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Asian Americans Distinct Politically

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2006

Shyam Sriram
Shyam Sriram
Affiliation:
Dept. of Political Science, Georgia State University
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Extract

I read Anil G. Jacob's piece in the January 2006 issue ofPS (“Asian American Political Participation:Research Challenges for an Emerging Minority,” 103–106) with amixture of admiration and consternation. He has my admiration forgetting published as a graduate student, and that too inPS—a feat that I'm sure will stand him goodmeasure when he is on the job market. However, he has myconsternation because he makes slight of a field that has,especially in the last five years, produced a good deal ofscholarship on a myriad of questions relating to Asian-Americanpolitical behavior.

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Type
FORUM
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 39 , Issue 3 , July 2006, pp. 407
Copyright
© 2006 The American Political Science Association

I read Anil G. Jacob's piece in the January 2006 issue of PS (“Asian American Political Participation: Research Challenges for an Emerging Minority,” 103–106) with a mixture of admiration and consternation. He has my admiration for getting published as a graduate student, and that too in PS—a feat that I'm sure will stand him good measure when he is on the job market. However, he has my consternation because he makes slight of a field that has, especially in the last five years, produced a good deal of scholarship on a myriad of questions relating to Asian-American political behavior.

Between last year's APSA and MPSA meetings and the recently concluded MPSA meeting in Chicago, I have seen a large number of excellent papers under the aegis of Asian-American politics and, broader still, Race, Ethnicity, and Politics. At this year's Midwest meeting alone, for example, I observed presentations in Asian-American politics dealing with citizenship acquisition, party identification, political space in Artesia, CA, voting behavior in Houston, Korean-American symbolic identity, etc.

Although I took umbrage with a number of his remarks, I would like to respond to one of his questions in particular. In his article, he asks in the form of a current research query, “In what ways are Asian-Americans distinct in their political preferences and their behavioral predilections?” (103). Asian-American political science research may be a small field, but this particular question has been answered quite effectively by scholars in the last two decades. First, there are a number of broad-based studies that have shown that Asians are different and “distinct” in their voting and electoral behavior from other non-White demographic groups. Two classic studies are by Cain, Kiewet, and Uhlaner (1991) and Uhlaner, Cain, and Kiewet (1989). Second, political scientists have demonstrated that differences exist within Asian-American political behavior. In this regard, we have the works of Lien (1998; 2001), Lien, Conway, and Wong (2004), and Tam (1995).

Lastly, and what is at least for me the most exciting development in the field, is the generation of studies that look at specific Asian-American communities. Some of the more notable research has been undertaken by Park (2001) on Korean-Americans; Joshi and Sriram (2005) and Prasad (2006) on Indian-Americans; and Chan (2006) on Chinese-Americans.

Asian-American political science research is alive and well and flourishing due to the motivations and foci of a new and determined group of scholars who represent not only the different ethnicities within Asian America, but, more importantly, a myriad of research interests. It would do Mr. Jacob well to pay more attention to the development of the field.

References

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