We often separate voting blocs by race — we talk about “the Black vote,” “the Latino vote,” “the White vote,” “the Asian-American vote.” but in reality, these are all big — often disparate — groups of people. So this week, to close out Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders Month, we wanted to do a deep dive on the AANHPI voting bloc. Niala Boodhoo, host of Axios’ 1 big thing, helps us understand this voting bloc.
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On today’s episode
Our host
Errin Haines is The 19th’s editor-at-large and writer of The Amendment newsletter. An award-winning journalist with nearly two decades of experience, Errin was previously a national writer on race for the Associated Press. She’s also worked at the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post.
Follow Errin on Instagram @emarvelous and X @errinhaines.
Today’s guest
Niala Boodhoo is the host of Axios’ 1 big thing, a weekly podcast where she talks to people who are leading conversations around the world in business, politics and culture. She is also a regular guest host for 1A, one of the most widely-listened programs on National Public Radio (NPR). Niala has been a journalist for more than 20 years for the Associated Press, Reuters, WBEZ/Chicago Public Media – and her hometown paper, The Miami Herald.
Follow Niala Boodhoo on Instagram @nialab.
Episode transcript
The Amendment podcast transcripts are automatically generated by a third-party website and may contain typos or other errors. Please consider the official record for The Amendment podcast to be the audio publicly available wherever you listen to podcasts.
Errin Haines:
You also have people defining themselves for themselves, right? And letting us know who they are, how they wanna identify, and really wanting the rest of us to understand and respect that piece.
Errin:
Hey y’all, welcome to The Amendment, a weekly conversation about gender, politics, and power from The 19th News and Wonder Media Network. I’m your host, Errin Haines. So, the election is getting closer, which means that what should be at the top of everyone’s mind, including ours, is the voters — the people who will decide who’s going to represent us in office for the next four years. We often separate voting blocs by race. We talk about the Black vote, the Latino vote, the White vote, the Asian American vote. But in reality, these are all big and often disparate groups of people. So this week, to close out Asian American Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders month, we wanted to do a deep dive on the AA and NHPI voting bloc. How should we actually be thinking about what issues animate this incredibly diverse group of voters? And how can that reframing help us better represent them in our democracy? These are questions lawmakers need to be thinking about, too, if they want these voters. And they should, by the way. Asian Americans are the fastest growing racial or ethnic group in the U.S. So I wanna know: What are the issues that move them? How can our politicians best represent them? And what does it look like to fight for Asian American equity? So I had to bring on Niala Boodhoo, host of Axios’s “1 Big Thing,” to help us understand this voting block. Welcome, Niala.
Niala:
Hey, Errin. It’s nice to be on the other side of the microphone. This is fun.
Errin:
It’s nice. It is nice to have you and to be on this side of the microphone with you. So, look, let’s start by level-setting a little bit. There are 48 countries and three dependencies on the Asian continent. China, Japan, Vietnam, South Korea and India are just a few of the countries that make up over the 24 million Asian Americans, with Chinese Americans making up about five million people. And while this population tends to vote Democrat, this population is generally seen as more likely to swing right. So how can we talk about this voting bloc differently going into 2024? I know we ask this every presidential cycle. So let’s start by asking it now: What are we still getting wrong?
Niala:
Well, I think the first thing is that what we’re getting wrong with the AA and HPI community is what we always get wrong, right? Like we assume that it’s a monolith. I think all of the stereotypes that apply to our community also apply when we talk about voting. We are not just the fastest-growing population in the country, which, people always are, like, “What?” We’re also the fastest-growing group of eligible voters.
Errin:
Yeah.
Niala:
And I think people are very surprised at that. And when you look at, like, turnout and you think about states like Georgia, you’re seeing Asian American voters turn out at even higher rates than Hispanic, Black voters, White voters in terms of, like how the rates… just because of the population size, but also just because if you look at past elections, how many more Asian Americans are voting.
Niala:
And when you think about that, like if you think about the states that we’re talking about, Georgia got a lot of attention. But obviously when you just kind of break down states that have the highest percentage of Asians who are eligible to vote, that’s Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, California, Louisiana. So I think those are states that we have been, you know — particularly if you think about like Nevada; That’s a state that people are really paying attention to—
Errin:
Yeah.
