The Making of Asian America Through Political Participation

Asian Americans are widely believed to be passive and compliant participants in the U.S. political process -- if they participate at all. In this ground-breaking book, Pei-te Lien maps the actions and strategies of Asian Americans as they negotiate a space in the American political arena.Professor Lien looks at political participation by Asian Americans prior to 1965 and examines, at both organizational and mass-politics levels, how race, ethnicity, and transnationalism help to construct a complex American electorate. She looks not only at rates of participation among Asian Americans as compared with Blacks, Latinos, American Indians, and non-Hispanic whites, but also among specific groups of Asian Americans -- Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, Koreans, Asian Indians, and Vietnamese. She also discusses how gender, socioeconomic class, and place of birth affect political participation.With documentation ranging from historical narrative to opinion survey data, Professor Lien creates a picture of a diverse group of politically active people who are intent on carving out a place for themselves in American political life.