I presume that by now, you don’t need me to summarize how the Republican Party made significant gains in the House of Representatives along with state and local races around the country. Instead and in keeping with this site and blog’s main focus, below is a brief summary of how some Asian American candidates (both Democratic and Republican) fared around the country this past week (feel free to add more information and updates about other Asian American candidates not listed here in the ‘Comments’ section). For a more complete list of Asian American candidates, see APIAVote.

• Staunch conservative and Tea Party-backed Republican Nikki Haley (her parents are both Sikh immigrants from India) becomes South Carolina’s new governor, joining Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal as the second Indian American governor in the U.S.

• “Cao [the first Vietnamese American ever elected to Congress] cast himself as a bipartisan friend of Democratic President Barack Obama. But votes against two key Obama initiatives, the economic stimulus and health care overhaul, were among Richmond’s attack points in a mostly Democratic district that supported Obama for president.”

• “Hansen Clarke[MI, Democrat] will be sworn in as the first Bangladeshi American to serve in the US Congress. Trained as both a fine artist and a lawyer, he has two decades of experience serving the state of Michigan as a legislator. . . . Colleen Hanabusa [HI, Democrat] is a national trailblazer in her own right, as she is the first woman to preside over either chamber of the Hawai’i State Legislature, and the first Asian-American or Pacific Islander woman in the nation to preside over a state legislative body.”

• “City Councilwoman Jean Quan won the final tally Wednesday in Oakland’s ranked-choice mayoral election, capping a dramatic eight days in which she came from behind and surged to victory because she had more second- and third-place votes than rival Don Perata.”

• “Cantil-Sakauye, daughter of a Filipina farm worker and a Filipino-Portuguese plantation worker, thus made history as the first Asian-American, and also the youngest jurist, to hold the highest position in any state judiciary in the United States.”

• “Across the country, except for a few bright spots, most Viet candidates fall flat, losing their races, sometimes spectacularly. Now, of course, there is such a thing as a “Vietnamese bounce” – late absentee ballots cast mostly by Vietnamese – which has caused people to sometimes prematurely announce the death of some campaigns. But, from the way things look, even the ‘Vietnamese bounce’ won’t help this time.”

• “[Democratic candidate] Bera took the stage . . . Tuesday night like a rock star. About 250 supporters — Sikhs, Hindus, Christians, Muslims, California Native Americans, Asian Americans, African Americans, Caucasians young and old chanted ‘Bera! Bera! Bera!’ Bera, who lost to [incumbent Republican] Lungren 51 percent to 43 percent told The Bee, ‘We are winners – look at the enthusiasm in this room. As the son of immigrants who came here in the 1950s, this is the culmination of the American dream.'”

• “With nearly 7 million ballots counted, Democrat Harris, daughter of an Indian mother and African-American father, was holding a lead of fewer than 38,000 votes over Republican Steve Cooley in the race for state attorney general. But with thousands of late absentee and provisional ballots remaining uncounted, she has not been declared a winner. If her victory holds, Harris would become the first Indian-African-American and first woman ever to hold the job of California attorney general.”

You might be interested to read the following posts from September of years past:

• 2009: Another Controversy at Tufts: Racism or Free Speech?
  A controversy at Tufts University involving Asian American students on opposite sides highlights the tricky nature of free speech and how to best challenge racial stereotypes.
• 2008: Addressing Depression and Mental Illness Among Students
  How model minority expectations lead to high levels of stress and mental illness among young Asian Americans and how to help them
• 2007: Who Deserves Freedom of Speech?
  A few high-profile incidents highlight the notion that freedom of speech belongs to everyone, not just to those we agree with.
• 2006: Asian American Buying Power
  New data points to the rising purchasing power of the Asian American population and along with it, perhaps more social influence.
• 2005: New Asian American Communities
  The growth of a new Chinese American community in northwest Philadelphia highlights the multifaceted nature of population and cultural change.
• 2004: New Asian American Voters Survey
  Voting data from the 2004 election highlights some interesting patterns among Asian American voters.

Yesterday was Election Day and there were many Asian American candidates running for office throughout the country. For those who are curious, APAs for Progress has a summary of how individual Asian American candidates did in their particular contests. Perhaps the biggest win for Asian Americans came with the victory of John C. Liu to be New York City’s Comptroller. As the New York Times summarizes, Liu’s win is significant in many ways:

New York City Councilman John C. Liu was elected city comptroller in 2009, becoming the first Asian-American elected to citywide office in New York City. Mr. Liu’s victory could quickly make him a strong contender for mayor in 2013. . . .

