Public Resistance to Electing Asian Americans in Southern California (original) (raw)

2002, Journal of Asian American Studies

T HE TRANSFORMATION OF REGIONAL POLITICS is a likely consequence of the resurgence of new Asian immigration since the mid-1960s into Southern California. Unlike immigrants from other parts of the world, recent Asian immigrants often come with education, skills, and, in many cases, family assets. Asian Americans are not only the fastest growing minority according to the 1990 Census, but they also possess socioeconomic levels, rates of naturalization, and voter turnout that are either comparable to or exceed those of non-Hispanic Whites. 1 These group-specific resources are fundamental to the acquisition of political power in electoral politics. Although Asian Americans in the aggregate still vote less than Blacks or Whites, more Asian Americans have been elected or appointed to local, state, and federal offices in recent years than in any other period of the group's 150 years in America. 2 For instance, in 1992, a newly created congressional district in Southern California elected Jay Kim, who became the first Korean-born person ever elected to the House. The same year also saw the election of Tony Lam, a Vietnamese refugee, who pioneered the entry of his ethnic group into electoral politics with his election to the city council of Westminster, California. In the 1996 election, Gary Locke, son of Chinese immigrants, became the first Asian American governor of a mainland state (Washington).