Does Christopher Chen vote more than Shu-Wei Chen? The cost of ethnic retention among Asian American voters

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper explores the saliency of ethnic markers for those who are formally incorporated in the electoral process. In this paper, I examine whether voters with distinctively ethnic names show different participatory patterns than voters with Anglicized names. Drawing on a unique dataset of over 50,000 Asian American registered voters in New York City, I find that name Anglicization has a significant association with their political engagement. Not only do voters with Anglicized names tend to vote more frequently, they are more likely to vote in lower level elections than those holding ethnic names. Furthermore, this pattern is particularly salient in large minority groups such as Chinese, Indian American, and Korean voters, while Japanese and Vietnamese voters show no such patterns. These findings suggest that cultural assimilation should be considered as an important part of minority assimilation beyond formal incorporation. Furthermore, results also offer new possibilities for name-based mobilization for Asian American voters in the United States, especially in local elections with scarce resources for targeted campaigns.