In 2001 Mr. Liu, then a consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers, became the first Asian member of the City Council. The election was hailed as a watershed for the Chinese-American community, which had long been shut out of the political mainstream. Mr. Liu easily won re-election in 2003 and 2005.

These sentiments and early speculation about Liu’s plans for the future are echoed in another news report from New York City’s WCBS TV news station:

[Liu’s successful campaign] is a big deal to many. “He is also an immigrant like me, is not American-born like me, so it’s very exciting,” said supporter Wing Ma. Some see his victory as a fitting reflection of national politics in the age of Obama. “I see a parallel, for him to make history,” said Henry Singleton. . . .

Of course four years is a long way off and no one becomes mayor in this town without a fight, but on Tuesday night, New York’s new comptroller-elect is giving off the glow of a political rising star.

Indeed, a lot of good and bad things can happen to Liu in the next four years, so it is rather early to pencil him in for any higher political office at this point. Nonetheless, he is definitely a rising star in the Democratic party and among many Asian Americans and is worth keeping an eye on in the upcoming years.

I congratulate John C. Liu and wish him the best success.

You might be interested to read the following posts from Octobers of years past:

• 2008: Racists Who Support Obama
  Analyzing why a large percentage of American voters who hold racist views of minorities nonetheless support Obama.
• 2007: Tila Tequila and Her Reality TV Show
  The latest high-profile Asian American media personality, Tila Tequila, gets her own reality TV show.
• 2006: Experiencing Race in the U.S.
  A new study looks at political opinions among communities of color and finds notable differences across social class lines for some, but not all groups.
• 2005: Asian American Students are the Least Religious
  New data points out that Asian American college students are the least religious among the major racial/ethnic groups.
• 2004: Affirmative Action: Beginning of the End?
  Recent political and educational trends suggest that the use of affirmative action programs is declining, although the need for such programs is still open to debate.

For a while now, I’ve written about how the demographic increase in the size of the Latino American and Asian American populations will inevitably also lead to increased political, economic, and cultural power and influence as well. I also hypothesize that one example of this burgeoning political power was how Latinos and Asians voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama in the presidential election and as a result, helped to put him over the top.

In other words, Latino and Asian American voters are becoming increasingly important as voting blocs — a sizable constituency group that, if mobilized to voter overwhelmingly for a particular candidate, can make the difference between victory and defeat in a close election. For years, groups such as African Americans, Jewish Americans, and “NASCAR dads” have been important voting blocs.

To reinforce this notion of the increasing political power of Latinos and Asian Americans, as first mentioned by Seth Hoy at the Immigration Impact blog, the Census Bureau has just released detailed voter data from the 2008 election and among other things, they show:

• Latinos represented 7.4% of all Americans who voted in the 2008 election (about 9,745,000 out of 131,144,000 total voters). This represents an increase from being 5.4% (about 5,934,000) of all voters in the 2000 election.
• Asian Americans represented 2.8% of all Americans who voted in the 2008 election (about 3,627,000 out of 131,144,000 total voters). This represents an increase from being 1.8% (2,045,000) of all voters in 2000.
• Non-Hispanic Blacks comprised 12.3% of all voters in the 2008 election, an increase from 11.5% in the 2000 election.
• Conversely, non-Hispanic Whites made up 76.3% of all voters in 2008, a decline from 80.7% in 2000.

The data comparisons between 2000 and 2008 clearly show that Latinos and Asian Americans (and to a slightly lesser extent African Americans) comprise an ever-increasing proportion of the American electorate. Just as important, their power as a voting bloc are increasingly becoming evident as well, as noted by the following quote from the Immigration Impact blog post:

In Indiana, Obama won by roughly 26,000 votes, and received the votes of nearly 24,000 more Latino New Americans than John McCain. Similarly, in North Carolina, Obama won by approximately 14,000 votes, yet received the votes of nearly 26,000 more Latino New Americans than McCain.

We should note that Whites are still the largest racial voting group by far. Nonetheless, the rise of Latinos and Asian American is likely to become even more pronounced as both both groups continue to increase in population size, particularly among those who become naturalized citizens and the second generation (the U.S.-born).

The other interesting trend to note is data that shows Latino and Asian American voters are increasingly voting Democratic as well.

With these demographic and cultural shifts in mind, the fundamental nature of the American political landscape is likely to continue to change for generations to come.