Niala:
—In this election. But to your question about identity, what I was gonna say is, like, I think I’m a very good example of why I’m Asian American, right? Like if people do the “Where are you from?” Which, uh, I get a lot, and I will say I’m from Miami, so the only place I don’t take offense to that question is Miami. Because in Miami everyone is from somewhere else and they’re really just legitimately trying to figure out where you’re from.
Errin:
Yeah.
Niala:
And so my whole life, when I left Miami and people said, “Where are you from?” I said, “Miami.” And people were like, “That’s not good enough.” And I was like…
Errin:
Right, right. It wasn’t computing for them, right? it wasn’t adding up
Niala:
People look at my face. My face looks Indian. Like it looks South Asian. It looks like South Indian, which is my genetic heritage. My family is West Indian. I’m five generations removed from India. I am one generation removed from Trinidad, which is where my parents immigrated from. And I was born in this country, right? And so, as a kid — of course, this is what happens when you have a dad who’s a political scientist — I was like, well, “What race am I?” And you know, of course I got this whole explanation of like, “Well, in this country, your race is Asian, our ethnicity is West Indian. This is why…” But I think that’s a really good example of how when we talk about race in this country, Asian Americans are often left out. And it is a very diverse group of a lot of different people.
Niala:
I am one example. My colleague Russ Contreras is doing a great story to wrap up this month about Asian Latinos. And so, like — and this again from Miami — I was explaining this, actually, to my Uber driver in DC last week. Like, there are Trini Chinese and Jamaican Chinese and Cuban Chinese.
Errin:
Yes.
Niala:
My Spanish teacher growing up in Miami was Miss Yi Ramirez. She was a Cuban Chinese woman. And I just thought that was normal. But, you know, I think when you don’t grow up in a community like South Florida and you think about all of America, like, I’m not sure everyone’s thinking about all of those things.
Errin:
Yeah, exactly. And people like you, people like Miss Yi Ramirez, have a story to tell, right? And it’s a story that not enough political reporters, frankly, are curious enough about, right? The idea that Americans, as voters, we contain multitudes. We talk about this country being a melting pot, but so often, like, that melting pot is even within each and every one of us. And so, getting to know who those people are, and all the different things that might be motivating them — especially as it pertains to identity — feels really, really important. So, you mentioned Georgia, which is where I’m from. In the 2020 election, we saw Asian American voters in Georgia really flexing their influence in such a huge way. The state has the largest AAPI legislative caucus in the United States. That’s obviously something that I think is, you know, was the thing that started to get people’s attention around AAPI voters and representation as well. I wanna get kind of in the way-back machine and talk about how people were thinking about the AA and HPI voting bloc prior to 2020, because that’s really when, you know, we started getting more people saying, “What’s going on with the AAPI voting? What’s going on with the API representation?” How did the 2020 election really kind of change people’s views of this voting bloc?
Niala:
So let’s go to the way-back machine. And I was sitting in — I’m having actually, like, slight, I would say, like, slight PTSD of remembering, like, sitting…
Errin:
We’re gonna get through it together.
Niala:
— sitting in this podcast studio. I’m in my home studio, which is where basically I lived for, like, four days, producing my daily show after the 2020 election. And let’s all remember: Georgia — like I think everyone needs to go back and remember—
Errin:
Yes.
Niala:
— how everyone was waiting on Georgia. And everyone is “Georgia, Arizona,” right? Like everybody was waiting on those two states. And let’s also remember that President-Elect Biden carried Georgia — sorry, Joe Biden, when he was president-elect — carried Georgia with less than 13,000 vote lead. Like, that is how much he won by. And that was made, in part, possible by a historic turnout among the Asian American community.
Niala:
Right? And so when we think about the historic nature of Georgia, that was the first time — which I don’t need to tell you, right? — first time in nearly 30 years, right? That Georgia voters chose a Democrat for president.
Errin:
Yeah.
Niala:
When you think about — just like, again, as we’re talking about, like, not a monolith — Asian Indians are the largest voting block of AAPI voters in Georgia. And when you think about the numbers and turnout, there are more than 300,000 registered voters right now in Georgia who identify as Asian American or Pacific Islander. And when you look at numbers, it was a 63% increase in turnout from 2016 to 2020 among that voting bloc.
Errin:
Yeah. And how do you get that increase in turnout? How do you get, I mean, I think a lot of it has to do with, you know, how many more folks you’re able to get on the rolls, how many more folks are being reached out to, right? Maybe even for the first time being talked to as if their vote was something that mattered, something that was valid and something that was valued.
