Yellow/Brown: California’s Ethnic Coalition?
February 8, 2008
What wouldn’t you do for democracy’s sake?
Eighty-three-year-old Henry Chen asked for a ride to his Bay Area polling place on “Super Tuesday.” But no one mentioned his broken foot.
When a driver for the Clinton campaign showed up, Henry showed his dedication by gingerly maneuvering the stairs at his home step by step on his butt, all the way to the sidewalk.
“He didn’t NOT want to vote for Hillary,” Julie Soo, the Clinton API state chair told me.
That’s Asian American loyalty for you, and it was in full force on Super Tuesday.
Of course, it’s unlikely you’ll hear Tim Russert, or anyone else for that matter, talking about Henry sliding down on his butt on NBC.
But knowing about Henry adds that APA human element to the results we saw from the ballot box to the exit polls that day.
After months of a campaign where Asian Americans were invisible, the community did its part when the campaign came to the most Asian state in America.
We showed up, and flexed a little muscle in the process.
Normally, our presence doesn’t even rank as an X factor. Our numbers don’t normally add up. Certainly not in places like Iowa or New Hampshire.
But people forget California’s the state where blacks are number three, after Latinos and Asian Americans. And the ethnic bloc didn’t split. It went overwhelmingly for Clinton, and was led by Asian Americans.
In California, the exit poll data showed Clinton won the Asian vote by 73 percent to 25 percent for Obama. That was far more convincing than the Latino vote, where the exit poll data showed Clinton winning 66 percent to 33 percent for Obama. Blacks went with Obama overwhelmingly with 81 percent to Clinton’s 16 percent. And whites went with Obama 49 percent to 43 percent for Clinton. Asians and Latinos delivered for Clinton in California for the night.
I had a sense of the de facto coalition developing the day before while I covered a rally in Stockton, Calif, the section of California I call the reddest part in the bluest state in America.
Greeting me at the rally was Hilary Yip, 20, of San Francisco, a Lowell High grad attending the University of Pacific. Her parents back in the Visitation Valley were Hong Kong immigrants who were fairly traditional, she said. “They want to see a white man as president,” the one-L Hilary said. “But this country is ready to be run by a woman. As I am a feminist, I really want to see a woman president.”
Standing next to her was Rachel Garcia, a Stockton business woman in her 40s. She was looking around for her friends from the local Latina Democratic club. Her dream: a woman in the White House. “I really want my children to see that in their lifetime.”
Gender was part of the allure, for sure. But the numbers suggest there is something about the immigrant nature of the Asian and the Latino communities that brought them together to support the same candidate.
Asian Americans fondness for Hillary was seen in other states with large APA populations like New York and New Jersey, according to exit polls by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund. But here in California where the Latino vote is so massive, evidence of this coalition may be the most important thing for our community from Super Tuesday.
There is a real opportunity for future political benefit here. After all, because of the overall size of our APA communities, real strength can’t be derived by staying isolated.
An ongoing coalition with Latinos actually is intriguing. And somewhat natural. One of the largest APA groups, Filipino Americans, are Asian and Hispanic. And according to APA officials with the Clinton campaign in California, Filipinos were among the most loyal of Hillary’s Asian American supporters.
The way things look now, who knows if Hillary will go on to win the nomination? The saving grace is that exit polls suggest more than 70 percent of Clinton and Obama supporters felt comfortable with either candidate.
So perhaps the most enduring lesson for future political battles is how Asian Americans and Latinos found common ground on Super Tuesday.
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19 Responses to “Yellow/Brown: California’s Ethnic Coalition?”
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This demonstrates Hillary’s strength and Obamas weakness come November. McCain can carry these two communities and we all know it. Obama will have trouble winning that vote in swing states. That would certainly cost the Democrats the election if Obama is the nominee. Hillary pretty much is the only hope that can bring the Democratic base together.
For more on the campaign and other news, check out the blog at http://www.amok.asianweek.com
–Emil
Emil:
Interesting take and theory, but, for APAs, in view of Art Hu’s insistence that McCain’s “racist” epithet is no worse than those of GI’s and almost everyone else during WWII, I rhink EVERYone should read today’s Paul Craig Robertses’ Counterpunch piece.
While we are all dithering about the relatively insignificant domestic-issues differences between Clinton and Obama, never forgetting the former’s consistent pro-war-funding votes, the “Brownshirts,” Robertses’ contemp coinage?, should not be ignored, despite the seemingly obvious fact of their political irrelevancy today.
Art Hu seems not to mind being called a “gook”? and must also cotton to the idea of hegemonic wars for the coming century, a scenario not all that fanciful when one considers the past seven years, and earlier-on.
Americans justly focus on the recession and jobs and homes and the next meal, not to mention heating their digs the rest of this winter, but they ignore the Brownshirt specter to their immense peril. Just one, staged?, “incident” could presage the end of a republic and the continuing emergence of an already growing neofascist “democracy.”
Frank Eng
P.S.: Roberts flatly asserts the neocons have blueprinted war on China. Maybe Art’s revenge for “Little Saigon”?
And, remember, Roberts servwd in high office the Reagan administration.
We all knew it, but now that Asian Americans are readily saying it, it truly is the saddest thing. Asians have been found to be highly racist against black Americans, and this merely reflects it.
Obama will be the president, and I hope he doesn’t appoint a single Asian or latino to the cabinet.
Asians and Mexicans aren’t part of American culture, which is always going to be a source of resentment.
[…] most interesting and important issues to emerge from the California Super Tuesday primary: namely, why are Asian Americans supporting Hillary Clinton by a 3 to 1 advantage over Barack Obama? This is in rather stark contrast to the nearly wall-to-wall coverage devoted to Hispanic voters […]
Re: Amy Heidenburg
I believe it’s QUITE the opposite. Think of the L.A. riots in 1992, how Koreans and Korean-Americans were targeted by blacks.
