As a group, Asian Americans are used to being left out of polls, studies and surveys on a daily basis. "Americans suffering heart attacks each year: x% Whites, x% Blacks, x% Hispanics." "Americans who have joined the Mile High Club: x% Whites, x% Blacks, x% Hispanics." Of course my favorite is when we're lumped into the "Other" category: "Diners who believe Chinese waiters will spit in their food if they complain about the service: x% Whites, x% Blacks, x% Hispanics, x% Others."
So we're certainly used to political polls being broken down the same exact way.
Not surprising when we remember that most Asian immigrants couldn't even become
naturalized citizens until the mid '60s. Before that, the naturalization laws were so prohibitive that very few Asians qualified. And let's not forget, the U.S. government actually stripped
native-born Asian Americans of their voting rights during WWII. So as a voting bunch, we're relatively late-comers to the party.
But suddenly, it seems that all of the pundits and the pollsters have come looking for us. And now that they have "discovered" us, they're saying that -- gulp!! -- we may ACTUALLY DECIDE THE WHOLE F@%#ING THING!!!
"ASIANS EMERGE AS SWING VOTERS IN WHITE HOUSE RACE," declares the
AFP. If this is a close election, we are the closers. We make up 5% of the total population, and about 3.5 million of us are registered to vote in the presidential election. We live in important states such as California, New York, Texas, and New Jersey (and Hawaii, but the AFP deems Hawaii as a less significant state). And we vote overwhelmingly in favor of Democrats, and favor Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama, even though his "ties to the Asian American community are deep" since "he had once lived in Indonesia and has a half-sister who is half-Indonesian". (Does this mean that my ties to Australia run deep because I lived there for a month and have a dog that is half-Australian shepard?)
"DOES OBAMA HAVE AN ASIAN PROBLEM?" Time Magazine demands to know. It points out that Asian Americans -- other than the ones in Hawaii -- hey, you Hawaiian APIs, why are you so different than the rest of us in the mainland?? -- have overwhelmingly voted for Hillary Clinton. And look, the pollsters have been paying attention to us for once, actually counting our heads, and here are the numbers they've crunched: in California, APIs were 3-to-1 in favor of Clinton; in New York, 87% voted for her. New Jersey? 73%!
But. Then. They. Go. There.
YES, THEY DO. They dare to ask the question: are Asians spurning Obama because he's the
B Word? What's even worse, they quote an Asian dude who essentially says Obama is a d
ifferent kind of black -- since he's half white and, you know, lived for a minute in Indonesia with his half-Indonesian sis -- so Asians who are not voting for him because of the stereotypes about black people should reconsider, since he's not
that black. He's, you know, the
Other Kind of Black.
The Non-Black Black.
So bottom line per the media: we Asians don't discern, we discriminate. So if you're Asian and vote for Clinton, you're a racist bastard. Conversely, by extending that logic, if you vote for Obama, well then I guess that makes you a sexist pig.
I lived through the L.A. Riots. Remember how it all started? Whites beating up a black man, then blacks beating up a white man. Remember how it ended? Korean/Asian-owned businesses being burned down to the ground.
I still shake my head over that one.
