Asian Americans and Multiracial Political Coalition

"Asian Americans and Multiracial Political Coalition: New York's City's Chinatown and Redistricting, 1990-1991."
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
The 1992 Los Angeles rebellion was a flashpoint for the Latinos, black and Asian Americans struggles convergence with explosive consequences. It was the first multiracial riot in the US that declared that racial dynamics cannot be mirrored through the simple black-white framework to bring understanding in the US. Worth noting, the Los Angeles rebellion is a classic example of inter-minority dramatic conflict that emerged during the 1965 post era in the American cities. The immigration and economic restructuring linked racial/ethnic groups with more extensive contacts with others, thus reshaping relationships and identities as well as the creation of new pressure points for conflicts. The rapid demographic and economic change opened up new probabilities for cooperation and coalition among ethnic groups to grass community activism from electoral politics (Saito, 2001). Asian American also deemed as an interstitial group with a potential swing vote played and continues to play a significant role in interracial coalitions and conflicts in American politics. The cooperation and conflict between Asian American as well as other communities of color date back into the 1800s.
There has been a major leap forward in the past decades in terms of community efforts to address the Asian American Pacific ability to elect officials. There has been an organized effort to enhance the number of candidates and voters and attempts to manage to gerrymander in pursuit of elevating the political power of Asian Pacific American rapidly growing population. In 1991, New York City Council elections, in a specific district crafted by the City’s Districting commission at Lower Manhattan’s Chinatown as an approach of maximizing the city’s largest concentration of Asians Americans political strength (Saito, 2001). This is the Asian American candidates who lost to whites candidates by wide margins. The Asian American candidates were defeated despite the overwhelming Chinatown support by voting for Asian American candidates'. This continued the history of NewYork City that was identifiable with never electing an Asian American council. On the contrary, the number of Latinos and African Americans on the council recorded a dramatic increment.
Preceding the elections, various lawsuits that charged the city with discrimination against Latinos and African Americans voters and the violation of the Constitution of the US filed in the 1980s and were won after 1990 elections. Hence, two Charter reforms commissions were established, between 1986-1989. The charter is the basic government document in New York. It processes and sets forth the institution of New York City political system defining the responsibilities and authority of the elected officials and diverse departments in the city. On the other hand, the second commission recommended various significant changes that included increment in city council district numbers from 35-51 in pursuit of improving the minority political representations. (NYC-CRC 1990) Charter commission Final Report outlined that the council size was mirrored through an attempt to balance goals such as increasing minority council members’ numbers, enhancing minority voters opportunities to elect candidates of their preference, increasing responsiveness of council members by ensuring that their constituencies are smaller and moderate and maintaining a manageable size of councilmembers in which all the members are allowed to participate meaningfully. However, the Asian Americans were engaged in active protestation of the exclusionary charter reform process.
In 1990, the first Charter Commission successfully filed a lawsuit identified as Ravitch et al.v.City of New York that challenged ethnic and racial quotas (Kupferberg, 2008). The lawsuit stated that appointment ought to be made based on politics and merit as opposed to ethnicity basis. A landmark redistricting decision identified as Shaw v.Reno 1993 that resonated with these concerns that were against North Carolina majority African American district outlined that the creation of such districts only supports racial stereotypes (Pildes & Niemi, 1993). The author further elaborates that such stereotypes are guided by the principle that members of a similar racial group irrespective of their education, age, economic status and the community which they inhabit, share similar political interests and prefers the same candidates at the polls.
According to McCarthy (1990) O'Connor and Ravitch's commentaries are part of the political and liberal legal ideology that emphasizes minimal government regulation and individualism. The author emphasizes individual differences and ignores contemporary and historic practices that created a unifying experience and intersects individuals as a group. Additionally, the analysis omits both discrimination and inequality embedded in the US society that generates similar interest among heterogeneous population, racializes experiences and contributes to a long history of multiracial and pan-ethnic organizing around issues such as electoral politics, employment discrimination distribution of government services and resources, police violence and hate crimes in New York City.
In 1990 census Chinatown recorded a population of 62,895. The racial identity of a candidate was material and its change was influenced by the significant popularity of a minority population. The political salience of a race was amplified when political interests overlapped with race such as redevelopment plans that displaced low-income minorities, concerns addressing racial profiling by police, inadequate funding fo...