Niala:
I think there were a lot of things that happened in the 2020 election that helped do that. Certainly when you talk to activists about their ground game in Georgia, there were so many different groups. There were the big national groups, right? Like APIA vote is sort of like the big umbrella group. But then there were all of these local groups that were run—
Errin:
Grassroots folks.
Niala:
They were running all of these ground game to get people registered, to get people engaged. You know, I said Asian Indians are the largest voting block in Georgia. Another thing that I think was really important is Kamala Harris. By the way, this is another thing: When you look at survey data — like we just had some really interesting data come out at the beginning of the month — most Americans do not even recall that Kamala Harris is Asian American, right? Like, and again, I think this gets to how you think about identity in America. I think we always tend to think of Black, White or Latino, right? And someone who is mixed race, like. people are like, “No, she’s Black.” And we’re like, “Well, she’s mixed race. She is Black and she is Indian. She considers herself Asian American.”
Errin:
Oh yeah, this is absolutely something that she points out. And it’s absolutely something that a lot of Asian Americans take a lot of pride in in this country.
Niala:
Right. So I think she was a big reason why also that was a big turnout.
Errin:
Mm-Hmm.
Niala:
Right. Like that’s a very natural thing.
Errin:
Yeah. Agreed.
Niala:
By the way, you know, as we think about this next election, there’s a very good possibility that we have two Asian American women as vice presidential candidates ’cause we could potentially have Nikki Haley and Kamala Harris. Like we could have two women of South Asian descent as the vice presidential candidate. Like, that’s not certain, of course, but it’s certainly a possibility.
Errin:
So in case y’all can’t tell, Niala’s got the receipts, people; She is doing a lot of research. So I wanna ask you about some of that. According to your research, what are the issues that really matter most to the ANHPI voting bloc? And what is motivating them to turn out at the polls?
Niala:
Well, and I think, like, look, I think it’s the same issues, right? Like Asian Americans are Americans, like Asian Americans are concerned about the economy. Asian Americans are concerned about health care. Asian Americans are concerned about immigration. Asian Americans are concerned about reproductive rights. And there’s some really interesting data about how Asian American women are especially motivated as consistent voters, right? Like you talk about the consistency of the Black female vote. That is also true of the Asian American woman vote.
Errin:
Yeah. Say more about that.
Niala:
Just that that’s such an, like, I think as we know that this has been — reproductive rights has been an animating issue for so many voters that is also very true for Asian American women. And that is also something that we’ve seen in recent polling that is showing that that is like a very key issue for why they will be turning up to vote. And we also know that they are consistent voters. So that’s a really important thing to think about. But, I think, I do wanna talk about some issues that I think get overlooked in all of this, right? And I think the biggest issue that gets overlooked is hate crimes.
Errin:
Yeah.
Niala:
I think when we had the Atlanta spa shootings…that was two years ago, three years ago? Two years ago.
Errin:
Yeah.
Niala:
We had such a focus on Asian hate crimes.
Errin:
Yeah.
Niala:
And we had a conversation about this in our newsroom a couple months ago where we, you know, we have these sort of like newsroom meetings and we were all talking about things and someone was like, “What happened to Asian hate crimes?” I was like, “Oh, they’re still happening.”
Errin:
Definitely still happening.
Niala:
And someone was like, “But are people talking about it?” And I was like, “Well, look.” And I talked to, actually, Norman Chen about this. Um, he’s with the Asian American Foundation. They do very interesting TAAF does like really good survey data work. Um, and I think that’s — I will say, as I’m talking to you about all these things — what’s very different now about 2024 compared to four years ago and compared to eight years ago, is we have so much more data. We know historically that, like, we just don’t have good data on people of color on… and that’s kind of the gamut, right? Like not just polling. It’s kind of everything.
Errin:
Yeah. People didn’t see it as a worthy investment.
Niala:
Right. So we have an organization — AAPI Data — and they are now, like, surveying, doing monthly surveys of the AP or AAPI population. So we know — and I can talk about this later too — like what Asian American attitudes are about the war between Israel and Hamas. But Asian hate crimes are a huge problem. Like, if you look at the data that just came out at the beginning of this month, national data, one in three Asian Americans said they had been called a racial or ethnic slur in the past year.
