Cracking Asian-American communities

The Trib explores what the new Congressional maps did to Asian-American communities, mostly but not exclusively in the Houston area.

When Texas lawmakers redrew congressional maps following the 2020 census, they split up Asian American populations in both Harris and Fort Bend counties.

One district line, winding between a local car wash and bar, severs most of the Korean neighborhoods, grocery stores, restaurants and a senior center from the community center itself, which now hangs on the edge of one congressional district while most of its members reside in the next district over.

“It’s like (lawmakers) don’t even know we are here,” said Hyunja Norman, president of the Korean American Voters League, who works out of the center. “If they were thoughtful, they could’ve included the Korean Community Center in (our district). But it’s like they are ignorant of us, or they just don’t care.”

As the Asian American and Pacific Islander population has grown and continued to mobilize politically, especially in the midst of rising hostility and targeted attacks, the community’s desire for representation in Texas and U.S. politics has become stronger. But many now feel their political aspirations became collateral damage in Republican efforts to draw political districts designed to preserve partisan power.

Although they make up only about 5% of Texas’ total population, Asian Texans accounted for a sizable portion of the state’s tremendous growth over the past decade. Nearly one in five new Texans since 2010 are Asian American, according to the census. They were the fastest-growing racial or ethnic voting group in the state, increasing from a population of about 950,000 in 2010 to nearly 1.6 million in 2020.

[…]

In Fort Bend County — which has ranked as the most diverse county in the country multiple times — Lily Trieu’s parents grew scared of even routine errands like grocery shopping or filling their gas tanks. They were afraid to wear masks in public.

And when Asian Americans in the U.S. House of Representatives introduced a resolution condemning the Atlanta shootings, almost every Texas Republican voted against it, including Fort Bend County’s U.S. Rep. Troy Nehls.

“This is why representation matters,” Trieu told Texas lawmakers when she testified at redistricting hearings. “This is why splitting our community to dilute our votes is directly denying our opportunity to receive that representation.”

[…]

Previously, more than 9% and 11% of the eligible voter populations in CD-7 and CD-9, respectively, were Asian American. But under the approved plans, CD-7 would increase to 17% Asian American population, covering Houston suburbs, while CD-9 would decrease to 9% Asian population — shifting the majority into one district and lessening its power in another.

A majority of the Asian American population in the suburbs also got redrawn into CD-22, a mostly rural district, decreasing its percentage of the Asian population from more than 15% to 10%.

CD-22 also now includes all of Sugar Land, which is the most Asian town in Texas.

Similar manipulations took place around Dallas. In Collin County, lawmakers approved a map for CD-4 that takes most of the Asian community across Frisco and Plano and attaches it to a district stretching north to the Oklahoma border.

Asian American voters, who would have made up 10.8% of the vote in their old district, comprise just 5.6% of their new one.

Chanda Parbhoo, president of South Asian American Voter Empowerment of Texas, said she had organizations members — mostly from Collin County — submit almost 50 written testimonies against the proposed maps during redistricting hearings.

It still didn’t feel like it was enough, Parbhoo said.

“It makes it really difficult for the (South Asian) community, an emerging political entity, that we haven’t had years of experience (with redistricting),” Parbhoo said. “As soon as a map comes out, then I’ll have to try to explain it to my community, like, ‘This is what’s not fair. These are the numbers.’ Everything moves so fast that the process doesn’t really allow for people to absorb it and to be able to ask questions.”

Ashley Cheng, lead organizer of the Texas AAPI Redistricting Coalition, also testified multiple times as lawmakers redrew voting districts and said the community has various issues at stake that a continued loss of representation will exacerbate.

Cheng said translating documents for Asian American voters is vital for the community to participate in voting. She said during the winter storm, many emergency alerts were only in English and Cheng’s mother, who does not fluently speak English, was left without information at her house.

“We are in a time of history where we’re really rising up as a community and making sure that our political voices are heard,” Cheng said. “Part of that is because our lives are being threatened. There’s been a heightened sense of Islamophobia in the last few years, heightened anti-Asian hate because of all of the political rhetoric around COVID. We have so much in common in a need for representation.”

Those Asian-American communities that are now stuck in CD04 had previously been in CD03, which even after redistricting is becoming more Democratic but which has been moved backwards in the process. The most recent lawsuit filed against the redistricting plans, which has now been combined with most of the other lawsuits, had a focus on Asian-American communities and concerns, though as this story notes the courts have not previously recognized Asian-Americans as a minority population in need of protection at the voting booth. I doubt that will change now, but all you can do is try.

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2 Responses to Cracking Asian-American communities

  1. Kibitzer says:

    Re: “Islamophobia & heightened anti-Asian hate”

    To lump Muslims and Asians together and accord them minority group status as an aggregate makes no sense. To treat “Asians” as a homogenous group makes no sense either. Nor does lumping of all so-called “whites”.

    What might make sense is to talk about coalition-building based on shared interests. And communication across mono-linguistic communities, of course, requires acquisition of a common lingua franca (or simultaneous translation as practiced at international gatherings).

    Islam = religion

    Asia = geographic concept (with dubious perimeters and huge ethnic, linguistic, and religious diversity within)

    Not English = dozens, if not hundreds, of different “no-comprende” languages

    CAUC ASIANS

    Also, as for Caucasians, isn’t the caucasus region in Asia, so aren’t so-called Caucasians really Asians also? Or at least Eurasians? And what about so-called native Americans whose ancesters crossed the erstwhile Bering land bridge now sea, and trekked South? And what do we do with the Aussies down under? Are they Asians too or just the Aborigines? Or sui generis? … Sui continentalis perhaps.

    When will we ever progress beyond the group mongering?

    Re: “Asian American voters, who would have made up 10.8% of the vote in their old district, comprise just 5.6% of their new one.”

    So what? How can you ever win elections with a 10.8% population share (except perhaps in a ethnic enclave/homeland in a local race)? Obviously, you have to think bigger, like being or becoming part of a larger grouping that is majority-capable. And that assumes that the lumping of individuals that yields the 10.8% even makes sense. That may not be the case. Just think about countries that don’t have much racial/ethnic/language/religious diversity and yet feature multi-party systems. Political leanings, ideology, and material interests don’t invariably correlate with classifications systems based on race, origin, or ancestry.

  2. Política comparada says:

    THE CUTTING EDGE IN COVERAGE

    Da Trib: “Congressional gerrymandering by Texas Republicans cut out the heart of Houston’s Asian community”

    Those heartless Texas Republicans! … but it’s not unprecedented in the New World.

    Consider this:

    “When the Aztecs sacrificed people to Huitzilopochtli (the god with warlike aspects) the victim would be placed on a sacrificial stone. The priest would then cut through the abdomen with an obsidian or flint blade. The heart would be torn out still beating and held towards the sky in honor to the Sun-God.”

    For more on blood-rich rituals and for in-depth cultural competence enhancement, look no farther than
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice_in_Aztec_culture

    TAGS: Mesoamerican metaphors, political opponent vilification, blood lust ascription

    FILE UNDER: The Latest in Looney Lone Star Journalism

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