For these four Asian Americans, politics is personal

For Sandy Chan, living in a Dallas suburb, her vote in the 2016 presidential election wasn’t hers alone. 

Her child, Jo Lew, was 16. Lew’s father was a green card holder from Malaysia.

“For [my mom], you have a queer child in the state of Texas who was born a woman [and] could lose rights to their own body, and we saw that play out exactly like how we imagined,” Lew said.

Lew, now 23, feels the same weight. After living through Donald Trump’s presidency, Lew wants to keep their parents safe from anti-immigrant rhetoric.

“What would make me excited is to see a viable future for people our age, and being able to support our families and our parents,” Lew said.

For many Asian American families, politics is personal.

APIAVote in July reported nearly 75% of Asian American registered voters have spoken to their family and friends about politics in the last year. As the only racial group whose eligible voters are mostly immigrants, Asian Americans’ political ideologies and party affiliations are largely shaped by who they surround themselves with, said Tanika Raychaudhuri, an assistant professor at Rice University who has researched Asian American political behavior.

First-generation immigrants, for example, often discuss politics with other adult immigrants of the same national origin, while their children are more exposed to racially diverse peer groups, Raychaudhuri said.

“Many first-generation immigrants come to the United States, and they’re building their lives and their families at the same time that they’re learning about political institutions,” Raychaudhuri said.

And the discussions those families are having can sway this year’s presidential election, which features the first Asian American as a major party nominee for president, Kamala Harris. About 15 million Asian Americans can vote in November, a 15% increase from 2020, according to Pew Research Center.

The fastest growing demographic in the country, Asian Americans arguably swung the 2020 election in Georgia where more than 73,000 cast their ballots for Joe Biden in the state decided by 12,000 votes, according to research from Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta. 

VOICES spoke to Asian American voters of various ethnicities and ideologies across the country on how their life experiences and family chats have shaped their views.

As Saoli Nguyen puts it, “assimilation equal[ed] survival” for her family.  

Nguyen’s parents spent nearly a decade in a Hong Kong refugee camp before being repatriated back to Vietnam and then seeking asylum in the United States in 1998. For 26 years in Dallas, her dad has tufted carpets, while her mom has laundered uniforms and worked part-time as a nail technician.

Nguyen said after moving to New York for college, talking politics with her parents became easier. She still sometimes struggles to express the topic in Vietnamese, taking some moments to look up translations for political terms, she said.

But with each conversation, Nguyen said they have become more patient, learning more about their parents’ lives and preferences in the process.

“I make an effort, and I think they recognize and appreciate that,” Nguyen said. “I think extending that olive branch helps us all.”

Instead of telling her parents to vote for a specific candidate, Nguyen focuses on policies and their consequences, as Nguyen thinks the former belittles her parents’ intelligence and overlooks their agency to choose the best candidate. 

Nguyen said her dad regularly stays informed, consuming a mix of Vietnamese American and Vietnam-based publications — channels such as Việt Daily News and Quảng Ninh TV, respectively. Her dad knows how to identify and avoid political misinformation on YouTube, Nguyen said.

“Sometimes, we forget [our parents are] fully functioning humans with stories and paths of their own that have led them to where they are now,” Nguyen said.

Nguyen’s parents (Courtesy of Saoli Nguyen).

Nguyen’s approach is also informed by their work as the managing editor of Viet Fact Check, a volunteer-driven website that verifies information, translates mainstream news articles into Vietnamese and ensures voters like her parents with limited English proficiency can access reliable information. 

Since she got involved in Viet Fact Check three years ago, Nguyen said her Vietnamese naturally improved, and her dad has become more interested in her work. 

While recently visiting her family in Dallas, Nguyen and her dad talked about Harris’ presidential campaign at the dinner table. After reviewing Harris’ pros and cons, her dad, who had planned to vote for Biden, said the presidential race felt more “hopeful.”

Nguyen said her dad does not take the right to vote for granted, especially since it took him over eight years to get his U.S. citizenship. 

“Coming from him, it was just a really great reminder that my parents are engaged,” Nguyen said of the dinner table conversation. “They find information, seek it out and are curious about what is happening in the country.”

Before hitting the polls, Nikhil Gottemukkala must survive the family group chat.

“I just had a conversation with my dad when President Biden dropped out of the race,” Gottemukkala said while pulling up articles sent by his parents – immigrants from India who moved for higher education. 

