WASHINGTON (AP) – Michelle Au spoke on the Georgia State Senate floor last week begging her colleagues to “stand up” to the hatred of Asian Americans that has increased during the pandemic. A day later, a gunman shook the Atlanta area by killing eight people, including six women of Asian descent.
For Au, who became the first Asian-American woman to join the Senate in January, the attack was a heartbreaking confirmation of her fears. It also urges her and other Asian Americans to push for more political influence in Washington and other centers of power.
“People in our communities are hungry for representation that resembles them,” Au said in an interview. “I don’t think people can see problems if they haven’t experienced it in the past.”
According to the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies, there are at least 160 Asian American and Pacific islanders in 33 national legislatures. As many as 51 of them are in the Hawaii legislature. And of the 535 members of Congress, only 17 are of Asian or Pacific Islander descent, according to the Congressional Research Service. There are also three non-voting delegates who are Asian American and Pacific Islanders.
President Joe Biden and his aides have been repeatedly pressured to include Asian Americans in his cabinet. On Tuesday, two Democratic senators, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii and Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, threatened to oppose up-and-coming nominees who fail to reinforce the diversity of the government.
“I’ve been talking to them for months and they still aren’t aggressive,” Duckworth said. “I’ll turn everyone down until they find out.”
Later, the two senators put their blockade aside after consulting the administration. White House press secretary Jen Psaki announced on Tuesday the addition of a senior contact for Asian-American Pacific Islander members “who will ensure that the voice of the community is further represented.”
Biden chose Katherine Tai, who is a Taiwanese American, as his best trade envoyShe was confirmed last week, becoming the only Asian American to hold a cabinet-level position in the new government. Vivek Murthy, the son of Indian parents, Biden’s surgeon general candidate, an under-cabinet position, was confirmed on Tuesday.
Many Asian Americans say it will take years for feelings of being politically marginalized to be fully overcome. Last week, an emotional congressional hearing threw the national spotlight on fighting racism among the community – but there is unlikely to be any major legislation to address it.
“I think symbolism and representation matter, but only to an extent,” said Aarti Kohli, executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice. “What’s more important is actually doing the job.”
There are signs of change.
Kamala Harris, whose mother was born in India, is the first black woman and person of South Asian descent to become Vice PresidentAccording to the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies, more than 300 Asian-American and Pacific islanders have run for election in 2020.
More seem to be preparing campaigns for the future. Madalene Xuan-Trang Mielke, the group’s president and CEO, said her organization recently held training for people interested in participating in municipal and state legislative races and that there were about 30 in attendance. She also encourages community members to join local councils and committees.
“We are subject matter experts in a wide variety of industries, and we should have that a reflection of our democracy by letting people like us and others participate in any kind of public policy discussion,” Mielke said.
Asian Americans are looking at other large offices around the country.
In New York City, former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang gets attention – and campaign money – in a bid for mayor. And in California, home to the country’s largest Asian-American community, elected officials are pushing Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom to appoint an Attorney General of Asian descent to succeed Xavier Becerra, who was chosen as Biden’s Secretary for Health and Human Services.
Still, Stop AAPI Hate, an activist group formed as the US pandemic shutdown began, had received nearly 4,000 self-reported incidents of bias or discrimination from all 50 states since last month. And nearly 3 in 10 Asian Americans said they had been exposed to racist slurs or jokes since the start of the coronavirus outbreak, according to data from the Pew Research Center released last summer.
Janelle Wong, the director of the Asian American Studies Program at the University of Maryland, has explored how discrimination can affect political participation. She said such incidents can sometimes alienate members of the affected community, but more often they lead to more political activity.
Wong pointed to California’s strict, Republican-backed anti-immigrant laws of the 1990s that helped mobilize Latinos to vote democratically and turned the state bright blue within a generation. Democrats hope a similar shift has begun in Arizona recently
Wong said the Asian-American population began to grow in the mid-1990s with the creation of the H1-B visa program, making it easier for employers to hire immigrants in specialized professions. Many of those people have now been in the country for over 20 years, and they, or second-generation immigrant families, are starting to do their bit politically by registering to vote and voting at higher rates.
In the November election, 70% of Asian-American voters supported Biden, according to AP VoteCast, a nationwide survey of the electorate. According to the Pew Research Center, Asian Americans now represent the country’s fastest-growing ethnic minority, with nearly 5% of eligible voters in last year’s election.
U.S. Census data showed that the community had one of the largest increases in vote rates of any group in the 2018 midterm elections compared to the 2014 midterms, from an estimated 27% of eligible voters who were in 2014 actually voted to 40% in 2018But the largest Asian-American communities are still mostly concentrated in non-swing presidential states, meaning neither political party has devoted significant resources to reaching voters.
“There is not the same incentive for parties to mobilize them, and it is much more difficult because it takes some resources, it takes some care and language to understand Asian-American issues as well,” Wong said. “Those things all contribute to lower political participation among Asian Americans, but people assume – I mistakenly believe – that Asian Americans are somehow less interested in American civilian life.”
That evolves. This year, Wong points to state races in Virginia, where Asian-American voters in the Washington suburbs could have a decisive influence.
“People are now becoming much more invested, especially as people in positions of power are constantly silencing our community,” said Michelle Chan, a Chinese Malaysian American voter in Alexandria, Virginia.
Kohli, of Asian Americans Advancing Justice, said the community could also change House districts in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Texas during the 2022 midterm elections.
Democratic Rep. Grace Meng of New York, first vice president of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, said many Asian Americans have responded to the shootings by better protecting themselves, donating to civilian groups, and even forming brigades to bring in with the elderly. walk. most Asian neighborhoods or handing out whistles to curb incidents of racism and violence. But she said greater political involvement was the next step.
“We literally learned not to speak and not rock the boat,” said Meng. “And so, especially in the past year, it has been such a challenge to tell our older generation of Asian immigrants – Asian Americans who have been here for maybe three decades – that now is the time to stop being invisible, to to speak. “
Nabilah Islam, a Bangladeshi American Democratic strategist and organizer in Georgia, ran unsuccessfully to Congress last year. She said she felt compelled to do so because, although she had lived in her district outside of Atlanta all her life, she “never saw anyone who looked like me” campaigned.
“What really makes a difference is activists are showing up from your own community,” Islam said. “We’ve had a top-down strategy for so long where you frankly let these white consultants come in and tell you how to organize your communities. But they never actually visited these houses and talked to these families. “
The Asian American and Pacific Islander community includes people of a range of different heritages and cultures who often speak languages other than English. Organizers say they are working to better reconcile that diverse heritage as they partner with activists from different backgrounds, including African Americans and Latinos – and that the outpouring of public support after the shootings could facilitate such efforts.
“Asian Americans didn’t necessarily grow up with that vocabulary of advocacy and how to fight for ourselves,” Meng said. It was necessary to “learn that from other communities like the Black and Latino communities and walk alongside them, witness their struggles.”
Associated Press writers Emily Swanson and Lisa Mascaro in Washington contributed to this report.