Errin:
Yeah. Yeah. I think you’re bringing up such an important point because, I mean, while the spa shootings were absolutely a flashpoint and raised issues about AAPI violence around gun violence, this being a mass shooting, it definitely put the issue of AAPI hate on the radar for a lot of other Americans. But, I mean, you know, remember, this was something that Asian Americans were experiencing throughout the pandemic, right? Throughout the pandemic that was driven, in part, by our politics at the time. You know, you had the former president of the United States that was stoking fears and stereotypes around Asian Americans that was perpetuating a lot of that violence. And so, you know, this was happening, like you said, on a regular basis to quite a significant part of the population and continues to happen.
Errin:
Whether we have, the rest of us, looked away or not, like this is still something that is very much still affecting that community. And so I’m so glad that you’re kind of bringing that experience into what does feel different about this year. One more thing around, kind of, the issues that are motivating people. I mean, you talked about some of the traditional issues that motivate them in the same way that a lot of other Americans are motivated: education, the economy, healthcare, et cetera. I think identity can lend itself to, you know, nuance around what those voters mean when they say that they care about those issues. Are there, you know, examples that you can think of for the AAPI community on any one of those issues that maybe is distinctive in how they’re looking at that issue and how that may be motivating them?
Niala:
Well, let’s talk about the war, because I think that’s a very interesting way. We have some interesting data on that, that I don’t think has been talked about very much, right? And when we look at the data — and this comes from AAPI data; They released a survey in April about this that has never existed before — and basically half of the AANHPI community says they think the US is not supportive enough of Palestinians. So there’s some really, like, you wanna parse into that. Like it gets very nuanced, right?
Errin:
Mm-Hmm.
Niala:
But that is even when you look at party affiliation, right? Because when you think about the war, most Americans in general, like, it’s very different by party affiliation. But even when you look at party affiliation, 25 percent of Republicans, 35 percent of independents, and 66 percent of Democrats said the US was not supportive enough of Palestinians.
Niala:
So the confusing thing about this data is it also shows that 48 percent think the U.S, um, they’re saying the US is too…They’re saying the U.S. is about right in support of Israel. Like half are saying it’s about right, and half are saying the U.S. is too supportive. So it gets kind of confusing. And I think this gets to generational differences, just like we see with every other, um, racial and ethnic group. There are huge generational differences between older and younger generations.
Errin:
Yeah.
Niala:
And, um, just like we’re seeing with protests on college campuses. Like younger Asian Americans are much more animated in support of Palestine and Palestinian rights than older Americans. But I think it’s very interesting that this shows…and I think, look, we’ve talked a lot about the Arab American population…
Niala:
There’s been a lot of conversation rightly focused on Michigan and how much that community can make a difference, right? Like in a presidential election year like this, we know that it’s gonna come down to very small margins. And that’s why I think these conversations really matter, because all of these communities really matter because they could be the difference. Like we saw that with Georgia. Um, you know, Arab American is an identity, it’s not a racial category.
Errin:
Right.
Niala:
You know, and actually the Biden administration has done some really interesting work on that. But when you look at particular… like when you parse down into like the AAPI community, and you look at, for example, not surprising that Asians who are Asian Indian or South Asian descent skew even higher support of Palestinian. And that makes sense. Like if you think particularly about, like, how many of those populations are also Muslim, right?
Errin:
Right.
Niala:
Um, but it also, I think, speaks to a growing sentiment that I think was first really highlighted and become kind of mainstream with Black Lives Matter, with Asian American groups saying, “We are people of color and we ally with people of color issues in this country.”
Errin:
In solidarity. Yeah, absolutely.
Errin:
You know, you brought up the census. We’re gonna do this for your political scientist dad here. The census and our democracy are really more connected than many people think, right? Biden-Harris administration recently made adjustments into the census categorization, for example, under the Asian category, uh, you know, have the option to select specific ethnicities, right? Like Chinese, Indian, Filipino, Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese. Uh, can you talk about those recent adjustments to the census categorization? What were those adjustments? Why do they matter? How have they potentially impacted the accuracy of data collection for AAPI communities?
Niala:
So — and I think it’s not just AAPI communities, obviously, right? Like the census change was very significant for Hispanic Latino, how that is categorized.
Errin:
Yeah.
Niala:
And then the biggest thing, of course, is now actually Middle Eastern communities, which, this may be surprising to people, but prior to this, basically, like if you were from, like, Libya or Lebanon, they were like, “Put White. Put White on the census. ‘Cause we don’t have a category for you. Just put White.” Which obviously as we know, and I’ll say just like also, generationally, when I was a kid growing up in Miami, I remember teachers telling me this in high school, “Just put White.” And I was like, “Why should I put White?” They were like, “Well, you’re not Black and you’re not Latino.” And I was like, “So then I have to be White.” And they were like, “Well, that’s what’s there,” you know?