Living in a politically independent household, Gottemukkala’s parents began sending educational articles in an iMessage chat with his family and now 17-year-old sister. They try to send articles from mainstream news publications, which spark conversations about the family’s political differences.

“There’s always going to be a generational gap, right?” Gottemukkala said as he recalled arguing with his parents on implementing less stringent immigration policies and higher funding for social security. “We’re raised in a generation where each generation after the other are more open-minded about certain things.” 

While his parents lean against such policies, the Gottemukkala family found common ground in Harris. 

Gottemukkala with his parents and sister (Courtesy of Nikhil Gottemukkala).

Gottemukkala said he would be proud to see someone of South Asian descent as the next president, but he also understands Harris’s candidacy may not mobilize all minority voters. 

“A lot of minorities are struggling right now,” Gottemukkala said. “I just don’t see it as a selling point when economic differences are the main division in our country.” 

Gottemukkala considers himself independent, in line with 31% of Asian American voters who lean independent across the country, according to APIAVote. But he plans to vote for Harris, encouraging independents like himself to look into the bigger picture of political unity. 

“It’s more that we see her as kind of the lesser of two evils – which I think has been the case for the last two elections,” Gottemukkala said. 

Jace Nagamine is a direct descendant of the first Japanese Americans who worked as sugar plantation workers in Hawaii after the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. 

But Nagamine wants more stringent immigration policies. 

“When my ancestors came to Hawaii, Americans were in need of labor,” Nagamine said. “Even though immigration is beneficial to our country, people migrating should have more consistent, high-skilled jobs that await.” 

Born and raised in Honolulu, Nagamine learned conservative policies while competing in his high school’s speech and debate team. He now serves as treasurer of Chapman University Republicans.

But politics is off-topic between Nagamine and his parents, who have voted for Democrats for the last three decades. 

Nagamine said they don’t try to change his political views, and neither does he. 

“You’re not going to change your family’s mind by discussing it,” Nagamine said.

Photo illustration by Angela Lim. Courtesy of Jo Lew.

Lew and their parents — a hairstylist mother and Uber driver father — have spent the last four years living in a motel with mostly low-income Black and brown families in Irving, Texas. 

At the same time, Lew was a first-generation college student attending Southern Methodist University, a predominantly white private institution. While experiencing a class divide between them and their wealthier peers, they found that most students hardly discussed how policies impact marginalized communities.

Lew and their mom both feel uneasy about the upcoming election. Since the pandemic, they saw a sharp rise in anti-Asian violence, an overturning of abortion rights and several mass shootings affecting Asian American communities.

“Every day, something new happens, and I’m like, ‘How are we allowing this to progress?'” Lew said.

“It’s getting worse, actually,” Chan replied. “I feel like we’re not down the bottom yet.”

Lew said they are trying to hold space for Harris, but are still critical of her continued support for Israel and its military campaign in Gaza, where over 39,000 civilians have been killed between Oct. 7 and July 31, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. 

After seeing the Biden administration’s response since Oct. 7 and the president’s “unyielding” pro-Israel stance, Lew said they’re most concerned about how Harris will handle the issue.

Among AAPI voters ages 18 to 40, 46% believe the U.S. support for Israel is excessive, compared to 33% of Black youth and 35% of Latinx youth, according to a February 2024 survey from the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University.

“We have elected officials that are apathetic to the war crimes that are being committed with our taxpayer money,” Lew said. “That is something I am keeping my thumb on very heavily because the rights of Palestinians are reflective of the rights of all people no matter where we come from.”

While both Lew and their mom support Palestinian liberation, Chan is paying the most attention to the economy, healthcare and social security as she nears retirement age.

“America used to be a dream country for a lot of people to come,” Chan said. “But of course, you don’t know anything until you’re in the circle.”

Lew and Chan at SMU’s Multicultural Graduation in 2023 (Courtesy of Jo Lew).

Lew is mindful of the differences in priorities between them and other Asian Americans like their mother. While candidates can’t readily predict the voting bloc’s diverse needs, they can be prepared, Lew said.

“[It’s] being willing to talk to anyone from a 16-year-old who was unable to vote or is just getting into voting age to talking to 70-year-old grandmas who are matriarchs of their family and can talk about their lived experiences,” Lew said.