Asian Americans Overwhelmingly Supported Obama

Posted on November 6, 2008 by John

America’s next “First Family.”

Well, it’s been two days since America elected the first African American president by electing Barack Obama to the White House and I’m sure a lot of us are still digesting what this means for American and the world. I just saw this AFP article sent out by the Asian Americans for Obama email list, and Asian Americans overwhelmingly supported Obama over McCain:

“Sixty-two percent of the seven million Asian voters picked Democrat Obama compared with 35 percent for Republican Senator John McCain in the historic presidential election on Tuesday, media exit polls showed. “This is one of the best coordinated Asian-American campaign efforts and I think the community ought to be very proud of it,” said Mike Honda on Wednesday, the chairman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. Studies showed that Asian-Americans were a “deciding factor” in the presidential race in states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington, Virginia, Nevada and Minnesota.”

As a Democrat, Obama volunteer and supporter, that brings joy to my heart to see the overwhelming support for Obama. As we know, there is especially a significant number of Asian Americans in Nevada and Virgina that helped carry those states for Obama. To be honest, I am little surprised that Asian Americans, and it would be interesting to break down voting patterns by age, would favor Obama over McCain. I know that older Asian Americans, typically those who were born and raised overseas, may have harbored some doubts over voting for an African American (whom I think are more socially conservative; it’ll be interesting to see how Asian Americans voted on California Proposition 8… a topic for another blog post for 8Asians).

Besides Obama getting elected, there were a total of six Asian Americans in the House of Representatives that got re-elected: Mike Honda (California), Doris Matsui (California), Mazie Keiko Hirono (Hawaii), David Wu (Oregon), Robert C. Scott (Virginia) and Eni F.H. Faleomavaega (American Samoa). I didn’t know American Samoa even had a representative! (I just learned something new today – U.S. territories do have representatives…). In doing some quick research, I came across this very interesting “CRS Report for Congress” document (June 2008) titled, “Asian Pacific Americans in the United States Congress (.pdf)” which covers the history and documents all the Asian Americans who have been elected to Congress.

“Of the 36 Asian Pacific Americans who have served in the United States Congress from 1903 to the present, there have been five Senators (three have also served in the House), 15 Representatives, six territorial Delegates, and 13 Resident Commissioners from the Philippine Islands… The ancestry of these Asian Pacific Americans has included Chinese, Chamorro, Filipino, Asian Indian, Japanese, Korean, Native Hawaiian, and Samoan. Of the 23 Asian Pacific Americans, 16 were Democrats and 7 were Republicans…Asian Pacific Americans have served in both houses of Congress representing California, Hawaii, Louisiana, Oregon, Virginia, American Samoa, and Guam.”

So I digress… Back to the point of Obama being elected. Personally, no matter if you supported Obama or not, you should be proud that America has elected its first African American president and that a presidential candidate was not “judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Truly in America, you can be whatever you want to be, including president (well, so long as you were born in the U.S.).

The question for 8Asian readers are, when are we going to see an Asian American president? I highly doubt in my lifetime – but I would be elated if an Asian American were to be elected president (now I wouldn’t vote for one just because they were Asian American though). I didn’t get a chance to do a blog post on this special NPR piece, but NPR interviewed Jeff Yang (writer and business-media consultant who is currently the “Asian Pop” columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle) on the topic of “Asian Writer Ponders First Asian President Too” (17 min 49 sec) – an interesting and thought provoking interview if you have time to listen.

In the coming days and weeks, Obama will be filling out his administration and building his cabinet. Hopefully qualified Asian Americans will be well represented appropriately.

In the next few days, I’ll try to do a wrap up of some exciting local races involved Asian Americans in the San Francisco Bay Area. In the meantime, let’s all wish President Elect Barack Obama our best wish and that we can “all come together” to solve our nation’s many deep problems.
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About John

I'm a Taiwanese-American and was born & raised in Western Massachusetts, went to college in upstate New York, worked in Connecticut, went to grad school in North Carolina and then moved out to the Bay Area in 1999 and have been living here ever since - love the weather and almost everything about the area (except the high cost of housing...)
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