Asian American Voting Stereotypes

When it comes to Voting participation, those who have a higher socio-economic status are likely to have a higher voter turnout/participation rate. However that is not the case for Asian American voters. With Asian Americans having some of the highest level of income and education, they still result in low voter turnout in general elections. With Asian American political participation being a puzzling phenomena, there are bloc of reasons for their bizarre voting behavior. The reasons for lower turnout rates among the group of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are due to pan ethnicity, rates of immigration, English proficiency, and lack of representation. To explain more about these factors, it is best to first define “Asian Americans” and
detail the demographics of the Asian American population in the United States. Similar to Hispanics, Asian American also have a pan ethnic identity who have a range of mixed groups. Asian Americans include nations from East Asia like China, Japan, and Korea, Southeast region like Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, and Indonesia, and South Asian nations like Pakistan, Indian, and Afghanistan. In the 2010 Census, about 17.3 million of the U.S population are of Asian descent with Chinese descent being the largest group followed by Filipinos, Indians, Vietnamese, Koreans, and Japanese – making up 4% of the country’s population. When it comes to socioeconomic factors like education and income, Asian Americans are above in comparison to other groups. Asian Americans are the wealthiest compared to Hispanics and African Americans and also has the lowest poverty rate. Statistics also show that Asians are outliers in aspects of employment status and education levels.
According to the United States Census Bureau, out of the minorities, Asian Americans have the lowest population but have the highest average income of about $70,644 and highest employment rate of about 60.4%. This shows the significance between these minorities but still raises this odd pattern of voting participation among Asian Americans. This is evident by the voter turnout between Asian American and White voters when comparing both by income and education level. Voters who are highly educated are more likely to vote but even the turnout of a majority of high educated Asian American voters still holds up by 23% in comparison to the White voters; trends of median family income are similar as well. Pan ethnicity can pose a great interest but important when it comes to politics. However, it is even more important when it comes to researching Asian American politics. Asian Americans, combined together, still make up a small margin of the population. Unlike the Latino group, Asians do not have the same language nor do they really share the same religions and traditions. Many countries
in Asia do have conflicts with each other due to their history. The separate subgroups make up smaller portions however. Numbers can be powerful in politics. Factors like organization can alter political power but having supporters will always give more leverage which is why it is a significant resource. The more people that claim to be “Asian American”, the more power their political groups will have. Whether it’s on a local, state, or national scale, officials and candidates will more than likely pay focus on issues that would concern these certain large numbers of people like an Asian American group. However politics and pan ethnicity can be opposed to each other as well. Where pan ethnic identity can make more political success, political success can also make a much stronger panethnicity. During the election campaign in 1996, three Asian Americans were charged for soliciting improper contributions from those not eligible to even make such donations. As the news became more spread, it was reported the Democratic National Committee directed about 1,200 contributions and reacted with such alarm. The controversy created stereotypes and biased assumptions about Asian Americans as a whole and had to be considered guilty until proven innocent. Investigations were conducted for those who had Asian surnames and were interrogated about their citizenship, finances, source of donations and were forced to send in their credit report to the Democratic National Committee. This investigation was something that has not been done to no other donor groups before. Some were told their names would have been released to the public given that they did not send in the required information. For the majority of Asian Americans, the scandal built up what appeared to be the most severe breaching that ever occurred in their political history. Had it been Americans with European ancestry being involved doing the illegalities, it would be more than likely that such intense questioning and investigations would have occurred. Asian Americans felt isolated and were known as being suspicious at the time due to their identity. With that said panethnicity can influence Asian American’s political behavior because it can be utilized as a restriction for making political choices, assess specific events, and to judge political values. It can be used as an indication to guide minorities like Asian Americans in their political behavior. It’s well aware that the Asian American population include a large percent of immigrants while large groups like Whites and Blacks have a small number of immigrants.
