Asian Americans Shake Off Stereotypes, Increase Clout as Political Activism Grows

Rolling Stone’s usually cool and hip reputation underwent a sobering and publicly embarrassing transformation recently, and in the process the magazine learned about the power of the emerging Asian American political community.

The Feb. 11 issue featured an article titled “Seoul Brothers,” about the recent South Korean presidential elections. The article said, among other things, that Koreans “all looked alike--the same Blackglama hair, the same high-boned pie-plate face, the same tea-stain complexion, the same sharp-focused look in 1 million identical anthracite eyes.”

Word spread quickly through the large Korean American community in Los Angeles and elsewhere. Los Angeles Councilman Michael Woo, a Chinese American, called a press conference to denounce what he called “modern-day bigotry” and “racist drivel.” A coalition of Asian American groups supported Woo’s stance. Rolling Stone, having received a number of protests, sent its executive editor, Robert Wallace, from New York to meet with Woo and other Asian American leaders.

The upshot was an apology from Wallace and promised concessions, like an internship for an Asian American journalist and a more balanced article on an Asian American topic in the future.

Rolling Stone’s concessions were astonishing, and marked the latest example in the Asian American community’s once latent and now emerging political clout.

For years now, political observers have wondered when the Asian American community in California--7% of the state’s population and projected to be more than 10% by the year 2000--would exercise political muscle to go along with its economic and educational achievements.

It would be disingenuous to suggest that a community as diverse as the Asian American one is unified on all issues. California’s Asian Americans are split between the two major parties, with the Democrats holding a slight edge. Old political, cultural and language differences continue to factionalize Asian Americans. It remains a herculean task to entice Asian Americans to register and then vote. Nonetheless, Asian Americans are increasingly entering the political arena.

The debate over the nomination of a conservative Republican congressman, Dan Lungren, to be the treasurer of California began when liberal Asian American activists ignited a campaign of opposition. They have signed up a broad range of Democratic special-interest groups to try to block the confirmation of Lungren.

The Lungren battle is seen by Asian American political observers as a high watermark, in that this was the first time Asian Americans initiated a statewide political movement not solely focused on a narrow Asian-oriented issue.

A meeting of national Asian and Pacific American Democrats last fall attracted three Democratic presidential candidates, all of whom made unsurprising promises about appointing Asian Americans to high-level offices. But 10 years ago it would have been unlikely for any presidential candidates to have felt compelled to attend such a gathering.

As an ethnic group, Asian Americans are the second most generous political campaign contributors after Jewish Americans. Generally, politicians have viewed Asian American campaign contributors as patsies because they gave generously but almost never asked for anything in return. That’s now beginning to change.

A national Chinese American group is proposing a tough policy of withholding campaign contributions unless presidential candidates commit to appointments of Chinese Americans to Cabinet-level or other visible policy-making jobs.

Asian American political clout shows up in other areas as well. Some Asian Americans are engaged in a lively debate with University of California officials over the question of whether the university has put a cap on the number of Asian Americans admitted. University officials deny any bias, but Ira Michael Heyman, chancellor of the Berkeley campus, has publicly apologized for the defensive posture that his administration has taken to allegations of an admission ceiling for Asian Americans. Political observers consider Heyman’s conciliatory tone as a moral victory for Asian American interests in this yet-unresolved matter.

More Asian Americans are seeking public office, or higher public offices than the ones that they now hold. S. B. Woo, for example, is contemplating a run for the U.S. Senate in Delaware, where he is the lieutenant governor. Sang R. Korman, a political unknown, is seeking the GOP congressional nomination in the conservative Ventura-West Valley district, which has few Asian American voters.

Asian American politicians of whatever specific ethnic background have grown to realize that coalitions among the varying Asian groups are necessary in order to consolidate power.

As the Asian American community continues to grow, it is clear that a political Rip Van Winkle is awakening.