On Friday’s special episode of The Colbert Report, host Stephen Colbert was reviewing the Democratic National Convention and Obama’s acceptance speech on Thursday and noted the diversity of people on the stage with Obama once his speech was over - but he was looking for an “Asian Guy.” He eventually finds the token “Asian Guy” and proclaims that he needs an “Asian Guy.” That theme was played briefly throughout the episode. If anybody knows how I can be Stephen Colbert’s “Asian Guy” - let me know! 
Thursday evening, I was in downtown San Francisco to attend a California Democratic Party fundraiser to watch Obama’s acceptance speech. One of my friends, a fellow Taiwanese-American, decided to join me since she was curious and had never been to a political fundraiser at all. San Francisco has the highest percentage of Asian Americans than any other major city in the United, where over 30% of its city dwellers being Asian.
Well, as my friend also observed, in the crowd of 400+, there was maybe at most 5% to 10%… I often ask myself - where are all the Asians? Come on - get active!
Speaking of Asian Americans and the Democratic National Convention, Angry Asian Man has a good synopsis of Asian American involvement with some “correspondents.” Here are some links to their coverage:
Other posts you might be interested in:
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Max wrote:
Just in case anyone is wondering, I think that ‘Asian guy’ in the Colbert video is Senator Obama’s brother in-law Konrad Ng. He was sitting behind Michelle and the girls. The cameras showed him talking to his niece Sasha during the speech.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konrad_Ng#Konrad_Ng
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/dailypix/2007/May/13/FPI705130362AR_b.jpg
http://www.secondcity.com/news.php?id=509
Posted on 31-Aug-08 at 9:08 am | Permalink
Akrypti wrote:
Some of us Asians weren’t there ‘cuz we’re supporting the GOP.
Posted on 31-Aug-08 at 10:05 am | Permalink
John wrote:
Akrypti - true, but given that San Francisco is probably the largest liberal city in the U.S., one would expect that most of the Asian Americans in SF would be Democrats.
Posted on 31-Aug-08 at 12:17 pm | Permalink
Jason wrote:
If you want to get involved with the Obama campaign, you should check out these websites:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/aapihome
http://www.asianamericansforobama.com/
Posted on 02-Sep-08 at 10:11 am | Permalink
Rob wrote:
I think Steven Corbert is poking at the idea of how Asian American men are never included in anything, especially media.
Posted on 03-Sep-08 at 9:35 am | Permalink
Jeff C. wrote:
> one would expect that most of the Asian Americans in SF would be Democrats.
True, but since they live in SF, they’re most likely wealthy, and thus Republican
haha… actually I have no proof to back up that claim…
what I DO have proof of is that Asian-Americans are predominantly non-partisan or weakly-affiliated with their political parties. For that, I present the (slightly outdated) NAAPS poll:
http://www.80-20.ws/NAAPS-data.pdf
although not the best executed poll, it’s an interesting read…
Executive Summary:
- Majority of the Asian-Americans sampled did not vote in the 2000 election
- The main reason for not voting is “Not a Citizen”, followed by “Citizen but not registered”
- For almost all ethnicities, more people answered “Not Sure”, “Independent”, or “Do not think of myself as Rep/Dem” than identifying themselves as Republican or Democrat
- Across the board, only 35% of Democrats or Republicans considered themselves “strongly affiliated” with their party
I believe that’s the main reason why you saw so few Asian-Americans at the DNC (and probably the RNC as well). We’re just not active enough to care.
As for me, I’m fairly active, but less because I’m Asian-American and more because I care about how much of my salary I get to keep
As for looking for an Asian Guy at the DNC, one has to look no further than Obama himself!! Regardless of his blood, he was:
- born in Hawaii (60%+ Asian while he was there)
- raised by an Indonesian father
- educated in Indonesia and Hawaii
- close to his Hapa sister
- spent his first two years at college in Occidental College, which is located in the 626 area of Los Angeles (and let’s face it… anyone from the 626 KNOWS it’s all Asian)
I argue that he’s black by blood (and only half at that), but Asian by culture
Posted on 03-Sep-08 at 10:02 am | Permalink
8Asians.com » I See Asian Americans Being Politically Involved! David Chiu, San Francisco Supervisor, District 3: An Asian American/Asian Canadian Blog wrote:
[...] 30% of San Francisco is Asian American (but given the Democratic fundraiser in SF I had attended which I blogged about without many Asian Americans… ). But still, like I said, Asian Americans are SHAMEFULLY the least active of all demographic groups [...]
Posted on 28-Sep-08 at 11:31 pm | Permalink