Culture is the crucial reason. In former elections, many voters solely supported candidates based on policy stance, but now, many see Obama as a beginning to a new era of diversity in America. They identify themselves with his policies and his culture. This year, Obama may collect 52% of Asian-American votes. (Click here) When confronted with questions about their devotion to Obama, supporters seem excited about his opportunity to lead change. As the media continues to closely follow the election, many Asian-Americans are confident in an Obama victory. They, like other Americans, are concerned about the candidates’ policies on various economic, social and health-care issues, but many express their feeling as “just seeing his name on the candidates list is a change.” For many Asian-Americans, seeing hope for Obama in this election helps them see hope for their own lives, with Obama representing a huge step for diversity. Many Asian-Americans who were hesitant to vote in prior elections, frustrated with the lack of choice, now vote for a single candidate, including his background and life experience. Some supporters even identify with Obama's upbringing in an Asian country. (See video here)
Gramsci pointed out in his article saying that culture is Culture is an inevitable property that everyone has. A person’s culture is encoded in the way one speaks and acts; culture nurtures opinions and shapes the way one perceives the world. These voters see Obama as themselves, and the crucial factor that Obama brings is his culture. Though Obama is not Asian, he represents a mainstream America where people have different cultural identities and backgrounds. Actress Kelly Hu, speaking for AsianAmericansForObama.com, finds that Obama is the only candidate with whom she has a personal connection. Asian-Americans feel that Obama's experience living in Asia gives him a unique understanding of Asian culture.(Watch video here)
Because of cultural differences, McCain cannot claim a good standing with Asian-American voters, and is not widely supported among the minority. However, with a large number of Asian-Americans vote for Obama, there are voices from the opposite side. There are still people who are afraid of “change”, questioning the direction of this change and whether this is a better option for America, and remain standing with the Republican candidate. Early in the Democratic primary race, Obama and Clinton's approval ratings were split. A Japanese-American revealed in an interview that many Japanese-Americans feel uncomfortable with change, and leaned more with Clinton due to familiarity. Within their culture “change” is akin to breaking the rules, and is not generally celebrated. (Click here)
When we delve closer into the importance of culture, we see that a vote for Hilary Clinton is not only about familiarity, but that it also encompasses their own positive life experiences during the Clinton Administration. When looking at the support for Obama, we see that his culture satisfies an identity that other candidates do not. Voters will choose who they believe best represents them. They will choose from who they are.
2 comments:
Lucy,
This is an interesting post and poses some possibly interesting questions about the Asian American vote. However, I think in the end the Asian American vote is not very different to any other voters generally speaking.
You suggest that McCain loses out on the Asian-American vote because of culture but I wonder if McCain's party was being successful at running the country if he would not be attractive to the Asian-American vote? If it is indeed culture that eliminates him from the Asian-American vote then it seems we are dealing with blatant cultural bias which may be, but I'd rather speculate that the Asian-American voters are just voting for who they see as the best candidate. From the different videos, we see that it is not at all conclusive as to who they will, in the end, vote for. You have video to show that Asian -Americans vote for republicans, Hillary and Obama so I don't see, in this overall presentation any definate trajectory. Each video seems to have an agenda or seems to have different results through the interviews. In any event it seems your point is that minorities are identifying with Barack Obama and and they are more likely to vote.
But again, we cannot be sure that this is the case - maybe people are just tired of seeing Washington as it is, and they want to get involved?
well,obama is one significant reason that many asian americans who don't usually register but stand out this time to vote.
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