Latinos AND Asians are being targeting as engaging in “ethnic cleansing” of blacks in L.A., elsewhere.
Asians are frequently the object of derision, violence, and prejudice from BLACKS, not whites! If whites acted the way many blacks do, I think you’d find Asians never or rarely voting for a white candidate.
How does Amy know what goes on between blacks and Asians unless she is a member of either group, anyway?
Race schmace.
Race and color and “creed” have little, or, likely, nothing to do with the upcoming election, which will be “decided” by “events” in ALL the “streets” of this world.
Said events include the “domestic,” as in delegates and “super”delegates and/or the possibility, plausibility?, of a domestic and contemp “brownshirt” putsch in the Beltway in the event of a true “revolution: of the “people,” the “citizens” of our contemporary “Rome” and hubristic hegemony.
The other events, far beyond ANYone’s control, including the benighted beliefs of our “rulers,” are taking place or will take place in Baghdad, in Karachi, in Islamabad, in Kabul, in Tehran, and, very likely, in mid-Asian capitals we are only beginning to “spell” properly, as in Uzbek or Turkmen or Uighur, or, maybe, even in the Chechen language. We haven’t even “pacified” Kosovo vis-a-vis “Serbia.”
All that said, either Kennedys OR Clintons may prove out to be mere asterisks in future “histories.”
Of course, Dubya may outrank them all, as a pretender to the title of a nouveau “Hitler.”
Frank Eng
Amy, kindly notice that half of Obama’s family are Asians, plus he grew up in an Asian country himself.
in hindsight i voted for a nobel peace
prize winner and may possibly again
in the presidential race! keep your heads up
it’s a long time till november…
Happy Valentine’s Day to all you who respond here.
I appreciate you reading my columns. But do check out the daily blog for updates from me.
–Emil
By the way, the reason Latinos and Asians have not voted for Obama has nothing to do with racism toward blacks.
Anyone who suggests otherwise is being irresponsible.
–Emil
Asians are frequently the object of derision, violence, and prejudice from BLACKS, not whites! If whites acted the way many blacks do, I think you’d find Asians never or rarely voting for a white candidate.
Oh please whites can insult some Asians all day long and what will be done, they’d probably still vote for a white candidate. Also if whites acted the way many blacks do? What did you think all whites were nice clean and wholesome., yeah this country definitely isn’t ready for anything.
Amy:
Pot, meet kettle.
WTF?!
You’re white and calling asians racist against blacks? It’s always the blacks or the whites that act blatantly racist towards Asians. Being the smallest ethnic group, it’s always easier to pick on us. Obama is no different. If he gets elected to office, then all the Asians will be thrown out of college and sent to concentration camps while blacks take our place. Ever heard of affirmative action?<br />
It’s not called racism, more like self-protection. There are people who probably would say that Obama wouldn’t do that, but he’s got to give the blacks more privileges and who’s he gonna take those privileges from? The whites would rebel and there are too many latinos, which leaves one option. Do you get it now, you *** idiot?
The yellow people are our worker bees and sex dolls!
Wow, the level of discourse here has really a dive into the gutter.
First of all, Obama is half white. Secondly, why would you think a white candidate like Hillary or McCain would protect Asian interests more than a half-white half black candidate? There are some truly idiotic comments here, like the one poster Henry who thinks that Obama will “give blacks more privileges and take them from Asians”.
This is not a zero-sum game folks. The person who gets elected to the white house is going to have a lot more things to worry about, such as the economy, the war in Iraq, and healthcare than issues like ‘who gets what special privilege’. Maybe you guys should stop focusing on race so much and worry more about the real issues facing this country.
I guess it must be white privilege that Hillary and McCain aren’t assumed to represent white interests but a half-black candidate is automatically assumed to represent black interests.
I’m not sure if Emil is trying to get people to vote for Hillary or Obama here. It’s unfair to say that average Asian democrats preferred Hillary because she’s white since the Democrats are usually the ones who will give somebody MORE points for being black than being female, and there’s plenty to go around when pointing fingers at what group hates whom, might as well go into ABCs dumping on immigrants and Chinese and Japanese feeling superior to Filipinos etc. For the record, I didn’t like being called a Jap when I was a kid either (or nxgger for matter, boy some kids were ignorant back then) and I don’t support our troops calling Germans Jerries, Krauts or generic locals “Hadjii”s as the going name for enemy is these days, but I wouldn’t call him a racist for using colloqial US military terminology (now if you want to do some research, look up the name of his first attack squadron, go and have some fun with that one, the one everybody knows about are the “saints”) I’m doing some heavy research on Obama and MccCain, and the deeper I get on Obama, the worse it gets, with McCain you get a flawed hero, but a hero nonetheless if you want to look “hope of adversity” or “adversity of hope” or whatever. To be honest, McCain probably got a legacy admit into the naval academy, but he came out ok. As much as I can complain about proportional quotas at Harvard Law in the 80s, they probably think they produced the minority leaders they were looking for in the end. I don’t mind a first black president myself, but I’d rather have it be somebody whose more accomplished and qualified than the people he beat rather that someone who’s taken advantage of opponents felled by sex scandals or a nerd nobody votes for to win seats up to senate level. I wouldn’t mind Condi Rice as veep at all, she’s much smarter than either Barack or Michelle combined, or Hillary for that matter (ok she’s smarter than McCain too)
uh… I was just kidding about filipinos, really….
you like Condi that much? Really?
Is this the same Condi that parrotted the party line and said in definitive terms that Saddam Hussein was harboring WMD’s?