Asian American Activism

Asian American Activism

Have you ever wondered about Asian American activism? Even though there is activism among any race, Asian Americans have been overlooked because polls support Asian Americans by proving their votes are higher than any other race and people were quick to stereotype them rather than embrace them.

New York State has never sent an Asian American to Congress, to the state legislature, or even to the city council. A voter poll in the New York Times (11/12/00) reported that Nader/LaDuke’s support was higher among Asians (4%) than among Whites (3%), Blacks (1%) or “Hispanics” (2%).

Americans were the most likely voters to embrace the progressive 3rd party alternative in the Presidential Elections. Asians are usually considered too demographically small and politically marginal to be included in most polls. The poll results really helped the Asian Americans. By doing the poll it helped chip away at some of the dominant stereotypes Asian Americans face.

Asian Americans are stereotyped as the “model minority” that avoids confrontation, stresses the hard work ethic, and embraces conservative free-market politics. Asian Americans was a term first used in the late 1960s and early 1970s by the US Government. This usually refers to immigrants from East and South Asia and their descendants. It is not used for most persons born in Soviet Asia.

It is important to get an idea and relative number of all individuals involved. At the end of the nineteenth century only two Asian nationality groups were enumerated by the United States Census Bureau, Chinese and Japanese. The Census of 1900 counted fewer than 110,000-some 85,000 Chinese and 24,000 Japanese, a large majority of the group were native-born citizens.

By 1950 there were 62,000 Filipinos in the United States and a few thousands of other Asian nationalities. The total incidence of the group was essentially the same, just over two-tenths of one percent. In the...