Asian Americans and Politics: Perspectives, Experiences, Prospects

by Gordon H. Chang (Editor)

Overview

Asian Americans have quite recently emerged as an increasingly important force in American politics. In 1996, more than 300 Asian and Pacific Americans were elected to federal, state, and local offices; today, more than 2,000 hold appointive positions in government. Asian American voices have been prominent in policy debates over such matters as education, race relations, and immigration reform. On a more discordant note, a national controversy with racial overtones erupted in 1996-97 over alleged illegal Asian and Asian American campaign contributions and illicit foreign influences on American politics, and in 1999 another controversy arose over allegations that a Chinese American physicist had passed nuclear secrets to the Chinese government.

Yet little scholarly attention has been devoted to understanding the engagement of Asian Americans with American politics. This volume of fifteen essays is the first to take a broad-ranging look at the phenomenon. Its contributors are drawn from a variety of disciplines—history, political science, sociology, and urban studies—and from the practical political realm. They discuss such topics as the historical relationship of Asians to American politics, the position of Asian Americans in America’s legal and racial landscape, recent Asian American voting behavior and political opinion, politics and the evolving demographics of the Asian American population, current national controversies involving Asian Americans, conclusions drawn from regional and local case studies, and the future of Asian Americans in American politics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780804742016
Publisher:	Stanford University Press
Publication date:	01/01/2002
Edition description:	1
Pages:	440
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Gordon H. Chang is Associate Professor of History and Director of the Asian American Studies Program at Stanford University. He is the author of Morning Glory, Evening Shadow: Yamato Ichihashi and His Internment Writings, 1942-1945 (Stanford, 1997), and Friends and Enemies: The United States, China, and the Soviet Union, 1948-1972 (Stanford, 1990).

Table of Contents

	Figures and Tables	XI
	Preface	XIII
	Introduction	1
Part 1	Framing the Discussion
1.	Asian Americans and Politics: Some Perspectives from History	13
2.	The Racial Triangulation of Asian Americans	39
3.	Citizenship Nullification: the Impossibility of Asian American Politics	79
4.	Beyond Electoral Politics: Renewing a Search for a Paradigm of Asian Pacific American Politics	102
Part 2	Voting Behavior
5.	Asian Americans as the Median Voters: an Exploration of Attitudes and Voting Patterns on Ballot Initiatives	133
6.	Changing of the Guard? The Emerging Immigrant Majority in Asian American Politics	153
7.	Voting Participation: Race, Gender, and the Comparative Status of Asian American Women	173
Part 3	Emerging Political Identities
8.	U.S.-Born, Immigrant, Refugee, or Indigenous Status: Public Policy Implications for Asian Pacific American Families	197
9.	Asian Pacific American Youth: Pathways for Political Participation	230
10.	Seen, Rich, But Unheard? The Politics of Asian Indians in the United States	258
11.	The Impact of Mainstream Political Mobilization on Asian American Communities: The Case of Korean Americans in Los Angeles, 1992-1998	285
Part 4	Toward the Future
12.	People from China Crossing the River: Asian American Political Empowerment and Foreign Influence	311
13.	Lessons Learned from the "Locke for Governor" Campaign	354
14.	Building on the Indigenous Base: The Fund-Raising Controversy and the Future of Asian American Political Participation	367
15.	Asian Americans and Multiracial Political Coalitions: New York City's Chinatown and Redistricting, 1990-1991	383
	Contributors	409
	Index	415

Editorial Reviews

"This is an extraordinarily good collection of essays, one of the finest of its kind that I have encountered. . . . [The essays] are topically varied, theoretically and ideologically diverse, and comprehensive."

Journal of American Ethnic History

Chang (history, Stanford U.) provides the historical context for the complex position and experiences of Asian Americans in his introduction to this group of papers first presented at the spring 1998 "Asian Americans and Politics" conference at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. The remaining 14 papers, by historians, political scientists, sociologists, and academics in urban studies, consider the historical background to Asian voting rights, the tendency of Asians to be seen as median voters, the emerging immigrant majority in Asian American politics, voting participation of Asian American women, the politics of Asian Indians, the political mobilization of Korean Americans in Los Angeles in the 1990's, foreign influence on Chinese American voting, the lessons learned in the 1996 campaign of Washington State's Gary Locke, and redistricting of New York City's Chinatown. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

"The collection presents valuable insights into the growing political maturity of Asian American communities."California History

"This is an extraordinarily good collection of essays, one of the finest of its kind that I have encountered. . . . [The essays] are topically varied, theoretically and ideologically diverse, and comprehensive."—Journal of American Ethnic History

From the Publisher