Anyone born in the United States are a US Citizen automatically however immigrants have to apply and pass the test for a citizenship which usually occurs after a waiting process of about 5 years. With that said, a substantial amount of Asian Americans are not citizens. Legally, non-citizens cannot vote, so groups with a high percentage of non-citizens like Asian Americans will have low voter turnout rates in comparison to groups who have fewer non-citizens. For an immigrant to be able to vote, it involves a long voting process that requires three steps: naturalization, registration, and the third is to actually vote. Immigrants must undergo and pass an interview and test before they can be “naturalized”. Therefore, they must have knowledge of US government and history also must answer questions in English. In the testing, applicants will be required to answer questions about the US such as: Who can veto a bill? What year was the Constitution drafted? The Congress is made of what two parts? What is the name of the first ten amendments of the US Constitution? After passing the first step of naturalization in order to vote, the second step is registration. Both naturalized and US-born citizens follow the same rulings of voter registration but it’s been shown that naturalized citizens do not register as much as
the US-born citizens. A possible reason could be of the unawareness for the need to register in order to vote. While the US-born citizens learn of this at an early stage, adults who are immigrants are likely to not receive any form of guidance. At the last stage, many naturalized citizens can now be eligible to cast a ballot. Overall, the three step process is the only way for immigrants, like a high percentage of Asian Americans, to be able to vote. With this long procedure, it can be too costly of an activity for Asian Americans to participate in which is why it’s another factor of low voter turnout. However, for many immigrants like those of Asian American groups they face another barrier. Language barriers can be accountable for a low voter turnout among Asian Americans. According to Pew Research, about 74% of Asian American adults are foreign born and about 44% of voters of Asian Americans and Pacific Islander admit to struggle with the English language. In Section 203 of the Voting Rights Acts, it states that if at least 5% or 10,000 members of the jurisdiction are not English proficient, then it is required for the registration office to provide provisions and translations for these constituents. However, these services are limited to only 22 counties across the whole nation and actually are not even available in the most popular areas of the poor English speakers. Asian Americans who are born outside American and are not fluent in English are unlikely to be exposed of aspects of the political process such as voting and could possibly refrain them from developing political interest. When those who immigrate to America, they are likely to settle with those who share the same identity or ethnicity. Ultimately, those born outside of America and are less proficient in English are highly likely to develop panethnicity, in which they share an identity with those face difficulty in living somewhere new than those who are natives and fluent in English.
Another possibility for low voter turnout from American Asians can be due to a failure for a political process to incorporate or represent them which builds an apathy to cast a ballot and vote. At the highest platform of American government, there is still an underrepresentation for Asian American which can likely spark disinterest for them to attend the polls and vote. Candidates of Asian descent are rarely visible and are hardly able to receive support from leadership of either Democratic or Republican Party to be a viable candidate for elections. Asian Americans are a diverse group of people who come from different nations as well as having different form of language, religion, and culture. However, when it comes to politics, a majority of them still share the same views. In the past election, it was reported that a majority of Asian Americans elected the same candidate and shared the same reasons behind their votes. In the past election, both the economy and employment were the main issues among Asian Americans in which President Barack Obama capitalized in his campaign when he targeted Asian Americans. Another event where Obama capitalized on was making an attempt to make a connection with Asian Americans based off his background. At a public gathering of about 2,000 Asian American activists, Obama himself made a phone call to the audience and gave a message saying, “I am a Pacific Islander and I consider myself as one of you”. With his tactics of “hearing” their issue and sharing an identity in order to make a connection, it resulted in a success. As a result, Obama won more than two-thirds of the Asian American and Pacific Islanders votes. It was estimated of 3.85 million Asian American votes were casted and 2.67 million of those votes went his way. Following the historic victory, Asian Americans were thrilled in excitement with many media groups, who serve the Asian American community, even call Obama as the first Asian American to be president. However in this period of time, there is a lack of candidates who possess the representation of Asian Americans which can be a reason for low voter turnout.
In conclusion, in order to see a change in low voter turnout, there must be a start to spark civic engagement among Asian Americans. By 2055, the Pew Research Center states that the Asian American Numbers are projected to pass Latinos which will increase the demand for the new generation to be political leaders and become their representation in the political process. At this moment, Asian Americans still have low voter turnout rates despite their socioeconomic status due to panethnicity, large immigration population, citizenship, lack of representation, and poor English proficiency.