S.F. APIs Lean Right
March 6, 2000
Help to pass Prop. 21, Prop. 22; shoot down Prop. 26
By Jason Ma
The dissection and analysis of the California primary vote continued March 10 when observers of the Asian American, African American and Latino communities revealed that the ethnic electorate tended to vote as social conservatives on election day.
Polls indicate ethnic voters statewide overwhelmingly supported Proposition 21, which makes violent crimes committed by juveniles subject to heavier punishment, and Proposition 22, which defines marriage as strictly a union between a man and a woman as opposed to a partnership between a gay couple.
And even in liberal San Francisco, a slim majority of Chinese Americans voted for Propositions 21 and 22, while the rest of the city voted against it by 60 and 68 percent, respectively. African Americans in San Francisco voted it down, though statewide that group was also in favor of it, said Republican pollster Chris Bowman, who drew his conclusions from vote tallies of predominantly Chinese American voter precincts.
And on Proposition 26, the initiative that would have allowed school bond measures to pass by a simple majority instead of a two-thirds majority, Asian Americans and whites voted “slightly on the no side,” Field Institute director Mark DiCamillo said, while Latinos and blacks voted largely in favor of it.
“On social and economic issues, Chinese Americans are about as conservative as Republicans,” Bowman said.
Attempting to explain why Asian Americans voted the way they did on these propositions, Chinese American Voter Education Committee executive director David Lee attributed the conservative leaning to the high number of foreign-born voters.
For example, in San Francisco 75 percent of Asian American voters were born outside the United States, mostly in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Vietnam. Those voters, Lee said, bring with them traditional values of Buddhism and Neo-Confucianism that tend to be more conservative.
However, U.S.-born API voters and those who have lived in the United States for most of their lives tend to vote more liberal, Lee added.
“Asians who’ve been on voter rolls a long time voted against Props. 21 and 22,” he said, noting that a similar pattern can be seen in the Latino community, in which immigrants are more socially conservative than Latinos born in the United States.
But San Jose State University political science professor Cobie Harris offered that the high number of Asian American small business owners contributes to that population’s conservatism.
He added that “coalitions can be made” between Asian Americans, whites and blacks, because African Americans and Latinos tend to view each other as competitors. “But for African Americans and Asian Americans, there is no deep-seated competition at this level.”
According to exits poll conducted by the Voter News Service and the Field Institute, 6 percent of those who voted in the primary were Asian American, compared to 6 percent African American, 13 percent Latino and 73 percent white.
Among all Republicans in California, Asian Americans make up 5 percent, African Americans 1, Latinos 8 and whites 84. Of Democrats, Asian Americans accounted for 7 percent, Latinos 17, African Americans 11, and whites 62.
Echoing survey results of other organizations around the state, DiCamillo said one of the more striking aspects of the Asian American electorate was the large number of voters who are unaffiliated with either the Democratic or Republican parties.
“Asian Americans are much more likely to be unaffiliated, which makes them a much more interesting and volatile.”
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