Clintons involving Asians, e.g., Norman Hsu, Johnny Chung, Ng Lap Seng, James Riady, Sant S.Chatwal, John Huang, John K.H. Lee, Charlie Trie, as well as Buddhist gate, to name a few.
Although I must be among the minority (20%) of Asians, I unequivocally support Barack Obama.
Also, in my assessment, Anderson Cooper has myopia and tunnel vision, both of which contribute to his egomaniac rush.
It would be anathema to Senator Obama to seriously endorse promoting one group simply on ethnic grounds, while his entire campaign is based on diversity and inclusiveness. If the Clinton campaign signed out of serious commitment or political expediency, then that should in itself be viewed with suspicion or uneasiness.
I really do hope we move from the I am a woman so I will vote for any woman who runs, I am Black so I will vote for the Black candidate, I am Asian so I vote for the Asian (or absent that) the person who promises he/she will appoint Asian Americans no matter who else applies.
In the CNN piece one Asian lady in Washington said "I vote for Hillary, she white lady" as if that was so logical it required no further explanation. That was briefly amusing, but mostly sad. I hope we will move further and further from that sort of simplistic, racially-motivated choices. The right to vote is too precious to be squandered in this tawdry manner.
There is nothing wrong with the questionnaire.
There is nothing wrong with 80-20's agenda.
I don't even fault them for their strategy of voting as a swing bloc vote, when our numbers statistically are so tiny.
The matter of federal judgeship appointments for Asian Americans is very much indeed a matter of civil rights, and the debt owed to the civil rights movement is apparent on their website.
A narrow focus on a specific issue such as federal court judgeship nominations of qualified APAs when our own numbers are a pathetic .02% of sitting judges... how can anyone find fault with raising this as an issue?
And a narrow focus is *preferrable* because Asian Americans are historically an extremely broad group of people with varied backgrounds, cultures, and political views.
Many younger APAs may not like the strategy of voting as a block, but until Asian Americans are demonstrably more active, more engaged in politics, 80-20 as a group serves a very useful and even noble purpose in protecting the interests that APAs have in common.
Nothing 80-20 does, and nothing that they ask for, is inherently at odds with increased Asian American activism, representation, and plurality.
If we don't like 80-20, we can, should and will build something better -- but why on earth fault them for what they do?