Asian-Americans Urged to Increase Political Activism

Asian-Americans need to do a better job of political organizing to ensure that the 1990s will be “a decade of political empowerment,” authors of a heralded public policy report warned Tuesday in a round-table discussion on “The State of Asian Pacific America.”

Even though City Councilman Michael Woo, a Chinese-American, has emerged as the leading contender in the Los Angeles mayoral race, the fast-growing Asian- and Pacific-American communities are woefully underrepresented in California and national government, said Stewart Kwoh, president of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, at a conference at the downtown Hyatt Regency Hotel.

“Will the decade of the ‘90s be a decade of empowerment or a decade of a continuation of political impotence?” Kwoh asked. There is only one Asian-American in California’s 120-member delegation, Kwoh noted, even though people of Asian and Pacific ancestry account for about 10% of the state’s population.

Kwoh commented as part of a wide-ranging discussion of a report released last week by the Asian Pacific American Public Policy Institute, a joint program of the UCLA Asian American Studies Center and Leadership Education for Asian-Pacifics (LEAP), a Los Angeles-based group.

Asian-Americans, the report notes, are the fastest-growing segment of the population, having increased 95% from 1980 to 1990. The study estimates that the Asian-Pacific population will nearly triple, to more than 20 million, by the year 2020 and constitute about 8% of the U.S. population.

The Clinton Administration has promised to emphasize the nation’s cultural diversity and sponsors hope the report will serve as a catalyst for “a policy of inclusion rather than exclusion,” said LEAP president J. D. Hokoyama. Woo could become the first Asian-American to serve as a mayor of a major city. But rather than view Woo’s candidacy as an anomaly, Don Nakanishi, director of the UCLA Asian American Studies Center, suggested that it reflects “the aspirations of Asian-Americans.”

Kwoh offered broad recommendations, saying Asian-Americans need to do more to encourage immigrants to become citizens and to register to vote.

The Asian-American community is “notorious for giving soft, often stupid, money to campaigns,” Kwoh said. Asian-Americans “are giving out of proportion but getting nothing in return. . . . We need to hold candidates to promises.”