It’s no secret that the national debate surrounding illegal immigration has at a boiling point in recent years. With that in mind, as Diverse Education reports, it’s probably not a coincidence that the number of hate crimes committed against Latinos in recent years has also increased significantly:

The Southern Poverty Law Center, in a report titled “The Year in Hate,” said it counted 888 hate groups in its latest tally, up from 844 in 2006 and 602 in 2000. . . .

[The SPLC] said hate groups were proliferating because a growing number of Americans were agitated by the immigration debate. He said many new groups had appeared in the border states of California, Texas and Arizona where illegal immigration has been a particularly volatile issue.

The article goes on to report that the SPLC has officially designated the largest and most vocal anti-illegal immigration group, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, as a hate organization, based on the published beliefs and actions of many of its members, supporters, and/or contributors.

If you’d like more information on specific incidents of anti-Latino hate crimes committed recently, the SPLC lists many examples on their website.

All in all, I am very saddened but not surprised to hear about this upward trend in anti-Latino hate crimes. History has consistently shown that whenever the American economy is struggling and there’s more competition for economic survival, racial/ethnic groups are almost sure to become targets of racial violence.

With the issue of illegal immigration still a prominent hot-button topic for conservatives and because illegal immigration critics frequently are not able or willing to distinguish between those who are legal immigrants or not, Latinos are inevitably the most convenient targets.

Unfortunately things do not look encouraging as we move forward this year, as more signs point to a coming recession (if we’re not there already), which means even more hostility is likely to be directed at Latinos.

I’ve been given the opportunity to conduct the first (and hopefully not last) giveaway contest on this blog -- here’s your chance to win a free DVD of Blue State. Featuring Academy Award winner Anna Paquin, Blue State is an independent film about a disgruntled John Kerry campaign activist that vows to move to Canada if Bush is re-elected.

Here’s how to enter: send me an email at CN_Le@yahoo.com and in 20 words or less, tell me what you would do if the Democrats lost the 2008 Presidential election.

The deadline to email me your entry is Friday, March 21, 2008 at 11:59pm. I will pick the best, most creative answer as the winner. FYI, I am cross-promoting this contest on my other site, Asian-Nation.org, and therefore, you are allowed only one entry on either site.

Good luck!

I received the following email asking for my help in announcing a survey on political attitudes, by researchers at SUNY Stony Brook:

——————————————

Hello. I am writing to ask for your help with a survey which is part of my dissertation project. I was wondering if you would be willing to post a link to the survey on your blog? Your help would be greatly appreciated, and I think you and your readers would be ideal candidates for the survey.

The survey is about people’s reactions to the presidential candidates in the upcoming election. If you are willing to help, please post the
following information:

***

The purpose of this survey is to examine how people think and feel about the political issues, parties, and candidates in the upcoming election. In the survey, you will be asked a series of questions about two political candidates, John McCain and Hillary Clinton. We are very interested in how
individuals that find information on the web think about politics, and your participation would be greatly appreciated. In total, the survey should take about 15 minutes to complete. The survey is completely anonymous and you can skip any questions you do not wish to answer.

Click here to take the survey: http://www.ic.sunysb.edu/stu/crweber/TAKESURVEY/election_2008.htm

Please feel free to contact Chris Weber (crweber@notes.cc.sunysb.edu) at Stony Brook University with any questions or concerns. Thanks for your help!

Thank you,

Chris Weber
PhD Candidate
Stony Brook University

Stanley Feldman
Professor
Department of Political Science

This past week was extremely busy and tiring for me and therefore, I did not have the chance to comment on the Super Tuesday results, especially as they relate to Asian American voters. The basic summary is that, as you have probably already heard, it was pretty much a dead heat between Clinton and Obama, with Clinton winning slightly more delegates but Obama winning more states.

Regarding Asian American voters, the biggest story was that in California, they voted for Clinton by a surprisingly large margin of 3-to-1. These particular results have led many to ask to what extent did racial prejudice against Blacks (and therefore, against Obama) play in their decisions to overwhelmingly support Clinton.

Fortunately, others have argued quite convincingly that rather than racial prejudice, the main reasons why Asian American voters in California voted in large numbers for Clinton more than likely included a preference for more familiar, “establishment” candidates, and those who are currently more associated with being powerful and influential, both of which Clinton personifies more than Obama. For example, Jeff Chang succinctly writes:

Clinton’s main advantage is that she has the access to power and the party structures that deliver promises to officials and operatives. Obama doesn’t. Emergent politics favors individuals seeking power. Think of it this way: Hillary, the woman candidate, is bringing Latino and Asian American leaders into the old-boy’s network.

These leaders, in turn, deliver votes via their community’s structures of power: business groups, labor unions, voter groups, community organizations. Those groups tend to deliver an older voter who is already “in the game", who can directly benefit from the opening of the old-boy’s network. “Experience” really is a cover for “access.”

Jeff goes on to note that since Obama’s strength seems to lie more with younger voters, rather than older ones, it’s likely that he did much better with younger Asian American voters in California as well, while less successful with their parents.