Niala:
And I was like, “Mm-hmm, okay.” You know? And so I think, you know, as we think about decades later, these are really important changes because we know that it makes a difference from a data standpoint, right? Like Karthik Ramakrishnan, who runs AAPI Data, made a really interesting point when I was talking to him about this. And he said it’s not just, like, hate crime statistics. Like he is really interested in looking at incarceration statistics. And right now, when you look at incarceration statistics, it just says “Asian.” And we know that, like — and he said this to me — he’s like, we know that Southeast Asians are disproportionately harmed by the criminal justice system, but we don’t have the data. We just know this anecdotally. And, like, that’s one of the things he’s hoping they’ll be able to get eventually from these changes. But I also think, from a societal standpoint, these categories matter because they shape not just, like, the reality, but they shape our conversation. How the US government defines race and ethnicity is so influential, right? Because, yeah, it just plays this role in reinforcing the boundaries of how we think about these communities.
Errin:
And our potential to learn what is and what our potential is to learn about these different communities, right?
Niala:
What I think is super fascinating about this is, again — like looking at younger generations, and when I was reporting on this story just about the census changes, one thing that I found and I didn’t know about this, is, like, on college campuses, you probably heard this, Errin, I feel like you are way cooler than I am, but like now, like the…
Errin:
Debatable.
Niala:
The college kids now are now, like, they don’t even like the label. They’re like, “We reject the label Middle Eastern that has been put upon us.”
Errin:
Yeah.
Niala:
Right? So now there are phrases like SWANA, which is like Southwest Asian and Northwest Africa. APIDA; Like, so they’re like, “We don’t want AAPI. We wanna be called APIDA, which stands for Asian, Pacific Islander and Desi Americans.” So like, I think that’s gonna be something like, as we’re starting to hear, like, I think, you know, like obviously we know that race is a social construct. Like this is like part of how we see this fluidity in this change and how we talk about our identity. I’m fascinated to see how this will play out.
Errin:
Yeah. I mean, what you’re saying feels so important because, you know, even as our government is maybe rethinking a lot of these identities, you also have people defining themselves for themselves, right? And letting us know who they are, how they wanna identify, and really wanting the rest of us to understand and respect that piece. So, I wanna come back to a point that you were making when you were talking about, you know, what we can learn about Asian Americans and their relationship to the criminal justice system, for example. It’s making me think about, again, that as part of a broader conversation about violence against Asian Americans, which we do still need to be talking about because it is still very much happening. Can you just talk a little bit more about the ways in which these ongoing hate crimes have affected Asian Americans, particularly older Asian Americans, who have been targeted?
Niala:
Thanks for asking that question ’cause I think this is a really important thing that I think is, again, when you think about the stereotypes or, you know, it goes back to the beginning of the conversation: Asian Americans are most likely to say they feel like they don’t belong in the U.S. and feel very invisible. And I think these hate crimes, particularly as they happen against elders in our communities, reinforce this in a very tragic way. I was at an event last week — it was the Asian legislative Congressional caucus had their big summit —
Errin:
Yeah.
Niala:
Senator Duckworth shared a story — and she shared the story with me right after it happened — about her mother being, like, verbally attacked in a grocery store in Chicago during the pandemic.
Errin:
Mm.
Niala:
And how scared she was for her mother.
Errin:
Yeah.
Niala:
And I think that’s a really visible example of what’s happening across the Asian American community. And I just wanna give you, like, one more statistic here, which I find astounding: TAAF — that’s The Asian American Foundation — did a survey in March. One in five Asian American adults in New York City reported being physically assaulted in the last year.
Errin:
Yeah. Which is terrifying.
Niala:
So we know, and Norman Chen told me, that this is affecting lifestyles — particularly older Asian Americans. They are closing their businesses early. People are shopping less. People are staying home out of fear.
Errin:
Yeah. And I mean, just this feeling of being a target or the feeling of being invisible. Like you said, 22 percent of Asian Americans feeling like they belong post-pandemic. Talk about that feeling. Talk about how this climate really impacts people’s sense of belonging. Has it affected your sense of belonging?
