ASIAN AMERICAN VOTE SPLIT
AMONG DEMOCRATS, REPUBLICANS   

Although Asian Americans tend to be slightly more conservative than other minority groups in the United States, their vote in recent elections has been almost evenly split between the Republican and Democratic Parties and therefore could swing either way in particular elections, according to experts who have analyzed Asian American voting patterns.

Nevertheless, data compiled by the Population Reference Bureau (PRB), a nonpartisan organization that collects and analyzes information based on U.S. Census data, indicates a trend toward the Democrats in recent years. This is attributed to concern among Asian Americans about the immigration views of some Republican officeholders.

"Japanese Americans and Filipino Americans tend to vote Democratic," says Gregory Rodriguez, an expert on Asian Americans at the California-based Pepperdine Institute for Public Policy. "Vietnamese Americans lean Republican and Chinese Americans check the 'decline to state' category on their registration cards more than either major party. Korean Americans divide almost evenly between the two major parties."

Asian Americans tend to be more conservative "because in general they are wealthier and better educated than most other groups, including whites," says Karl Haub, PRB's expert on the Asian American community. "This is particularly true among the longer standing groups such as the Chinese and the Japanese -- less true among the newer Asian American communities, particularly those who came here from Southeast Asia during the refugee migrations of the 1980s." The statistics indicate that 40 percent of Asian Americans hold a college degree compared to 25 percent of whites, for example.

Currently, there are an estimated 10 million Asian Americans in the United States, just under 4 percent of the population -- a much smaller percentage of the population than Hispanics or African Americans. But the Asian American population increased about a third in the 1990s and is increasing faster than the African American or Hispanic population, according to PRB. There are over one million Chinese Americans, for example, in California alone.

The first Asian immigrants to the United States were Chinese and Japanese. Today, Asian American ethnic groups include not only East Asians such as Chinese, Japanese and Koreans, but also Filipinos, Asian Indians and Vietnamese. The figures break down as follows: Chinese 24 percent; Filipinos 21 percent; Asian Indians 13 percent; Vietnamese 11 percent; Korean 10 percent; Japanese 10 percent; and "other" 11 percent. Three Southeast Asian groups that were displaced by the Vietnam War -- Cambodians, Hmong and Laotians -- make up about 5 percent of the "other" category.

Immigration into the United States from Asia averaged only about 15,000 people per year in the 1950s, according to PRB. But as a result of the 1965 Immigration act, which prohibited discrimination in immigration, the numbers surged. By the 1980s, immigration from Asia averaged more than 270,000 people per year. The majority of Asian Americans -- about 54 percent -- live in the western states.

Because many Asian Americans came to the United States recently, they are not as well organized politically as other minority groups, says Phil Tajitsu Nash, a writer with Asian Week, a publication aimed at Asian Americans. But Nash says that is changing as more Asian American officials are elected. Organizations such as the 80-20 Group, a coalition of mostly Chinese Americans, are not only working to get more Asian Americans elected, he adds, but also are seeking to gather Asian Americans into more of a voting bloc so that they can more directly affect the outcome of elections.

In this regard, Asian Americans are acting much like other groups that came to the United States and saw their path to improvement through the formation of civic and other organizations which helped them to impact the political system. As far as issues are concerned, "many of our leaders focus on immigration, education, affirmative action, and other issues that directly impact us," Nash says. So far, "few have gone beyond race-related issues to speak out on issues of wider concern like the economy and abortion rights," he adds.

That is likely to change, however, as the number of Asian Americans continues to grow. "The Asian American population is growing at a breathtaking pace," says Sharon Lee, a writer on Asian American issues. Even though their numbers represent fewer than 4 percent of the U.S. population, "their influence on U.S. society is accentuated by their geographic concentration in a handful of states and cities and their above average income and educational levels," she adds.