Crooked Politics

The problem of the corrupt old Chinese businessman is a recurrent image that has once again resurfaced in the U.S. media. Norman Hsu, top Democratic fundraiser for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, was charged last week with swindling and donating millions of dollars from investors in his bogus business ventures. While the motives behind his actions are unclear, Hsu said in an Aug. 29 statement to The Wall Street Journal merely that “I have been blessed by what this country has given me,” and that he wished to give back, without expecting anything in return.

This is not the only time in recent years that Asian Americans have been charged with improper political money giving. The Hsu incident echoes the Bill Clinton fundraising scandal in 1996, when then-Democratic National Committee’s star fundraiser John Huang improperly solicited large sums from overseas Asian sources.

These occurrences at first seem only problematic for the individuals at hand—they are, after all, seemingly isolated mistakes of fallible men who took improper advantage of weaknesses in America’s campaign financing system; wider implications need not extend beyond the borders of their personal responsibility. The reality of the matter, however, is not quite as simple as we would like to think. The problem is that these events will be viewed in relation to more general public perceptions of Asian American political involvement, and the detrimental impact of those perceptions on Asian American political activism.

Unfortunately for the Asian American demographic in the United States, there exist various myths concerning its behavioral and general attitudes towards political involvement. One crude stereotype has its origins in the prevalent East Asian practices of gift-giving and “red-envelope” bribery that accompany any Eastern courtship of political power; Asians, so the image goes, are often self-serving operators less interested in political due process than in buying out vested interests through whatever means possible.

Some elements of commonly held views towards Asian Americans have basis in well-documented fact. For instance, it is true that Asian Americans historically have had lower voter registration and turnout rates, and so have not generally demonstrated widespread interest in formal American politics. This is not to say, however, that Asian Americans are inherently apathetic about legitimate processes of elections and the law. On the contrary, one 2005 study conducted at Indiana University blames low voting statistics on factors like immigrant status (clearly, non-citizens cannot vote) and length of residency in the United States (as a proxy for acculturation); thus, the implication is that Asian participation in electoral politics will change as the structural status of the highly migrant demographic also changes.

Other perceptions, however, are more mythical. For example, especially after 1996, Asian Americans were portrayed in the media as hyperactive political donors eager to use wealth to accomplish political goals. Brian Adams and Ping Ren addressed this question in a 2006 study that examined candidate fundraising and campaign donor patterns among Asians in New York, LA, San Francisco, and Seattle (four U.S. cities with high Asian populations). They found that, contrary to popular belief, Asian fundraising and donation patterns do not exceed average. With some exceptions, Asians are roughly proportionally represented among campaign contributors.

Adams and Ren’s study, though it counters myth with hard numbers and quantifications, can yet do little to prevent subtle manifestations of prejudice. For example, at the height of the John Huang “Chinagate” scandal, the March 24, 1997 cover of the National Review portrayed the Clintons in Chinese clothes and hats, holding a pot of tea and displaying buck teeth. Many Asian American groups also complained of widespread discrimination among the community after media coverage of John Huang’s illegal dealings—for example, that the Democratic National Committee subsequently scrutinized (legitimate) Asian American donors far more closely than other contributors, and that Asian American federal employees had more trouble getting security clearances and were widely questioned about foreign connections. Perhaps what is most troubling, though, is that many of these complaints were largely ignored or dismissed.

The biggest question going forward centers around how Asian America should work to advance its political standing and involvement in a reputable, effective, and myth-dispelling way. The seeds for political contribution, activism and leadership are very much present—the problem is how to unify and push these emerging efforts forward.

One of the largest obstacles confronting Asian America today is that, though Asians express a large amount of solidarity in soliciting and donating to other Asian political candidates, these alliances are often fragmented along ethnic lines, according to Adams and Ren. The implication is that if Asian America is to move forward in the political landscape, the demographic needs above all else a sense of pan-ethnic unity within its political community. A more unified approach to campaigning and to selecting candidates would permit a more coherent platform from which spokesmen can articulate and advocate for the most important of shared interests. Only then can the political landscape reflect a more accurate rendering of the nature and status of this increasingly significant democratic constituency.

N. Kathy Lin ’08 is a social studies concentrator in Winthrop House. Her column appears on alternate Wednesdays.