Niala:
I think that’s a great question because I think everything we’ve been talking about points to this, right? Like, and so when we know that, first of all, I just wanna point out, it’s overwhelmingly true for all Americans of color when compared to our white counterparts. Seventy percent of white Americans feel like they belong. That is not the case for the majority of people of color.
Errin:
It is not
Niala:
Thirty-eight percent of Asian Americans say they don’t feel like they belong in the U.S.. I think this comes from a lot of things, right? It comes from visibility, right? It’s everything we’re talking about — about political representation and power. Like that matters. And I think it comes from culture. And I think, certainly, that is changing. So if you think about Netflix, everything from “Bridgerton” to “Never Have I Ever,” you have women of South Asian descent just sort of cast, just, like, normally. And it’s not like a thing; It’s just part of their life.
Errin:
Yeah.
Niala:
That makes a difference, right? But for my generation, I never had that growing up. There was one I had in my entire elementary school — which I will say, like, I grew up in a very multicultural, multilingual, immigrant Miami — I had one other person who looked like me, being from, like, Indian descent.
Niala:
A lot of other people look like me, ’cause they just, you know, I have the skin tone that everyone says they have a cousin that looks like me, right?
Errin:
Sure.
Niala:
So I kind of fit in most of the world’s societies. But that I think all, like, it matters like when the people who look around you — whether they look like you, whether the people you see in movies or on like streaming or celebrities or politicians — like, those things matter. And it’s striking to me how ignorant overall American society is about Asian Americans. So, TAAF does this question every year when they ask Americans, “Can you think of a famous Asian American?”
Errin:
Mm-Hmm.
Niala:
Fifty-two percent of Americans say they can’t think of one.
Errin:
Yeah. And if they, and if they can, who is that person?
Niala:
They named Jackie Chan; He’s not even American.
Errin:
I knew it. I knew it was gonna be Jackie Chan.
Niala:
Or they say Bruce Lee, who’s been dead for 50 years. Do you know how many people named Kamala Harris? Two percent. We have an Asian American vice president and two percent of people think of her as Asian American. And I think these are reasons why Asian Americans feel like they say they don’t belong, right? I think all of these things are part of that conversation. I think that narrative is really changing. I think the fact that we are having this conversation… I will say, you know, in my two decades as a journalist, the past five years I’ve talked more about this and reported more on this. And I will say, I work for a news organization that I’m very grateful, like, wants me to bring my whole person to work and talk about this and report on this. I think that, you know, society is changing for the better with us having all of these conversations. But I think we also need to know where we’re at before we can improve, and we’re not really at a great place here.
Errin:
Yeah. Absolutely. True. Part of belonging, especially, you know, in America, in our democracy, is, you know, voting, for so many people. And so I’m wondering if what you’re talking about around attitudes around belonging and even around being a target is this violence? Are these attitudes about belonging really helping some Asian Americans in this moment to find their voice, particularly in our politics?
Niala:
I think that you see some really interesting candidates. And I’m, really, because I’m in Washington, I’m really kind of more clued into the sort of a national scene of Congress. And I think someone like Andy Kim is really fascinating in New Jersey. Yeah. Tammy Duckworth likes to say there’s more men named John in the US Senate than there are senators of color. If Andy Kim wins in the New Jersey Senate race, which all signs point to he will be, he become the ninth Asian American senator in US history. In the entire history of the U.S., he’ll be the ninth.
Errin:
I don’t know that many Americans could even name any of the previous ones. That is not history that is being taught. And when people, you know, see those kinds of examples or know about those kinds of examples, that can also help for folks to understand that is something that might be possible for some for them. That is something that they maybe even need to be thinking about, right?
Niala:
People probably are like, “Who’s Andy Kim?” And I bet you actually know him because he became very popular because there was a photo of him that went viral after January 6 because he was kneeling on the floor of Congress sweeping it up, and he was picking up debris. And he just literally started sweeping up debris from the January 6 protesters. And there was a photograph of him, like, sweeping things up that went viral. And then other colleagues came and helped him. And he talked about being a Korean American immigrant, like his family is Korean descent, and he just talked about how sacred he thought the halls of Congress were
Errin:
Right.
Niala:
And how he was so mortified. So, people — I think particularly like Northeastern from like New York, New Jersey — people are like, “Oh, that’s Andy Kim. He’s the one who cleaned up the halts of Congress.” But yeah, like how often do those stories get told?