Like millions of Americans, I am anxiously awaiting noon on Tuesday, January 20. This is the hour when Barack Obama is scheduled to take the oath of office and officially become the next President of the United States.

I’ve written before on the sociological and personal significance of this momentous event and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. But in the meantime, my Vietnamese American colleague Andrew Lam of New America Media has written a very eloquent post about what Barack Obama’s inauguration means to him.

Andrew begins his piece by recounting the plot of Daniel Defoe’s The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe and how Crusoe “saves” an indigenous man, names him “Friday,” and basically teaches him the ways of acting “civilized” according to White, European standards. Andrew then relates the story to his own experiences:

[W]hen he was christened, when he called Crusoe “master,” Friday essentially lost his autonomy and his past. When he was taught a new language, Friday lost his bearings and the articulation and the enchantment of his old tongue. . . .

For a while, as a Vietnamese refugee to America, I grieved. Then I resigned myself to the idea that I was fated to live at the empire’s outer edge, living in a world in which Friday’s children were destined to play subservient roles and sidekicks. I knew this because I saw it on TV nightly.

Friday became Tonto, Mammy, Pocahontas, Kato, and (play it again) Sam. I saw too, the complexity of my own Vietnamese past ignored or, worse yet, simplified and reduced to faceless figures in black pajamas and conical hats, to serve as props or to be gunned down by American GIs, the wielders of history. . . .

Five hundred years after European conquest began, the glory of Crusoe continues to play out. “The Swiss Robinson Family,” and “Robinson Crusoe on Mars” and dozens more movies were direct spin offs but its mythos provides the backbone for tv shows like Star Trek, where the captain is white and his crew are ethnic and aliens, and contemporary films like Men in Black, Jerry McGuire, Pulp Fiction, and Lethal Weapon, just to name very few. In them the ethnic sidekicks help make the main character who he is, reinforcing his centrality. . . .

Who knows then when the story began to shift? . . . It may very well have begun with Frederick Douglass. . . . [H]e learned the alphabet from his master’s wife. He stole books. He learned how to read and write. He taught others. He became an abolitionist, editor, a suffragist, author, and the first African American nominated vice president in 1872 on the Equal Rights Party ticket with Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for President of the United States. . . .

For this is the way the new power lies: Those who once dwelled at the margins of the Commonwealth have appropriated the language of their colonial masters and used it with great degree of articulation as they inch toward the center, crossing all kinds of demarcations, dispelling the old myth. If Crusoe contends that he still is the lead actor, Friday is far from being content to playing subservient and sidekick any longer. . . .

[O]n that fateful Tuesday in November 4, 2008, Friday spoke up loud and clear and eloquently, and declared himself an equal, and the whole world danced. He tells us to dare to dream big, even this once considered impossible dream: Son of Africa becomes the new patriarch of America.

I think Andrew captures the sentiments of many of us very accurately.

There’s not much more that I can say that others have not said already regarding the significance of Barack Obama’s election as our next President: historic, monumental, amazing, inspiring, emotional, and quite simple, awesome. As a sociologist and demographer, I’d like to offer a few statistics on his election to be our next President:

• 136.6 million Americans voted, representing a 64.1% turnout rate, the highest since 65.7 percent in 1908.
• Obama is the first Democrat to receive more than 50 percent of the popular vote since Jimmy Carter in 1976.

From CNN’s exit poll tabulations:

• Obama received 49% of all the male votes (vs. 48% for McCain) and 56% of the female votes (vs. 43% for McCain). But once you break it down by race, Obama only received 41% of the White male vote (vs. 57% for McCain) and 46% of the White female vote (vs. 53% for McCain).
• 95% of African Americans, 66% of Latinos, and 61% of Asian Americans voted for Obama. Along with the previous statistic, what this tells us is that while large numbers of Whites supported Obama, ultimately non-Whites helped put him over the top.
• 66% of voters under the age of 30 voted for Obama.
• 52% of voters making $200,000 or more voted for Obama (vs. 46% for McCain).
• By level of education, the groups that voted for Obama the most were those at both ends of the spectrum — those who have no high school degree and those with a postgraduate degree.
• 54% of Catholics voted for Obama (vs. 45% for McCain), although among White Catholics, 47% voted for Obama while 52% for McCain.
• 50% of voters living in the suburbs voted for Obama (vs. 48% for McCain).
• Among voters who felt that their taxes would go up if Obama were elected President, 43% still voted for him.
• 64% of all voters felt that McCain unfairly attacked Obama, while only 49% of all voters felt Obama unfairly attacked McCain.
• 47% of all voters felt that, regardless of who is President, race relations are likely to get better in the next few years, and of those, 70% voted for Obama. In contrast, 15% felt that race relations are likely to get worse and of those, 70% voted for McCain.
• 9% of voters said that the candidate’s race was an important factor and of those, 53% voted for Obama.
• 58% of voters said that issues, rather than personal qualities, were more important to them and of those, 60% voted for Obama. In contrast, 59% of those who believed personal qualities were more important to them voted for McCain.

