{"id":14390,"date":"2012-11-07T00:11:21","date_gmt":"2012-11-07T00:11:21","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2012-11-07T00:11:21","modified_gmt":"2012-11-07T00:11:21","slug":"2012-election-ushers-in-historic-wins-for-Asian-American-candidates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=14390","title":{"rendered":"2012 election ushers in historic wins for Asian American candidates"},"content":{"rendered":"

Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders made history last night.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thirty Asian-American candidates ran for national office, the largest number ever, up from 10 in 2010 and eight in 2008.<\/strong> Five new Asian-American and Pacific Islanders were elected, with one race still too close to call.<\/p>\n

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\nDemocratic Assemblywoman Grace Meng<\/strong> won New York\u2019s open seat in the 6th Congressional District to be elected to Congress. Her district, containing a large Asian-American population as well as a large Caucasian one, made this election about evolving demographics.<\/p>\n

About 1.6 million Asian-Americans live in New York, but they have been traditionally under-represented in local politics and on the national political stage.<\/p>\n

Meng<\/strong> joins Tammy Duckworth <\/strong>of Illinois as the first Asian-American members of Congress from their states.<\/p>\n

Mazie Hirono<\/strong> also ushered in a wave of firsts, becoming the first foreign-born woman of Asian descent to be sworn into national office, the first Japanese immigrant to be elected to the U.S. Senate and the first female senator to represent Hawaii.<\/p>\n

California Rep.-elect Mark Takano<\/strong> and Hawaii’s Tulsi Gabbard<\/strong> round out the freshman class.<\/p>\n

Ami Bera’s<\/strong> race in California is still too close to call.<\/p>\n

Eight Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus members were also re-elected to Congress.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The increased political representation matches the growth of Asian-Americans, now the largest group of immigrants in the U.S..<\/p>\n

Asians, more than Latinos, are largest group of new arrivals in U.S.<\/p>\n

An unprecedented number of Asian-Americans ran for federal office, and they were joined by a tremendous turnout of Asian-American\/Pacific Islander registered voters.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThis level of increased political participation by the AAPI community means we will have more opportunities to impact policies that affect AAPIs and bring respect and long-sought-after recognition of our communities,\u201d said Mee Moua, president and executive director of the Asian American Justice Center, a member of the Asian American Center for Advancing Justice.<\/p>\n

Asian-American groups say their community’s rising prominence is being ignored by both political parties.<\/strong> The Asian American Election Eve Poll found that although only 41% identify as Democrats, Asian-American voters broke for Barack Obama by a large margin, with 72% voting for the president and 26% for Mitt Romney.<\/p>\n

\u201cMitt Romney had room to win the overlooked Asian-American community,\u201d<\/strong> said Lisa Hasegawa, executive director of the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development. \u201cWhile Barack Obama\u2019s narrative attracted Asian-American voters, Mitt Romney missed an enormous opportunity to offer a direct appeal to this group.\u201d<\/p>\n

In congressional races, 73% of Asian-American voters backed Democratic candidates, while 27% backed Republicans.<\/strong> The development coalition found that 51% of Asian-American voters were not asked by any campaign, political party or community organization to vote or to register to vote.<\/p>\n

For Gloria Chan<\/strong>, president and CEO of the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies, November 6 is even more personal.<\/p>\n

“I feel tremendous personal pride to see faces like mine elected to Congress, who deeply understand the experiences of me, my family and millions of others, ” she said. “I am also very proud that our nation’s Congress is maturing through its diversity. AAPIs are a force to be reckoned with, and our voices will no longer go unheard nor dismissed.”<\/p>\n

Votes are still being counted for the individual races, but Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders are already counting 2012 as a victory – as the year of political recognition.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders made history last night. Thirty Asian-American candidates ran for national office, the largest number ever, up<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":72448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","medium_large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","1536x1536":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","2048x2048":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-highlighted-post":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-small":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x90.jpg","colormag-featured-image":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-default-news":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","colormag-featured-image-large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-block-extra-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-small-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-medium-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg"},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"Admin","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/53e6cdc30765aade0129f85e5aeb50124b1d3f5bb9a70373be31e4eb328371e0?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"0","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders made history last night. Thirty Asian-American candidates ran for national office, the largest number ever, up","magazineBlocksPostCategories":["News"],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":140,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":3,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"medium":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg",113,150,true]},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"Admin","author_link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?author=1"},"magazine_blocks_comment":0,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/53e6cdc30765aade0129f85e5aeb50124b1d3f5bb9a70373be31e4eb328371e0?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"News<\/a>","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/72448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}