Errin:
Yeah. And how often do we get to see somebody like that depicted as patriotic in this country in that way, right? It is not nearly often enough, I would suggest. Yeah. Well, I wanna get to the 2024 of it all here. The Biden administration recently tried to draw a distinction between Chinese Americans and the Chinese Communist Party, which is a departure from the Trump administration’s rhetoric on China, where he specifically blamed the country for the COVID-19 pandemic. Can you just talk about some recent examples where, uh, the Biden Harris administration has tried to draw this distinction?
Niala:
I think the Biden and Harris administration has consistently tried to draw this distinction. I don’t — I’ll be frank with you and say — I don’t know if people notice. So recently, when the Biden administration, when the Biden-Harris administration announced, like, a new series of tariffs against China, I think they try to make very clear those distinctions, right? This is something against the Communist Party in China. This is something against Beijing. And I will say the U.S. trade representative, Katherine Tai, is the highest ranking Asian American in the cabinet. So I think that was a deliberate choice by the Biden administration as well. So I think what they can talk about that, and I think that’s very important to do, but the reality is that there are many other politicians who are equally loud or louder who do not make those distinctions. And I think when you wrap that into the narrative — the overall narrative — of immigration and the way we talk about immigrants in this country now, and I think that, and we can see how much that’s shifted overall American opinion about immigrants, right?
Niala:
So I think it’s really important to think about that whole context.
Errin:
Yeah.
Niala:
And while I think it’s important that they make that distinction, and as I should say, it’s also really important for journalists to make that distinction. I am a longtime member of the Asian American Journalist Association, which for decades has fought tirelessly to get newsrooms to cover AANHPI communities properly. It’s really important for journalists to say “Beijing,” to not say, like, “China.” Like, say, like, “Beijing,” say “The CCP,” like say what it is instead of these big labels that then get translated to other people.
Errin:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, we have certainly had careers where we’ve seen a lot of change around identity in our country. As an Asian American, I just wonder what changes you’re hoping to see when it comes to our politics and specifically our elected leaders.
Niala:
I think, um, I just think that the important thing would be — and I think this is happening — but I think to recognize, like, I think the narrative needs to be that Asian Americans are an important political force in this country, both at the individual level for voters as well as politically like with politicians. And I don’t think that that’s necessarily recognized. And I think that’s…look, obviously, like, I’m a journalist in Washington for Axios. I’m gonna say that I think politics really matters. And I think that it makes power, like… There’s a reason why people who are in power can change things. And I think that that, to me, is a really important thing that I would like to see recognized. And also, I would like to say that to see it recognized — And I think this is a problem with every community of color, not just in a presidential election year, right? — but to see this recognized as a consistent force in the American economy, like the American political process and in American history, right? Like Asians have been part of American history, like people probably don’t know, the beginning of American immigration law was the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882.
Errin:
Oh yeah, yeah, we talked about that…
Niala:
In 1882, we were trying to exclude Chinese. Like that is how long Chinese people have been in this country. Like, let’s be clear. So I think just recognizing all of those contributions to history, the economy, to culture, to politics, and for that to be part of the conversation.
Errin:
Absolutely. Look, our country is not what it is without the contributions of Asian Americans. And you are also part of that story now. So thank you so much for being the change maker that you are. I’m so proud to be in this work with you. And thanks for hanging out with me on The Amendment.
Niala:
Thank you so much for having me, and thank you for the work that you do. I love it.
Errin:
There are only 48 hours left to apply to be in our third cohort of Francis Ellen Watkins Harper Fellows. We are looking for HBCU grads or former students to join our newsroom for a year in our editorial products and technology or reporting tracks. You’ll get access to training and mentorship from yours truly, and other digital women leaders. You’ll have excellent benefits, real world experience, and, we hope, a lot of fun being part of our team. Applications close in two days on May 31. So head on over to 19thnews.org/fellowship2024 for more information. We hope to see you soon.
The Amendment is a co-production of the 19th News and Wonder Media Network. It is executive produced by Jenny Kaplan, Terri Rupar and Faith Smith. Wonder Media Network’s Head of Development is Emily Rudder. Julia B. Chan is the 19th’s editor-in-chief. The Amendment is edited by Jenny Kaplan, Grace Lynch and Emily Rudder. And it is produced by Adesuwa Agbonile, Grace Lynch, Brittany Martinez and Taylor Williamson with production assistance from Luci Jones and post-production support from Julie Bogen, Victoria Clark, Lance Dixon and Wynton Wong. Artwork by Aria Goodman. And our theme music was composed by Jlin.
