Asian American Political Participation: Research Challenges for an Emerging Minority

Abstract

Asian Americans are among the fastest-growing minority groups in the United States. In recent years, their impact on politics has been the focus of a growing number of scholars in the social sciences, which raises the definitional question: Who are Asian Americans? The working definition deployed here is that an Asian American is a person who “resides in the United States on a permanent or long-term basis, regardless of citizenship or other legal status” (Lien, Conway, and Wong 2004). However, the definition of who an Asian is has undergone significant expansion over the last 150 years because of “shifts in the racial and ethnic makeup of the U.S. population and changes in social attitudes and political concerns regarding racial and ethnic minorities” (Lien, Conway, and Wong 2004). These concerns expressed themselves in various modes of political participation; referred to in the literature as the “Asian American movement” (Wei 1993), these have ranged from litigation to the boycott activities of Asian Americans on a variety of issues. I would like to extend my gratitude to Jane Junn of Rutgers University as well as to members of the APSA Committee on the Status of Asian Pacific Americans in the Profession for encouragement and valuable feedback on this article.