It’s also conceivable that Obama experienced some fallout from the controversy regarding the 80-20 Initiative’s initial call to defeat him over whether he would endorse its official platform.

For now, what we do know is that Obama and his campaign have some work to do in terms of winning over Asian American (and Latino American) voters. While they appeal quite successfully to younger members of both groups and their anti-establishment sense, that message and orientation apparently do not play as well with older members.

The campaign and fight for the nomination is still wide open between him and Clinton but at the least, Obama’s campaign should now know where they stand and what they need to do.

In light of the results of the Super Tuesday primaries, I came across this item from the Pew Research Center that caught my eye -- in terms of policy priorities for the new administration, Democrats and Republicans apparently have significant differences in which issues they consider most and least important:

This particular Pew article highlights the finding that among Republicans, addressing global warming is the least important priority. How nice.

I would also add that the priorities of self-identified Independents seem to match those of Democrats more so than those of Republicans.

Just some food for thought. What do you think -- are you surprised by these findings?

Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the past year or so, you may have heard that tomorrow is Super Tuesday and my home state of Massachusetts is among those states holding primaries. In case you’re interested, I have made up my mind who I will be voting for, and who I feel is the best choice to be the next President of the United States: Barack Obama.

I won’t bore you by reiterating all of the reasons why more and more people like me have come to this conclusion. All I really want to say is that I am really, really, tired of the status quo. The status quo has made our nation less physically and emotionally secure, more hated around the world, and more divided among ourselves.

It is not a cliche to say that we need things to change, right now. And for me, Barack Obama is the best way to begin this process of change, of healing, of reconciling our past with our future, of restoring the strength, pride, and unity of this country -- to remind all of us why this country is the greatest country in the world.

I don’t expect him to miraculously change everything overnight if elected. But I genuinely feel that Barack Obama is the candidate brave enough to set the example and to lead us forward into the 21st century.

I hope many of you have already heard of Eric Byler -- he was the director of Charlotte Sometimes and Americanese (an adaptation of Prof. Shawn Wong’s novel American Knees), both being critically-acclaimed independent movies.

Eric’s latest project, in collaboration with fellow independent filmmakers Annabel Park, Jeff Man, and Zhibo Lai, is entitled Project 9500 and is a multimedia documentary of the issues of illegal immigration in northern Virginia.

While much of the focus of this project is on Latino immigrants, Eric notes that Asian immigrants have been brought into the issue because many illegal immigrant critics argue that Asian immigrants are the “good” immigrants because they learn English quicker and are perceived to be more willing to assimilate into American society, as opposed to the “bad” Latino immigrants.

They are putting together a feature-length documentary film, but the project also involves short video essay clips that capture different aspects of the issue. Their YouTube site contains several dozen such video essay clips but two “introductory” clips that were recently featured in the Washington Post are below:

As I told Eric, these clips do an excellent job in capturing the individual-level emotions and institutional-level influences that are involved with such a complex and controversial issue. All signs are that their project is coming together quite nicely.

I encourage you to view some of their other video essay clips on their YouTube site and to keep an eye out for their upcoming documentary -- it would be very, very interesting.

On the eve of the Iowa caucus, officially kicking off the 2008 Presidential race, here’s a post for the politically-minded.

As reflected in my article on the 2004 Elections, national-level aggregate data tends to show that in terms of political affiliation among those stating a preference, about two-thirds of all Asian Americans lean Democratic and the other third identify with the Republicans.

But as reported by Politico.com, new data from a Harvard research team shows that among young Asian Americans, the percentage who lean Democratic is much higher:

The Institute of Politics at Harvard University recently released data from an online survey of 2,525 18- to 24-year-olds. Among the survey’s more notable statistics are those concerning party affiliation among Asian-Americans: 47 percent identify themselves as Democratic, 15 percent Republican and 39 percent independent — making them more Democratic than any other ethnic group except African-Americans in the survey. . . .

Young Asian-Americans are significantly more Democratic than young whites, who are roughly evenly split between the two major parties. And Asian-Americans of all ages have been trending Democratic for years. But they were once a dependable Republican constituency. According to data from the Asian-American Legal Defense and Education Fund, former President George H.W. Bush got 24 percent more of the Asian-American vote than did Bill Clinton in 1992.

The article goes on to note that some factors that have likely contributed to this Democratic trend among young Asian Americans are the Republicans’ general negativity toward immigration (even when it’s legal) and high-profile racial incidents like Sen. George Allen’s “macaca” slur, all of which have apparently struck a nerve with young Asian Americans.

As I wrote about in my other blog on similar political trends among Latino Americans, the Republican party seems to be digging itself a pretty big hole here with these two racial/ethnic groups. Their harsh and partisan positions against immigration (yes, including legal) has clearly alienated many young Asian and Latino Americans.

What should be even more disturbing for Republicans is that Asian and Latino Americans also happen to be the two fastest-growing racial/ethnic groups in the country.