Members of the country’s fastest growing minority group are running for federal office, dozens of them as Democratic candidates deliberately playing up their Asian roots against a president they say demonizes the immigrants that make America great.
The candidates include former refugees from Vietnam and children of immigrants from South Korea and India. They live in places where Asian-Pacific-Americans make up a large chunk of the electorate and in places where they do not. Their chances of winning vary.
But the candidates’ unabashed celebration of their foreign ties is notable for a group of people who have had to prove their “American-ness,” no matter how long their families have been in the country.
“I think partly it is a reaction to the current administration which has in its policies and statements sent out a very xenophobic message,” says Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., who is campaigning for a third term in the House.
Christine Chen, executive director of the nonpartisan Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote, or APIAVote, says 2018 could be a watershed year for civic participation.
Asians, who make up 6 percent of the population, have traditionally lagged in voting due to language and cultural barriers and minimal outreach from political parties, she says. In the 2016 presidential election, for example, about 49 percent of eligible Asian voters cast ballots.
It’s hard to say definitively how many Asian-Pacific-Americans are running for Congress, although The Associated Press identified at least 80 candidates of both parties. More than a dozen candidates are Republicans, and the rest are Democrats, including incumbents.
There are currently 18 Asian-Americans or Pacific Islanders in Congress; three are in the Senate.
“What’s fascinating with the congressional candidates is they’re coming from everywhere,” Chen said, ticking off races in Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, New Jersey and Texas.
Among the candidates are nearly three dozen Asian-Pacific-Americans seeking to overturn Republican seats in the U.S. House.
A National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman, Jesse Hunt, said that the GOP also has compelling and diverse candidates. Republican Young Kim, for example, is a Korean-American who is on the June 5 California primary ballot.
Political preferences vary among Asian ethnic groups although overall, more favor Democrats over Republicans, says Karthick Ramakrishnan, public policy professor at the University of California, Riverside.
Asians once voted Republican, with 55 percent choosing George H.W. Bush over Democrat Bill Clinton in 1992. But by 2012, Barack Obama had received nearly 75 percent of their vote and in 2016, Asian-Pacific-Americans overwhelmingly went for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Ramakrishnan says Asian-American voters were turned off by the Republican Party and Trump rhetoric over immigration. Indeed, more than 70 percent of Asian adults in the U.S. are born abroad, according to the Pew Research Center.
Asian-American voters soured further on the GOP after recent proposals to limit family-based immigration.
“As the son of immigrants myself, it felt very personal, it felt very un-American,” said David Min, a law professor in Southern California who is among several Democrats challenging Republican Rep. Mimi Walters.
The stereotype of Asian-Americans as “foreigners” was recently revived publicly when U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke used the Japanese word “konnichiwa” to greet a fourth-generation American of Japanese descent.
Democratic Rep. Colleen Hanabusa had just relayed the story of her grandfathers, who were incarcerated along with 120,000 other Japanese-Americans following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, their loyalty questioned by the American government.
“I was stunned,” said Hanabusa, who is running for governor of Hawaii, of Zinke’s comment. “The first thought that came to my mind is, this is why Japanese-Americans were interned.”