For me, the most telling and interesting of these statistics is first, that shows 52% of voters making at least $200,000 voted for Obama versus 46% voting for McCain. In my opinion, that is pretty astounding — those in the upper 6%-7% of the nation in terms of wealth supported Obama more than McCain, even though their taxes are likely to go up slightly. I give these voters a lot of credit for supporting Obama and goes a long way to counteract the stereotype of them as caring only about their wallets.

But perhaps the most significant statistic is how Obama captured almost all of the African American votes and a huge percentage of the Latino and Asian American votes and how, most likely, this was likely a big factor in helping to put him over the top.

It is certainly true that White votes still outnumbered non-White votes for Obama and that in the end, the scope of Obama’s victory shows that he has significant, broad-based support from Americans of all racial backgrounds. Nonetheless, I think it’s pretty clear that the Latinos and Asian Americans did constitute a crucial “swing vote” and ultimately, they overwhelmingly rallied to Obama’s support.

While observers, commentators, and scholars will debate this particular issue for the foreseeable future, it does appear that, combined with their continuing population growth, Latino and Asian American voters are poised to have this kind of potential impact and power for years to come.

I’ve written several times recently about how the issue of race has affected the presidential campaign. Much of the conventional wisdom, on which many of my posts are based, is that Whites who hold racist views would never consider voting for Obama. However, as CBS News reports, a new study argues that “racism” not so cut and dry and that quite surprisingly, many Whites who hold racist views actually support Obama:

The poll asked voters whether they agreed with the statement that “African Americans often use race as an excuse to justify wrongdoing.” About a fifth of white voters said they “strongly agreed.” Yet among those who agreed, 23 percent said they’d be supporting Obama.

“This result is reasonable if you believe that race is not as monolithic an effect as we might easily assume,” Franklin said, noting that 22 percent of those who “strongly disagreed” said they’d be supporting McCain. . . .

Some argue that elements of Obama’s story and persona make him specifically acceptable to voters who hold broadly negative views of African Americans. “Not all whites associate the generic African American with Obama,” said Ron Walters, an aide to Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaigns. “They give him credit for having half a Caucasian ancestry, and give him credit for his education, and give him credit for his obvious ability to take complex subjects and parse them.” . . .

“Obama’s personality – his speech, his look – he provides [white voters] with a non-threatening way to move forward on this issue, and that’s a very positive development,” said David Waymire.

Those last two paragraphs that I quoted above are worth highlighting. They suggest that while many Whites hold racist views of African Americans, they don’t see Obama as a “typical” African American — he is not uneducated, or on welfare, or a street criminal like what they tend to see in the media.

Instead, they see Obama as “not like the rest of them” — he breaks the mold of their traditional, stereotypical image of Blacks.

In fact, my guess is that many Asian Americans have probably been in situations in which Whites may be criticizing Asians/Asian Americans but will turn to them and say, “But you’re not like them — you’re different.”

Obama seems to be in that position. Combined with economic concerns being at the topic of the list for many White voters, that may explain why so many Whites who would otherwise have quite racist views of Blacks are willing to support Obama.

So the question becomes, is this situation good or bad for American society? Does the fact that so many “racist” Whites see Obama as an “exceptional” Black mean that the glass is half full or half empty?

To be honest, I’m still thinking this through. In the meantime, let me know what you think, and whether that means American society is becoming less racist, or just more of the same kind of racism.

I’ve received several emails seeking to publicize the candidacy of various Asian American political candidates around the country, so I’ve decided to group them all together in this post.

As always, these links are provided for informational purposes only and do not necessarily imply my endorsement of the candidate and/or his/her beliefs and policies.

Ed Chau (California)
www.edchau.com

Hank Eng (Colorado)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMls9vWuAlA

Sue Chan (California)
www.suechanforfremont.com