The post What The Hell Happened To Asian Americans? appeared first on Noodle Pundit.
AFP-Texas’ TXOnline media conference has come and gone, but one of the last panels dealt with community inclusion. Right now, Republicans are failing miserably with minority inclusion, especially with Hispanics and Asians. Between 2000-2010, the Asian-American population grew by 42.9%, Hispanics grew by 13%, African-Americans by 11%, and whites by 1.2%. Dr. Martha Wong, a former Representative in the Texas State House, noted that Republicans would be unable to win elections even if every white person voted Republican by 2040. Asians use to be a Republican demographic, but that started to shift after the 1992 presidential election. So, what happened to us?
First, conservatives need to work on messaging. Dr. Wong noted that Asian Americans start to veer away from listening to the right when the negative taking points about immigration are brought up; they feel excluded. It’s fine to say we’re for legal immigration, but keep in check on overly fiery statements about enforcement. Most Asian Americans are new immigrants, or have family members within that class; which means they feel that Republicans are also talking about throwing out.
When that happens, they find a common interest with other minority groups, which shift them to the left on policy. It also doesn’t help when politicians pull the “I have plenty of friends in the [insert minority group here],” which will only elicit mockery from the media and cool receptions from the group you’re trying to engage with. Back in March, Politico actually had a good piece about Asian Americans’ affinity for the Democratic Party. While race, race-based discrimination, and its correlation to those within the Democratic Party were mentioned, the part about policy seemed to deal more with Republican problems surrounding messaging:
Our second finding is a little more complicated. It turns out that the political affiliation of Asian Americans is sensitive to how issues are framed. When Asian Americans are reminded of their shared political interests with other minorities, they are pushed to the left. We found evidence for this argument in the 2008 National Asian American Survey. To again get at causality, we conducted an experiment embedded in a national survey to corroborate this finding of the impacts of intergroup solidarity with African Americans and Hispanic Americans.
We surveyed a large sample of Asian Americans and randomly assigned individuals to read different versions of a newspaper article that framed the important, high-impact issue of immigration in two different ways. One article focused on the impact of Arizona SB1070, a law that required police officers to ascertain people’s immigration status, indicating the common status of immigrants of Asian and Hispanic origin. Another article focused on how the current immigration reform debate can pit higher-skilled immigrants from Asia against lower-skilled immigrants from Latin America.
The result: When immigration was framed as an issue that teamed Hispanics and Asians together under the umbrella of common interest, 72 percent identified as Democrats and 28 percent as Republicans. But when immigration was framed as an issue that pitted Hispanics and Asians against each other, only 67 percent of Asians identified as Democrats and 33 percent as Republicans.
The article suggests that one way Republicans can chip away at this advantage is for them to highlight how certain policies benefit other racial groups more, but that brings us back to Republican problems with messaging; a debate that’s ongoing.
For starters, conservatives can start reaching out into these communities by making our case in their native languages. Sixty-five percent of Asians still read the news in their native languages. That’s huge; and there’s definitely some media bias that’s being uncontested as a result.
Another facet in outreach is simple: just show up. Democrats in Houston, where TXOnline was held, attend every gala, festival, and family dinner. They also hire staffers from within these communities and their sole job is to keep tabs on upcoming events. As for Republicans, they’ve decided to cede this battlefield to liberals.
There’s no reason Republicans can’t be competitive with this group. Asians, like America itself, are masters at wealth creation. They’re highly educated, family-oriented, and entrepreneurial. They’re natural Republicans.
Now, on the issue of faith and family, conservative do have a tendency to thump on the bible and endlessly praise their lord and savior Jesus Christ. That’s fine, but remember that not all Asians are Christian. A lot of them are Buddhist, Taoists, and Muslim.
Religion, through no fault of its own, is an issue that too often lends itself to dividing folks than uniting them. That’s not to say there will be no unification among these groups, but let’s focus on minority inclusion activities that have the least chance of causing an unforced error. Mitt Romney’s campaign probably blew its chance to reach into the Hispanic community when he supported self-deportation. Just one mistake can destroy your ability to set up a dialogue.
So, it seems that a combination of poor communication skills, lack of participation in key events, and simple Republican incompetence is what allowed this very winnable demographic to slip away. The good news, in the words of George Will, is that public opinion is shiftable sand; there are no permanent victories in a democracy or constitutional federal republic.
The Texas GOP is making small in-roads within their Hispanic community. It’s time we do the same for Asian Americans.
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