First of all, let me say Kung Hay Fat Choy to all of our readers. Today marks the beginning of the Year of the Dog. The Washington Post has what I thought to be a very illustrative article on what holidays like the Chinese New Year mean to politicians who want the Asian American vote:
Most Maryland voters probably didn’t realize that Asian Americans were celebrating New Year’s yesterday, but Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan marks the date on his calendar every year.
Duncan, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor, crisscrossed Montgomery yesterday, attending two Lunar New Year celebrations and a gathering to commemorate the anniversary of India becoming a republic, on Jan. 26, 1950.For Duncan and other elected officials, showing up at these events is part of a strategy to reach out to immigrants whose political influence remains relatively untested statewide even though their numbers are growing rapidly…
Pollsters and political consultants say it will probably be a few years before foreign-born residents are major factors in statewide elections. But candidates this year aren’t taking any chances. [Link]
So the picture remains the same. If you want the vote of immigrants from Asia (including South Asia), and the support of even some of their American-raised children, you don’t have to answer for any of your general policies, many of which might actually affect them pretty significantly. All you have to do is make a show of the fact that you respect their former nation and some of their traditions. It is a total waste of political power in my opinion, given the increased importance of our votes.
“These are people you simply cannot ignore,” said former Montgomery County Council member Isiah Leggett, the former chairman of the Maryland Democratic Party and a candidate for county executive. “Not only are they voting, they are giving money and volunteering, so I think candidates who ignore them do so at their own peril…”
Maryland’s Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich has been listening to Asian Americans who are flexing their muscles in pursuit of something that they think is REALLY important to their lives here:Although foreign-born residents account for 10 percent of Maryland’s population, they make up 27 percent of Montgomery’s, according to the 2000 Census. In Prince George’s, they account for 14 percent.
“As a percentage of the statewide likely vote, these immigrant populations will still be in the modest single digits, but when you look within the greater Washington marketplace, particularly Montgomery County, these new immigrants can tip the balance,” said Keith Haller, a Maryland independent pollster. [Link]
Asians in Maryland and elsewhere are pushing for measures they hope will result in a federal holiday marking the Lunar New Year, allowing public schools to close and employees to stay home from work.
Activists from the Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese communities have collected more than 6,000 signatures in Maryland for a petition to recognize the Lunar New Year…Many Asians say they feel unable to properly celebrate what they consider the most important holiday of the year because they are unable to miss work or take their children out of school….
On Friday, members of the Maryland Coalition for Recognition of the Asian Lunar New Year met with Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich and other elected officials to celebrate the holiday and fight for their cause.
A bill was introduced last week that would make the Lunar New Year a “commemorative day,” a quasi-holiday distinction given to only three others in Maryland: Lay Day (May 1), Poetry Day (Oct. 15) and the birthday of John Hanson (April 13), an 18th-century lawmaker. [Link]
Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) was scheduled to attend an Indian Republic Day event in Greenbelt last night at the same time Duncan was at one in Gaithersburg. [Link]
See how it works? The story my eyes see emerge is that if you are a politician it is easy to get the Asian vote once you throw them a bone, like a “quasi-holiday” right up there with Poetry Day (but only after they think they have really struggled to win it). I don’t blame the politicians at all. I blame us. Our potential political power is wasted in pursuit of ceremonial scraps while we ignore getting involved in substantive issues. Why don’t we care that as Asian immigrants the phonecalls we might make to relatives abroad may be tapped? I wish Asian and South Asian American groups would start spending their time writing amicus briefs in support of important cases and building coalitions with other mainstream groups. We will never have real political power until we use our influence to affect policies important to the general public and not ONLY policies that appeal to our cultural vanity. What’s more is that every victory like a “special” holiday just serves to further isolate the importance of our constituency from the mainstream, and makes it easy to politically pigeonhole us. It is entirely possible that I am just on a soap-box right now, but I hate what articles like this reveal about our community’s impotence under the false guise that our power is actually growing. By all means fight for the right to have your holiday, but don’t stay home when it comes time to fight the real fight.
Kamala Edwards, an Indian American and Democratic activist from Silver Spring, says she’s supporting O’Malley — mainly because he asked first.“Mayor O’Malley approached the community, and he has come out to have meet-and-greets,” she said. [Link]
I wonder if he ate a samosa with some green chutney at the meet-and-greet. Then he would have had my vote.
