Yuen, Nancy Wang

English

St. John's University School of Law

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development Volume 24 Issue 2 Volume 24, Fall 2009, Issue 2 Article 8 October 2009 The Asian American Vote: The Role of Race in News Media Coverage of the 2008 Democratic Primaries Nancy Wang Yuen Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/jcred Recommended Citation Yuen, Nancy Wang (2009) "The Asian American Vote: The Role of Race in News Media Coverage of the 2008 Democratic Primaries," Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development: Vol. 24 : Iss. 2 , Article 8. Available at: https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/jcred/vol24/iss2/8 This Symposium is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at St. John's Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development by an authorized editor of St. John's Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact selbyc@stjohns.edu. THE ASIAN AMERICAN VOTE: THE ROLE OFRACE IN NEWS MEDIA COVERAGE OF THE 2008DEMOCRATIC PRIMARIESNANCY WANG YUEN*INTRODUCTIONThe topic of race dominated the media coverage of the 2008 elections,beginning with the Democratic primaries. The "black," "white," "Latino,"and "Asian" votes were common demographic breakdowns used to gaugecandidate support for Barack Obama vs. Hillary Clinton. Though receivingless media coverage than blacks and Latinos due to their comparativelysmaller demographic presence, Asian American voters garnered briefnational media attention when they supported Clinton over Obamaoverwhelmingly in California and New York. According to exit polls,Asian Americans elected Clinton over Obama by a margin of 75% to 23%in California, and 86% to 14% in New York. This paper briefly exploreswhat the media coverage of Asian Americans' support for Hillary Clintonover Barack Obama reveals in terms of biased racial framing of candidatesof color compared to white candidates. Drawing upon U.S. news media -including print and wire - representations of Asian American voters, Idiscuss the coverage of race in the 2008 Democratic primary elections.' Myfindings show how media portrayals of Asian American support for HillaryClinton focus on Clinton's individual characteristics - past experience,*An assistant professor of Sociology at Biola University, Nancy Wang Yuen has conducted extensiveresearch on race in the media. Dr. Yuen has published an ethnographic study of Asian American actors,two reports on Asian Pacific Islander Americans in prime time television, and a forthcoming piece onthe racial landscapes in science fiction television. Currently, Dr. Yuen is completing a book chapter onAfrican American actors and media representations of "South Central" and revising her dissertation onthe working experiences of African American, Asian American, and white professional actors. Formore on Nancy Wang Yuen, please visit her website: http://www.bubbs.biola.edu/-nancy.yuen.I A LexisNexis search of all U.S. print and wire between 2007 and June 2008 revealed fifteentelevision, radio, and print segments containing references to Asian American voters in the Democraticprimary elections. Of the fifteen, eight have national distribution, one has multi-regional distribution,five have regional distribution, and one is an ethnic newspaper targeting Asian Americans.STJOHN'SJOURNAL OFLEGAL COMMENTARYpolicies and other personal merits - rather than her race.2 In contrast, mediaportrayals of Asian American non-support for Obama focus primarily onrace, citing group-level prejudice and racial tensions.3 These biasesdemonstrate how the mainstream news media perpetuates the myth thatonly people of color are raced - not whites.I. "THE KNOWN ENTITY": NON-RACED EXPLANATIONS FOR CLINTONSUPPORT AMONG ASIAN AMERICAN VOTERSDuring the Democratic primaries, the news media framed the support forClinton over Obama among Asian American voters in non-raced ways.Some coverage even went so far as to claim that race has nothing to dowith potential reasons why Asian Americans rallied behind Hillary Clinton,as demonstrated by this excerpt from Time magazine:Experts have speculated about a variety of possible reasons havinglittle to do with race: Like other new immigrants, Asian Americans aremore conservative in their choices for leaders, and therefore likely togo with the known entity - which in this race, thanks to her husbandand her time in the White House, is Clinton. 4Moving deliberately away from raced explanations, such individualisticframes focus on Clinton's personal qualifications, such as her past presencein U.S. politics and her connection with her husband, President BillClinton. Another mainstream news segment demonstrates how the newsmedia persists in its focus on the Clintons' past policies and presence:They remember good times in the 1990s. There was a lot ofbenefits on not only the economy, but other policies that benefitedimmigrants, and in particular, Asian-Americans that would causethem to remember the Clintons in fondness. 5Overall, the framing of Asian American support based on Clinton's pastpresence and policies focuses on her individual rather than group2 Among the nineteen explanations of why Asian Americans would favor Hillary Clinton, sixteen(85%) made no mention of her race or any comparisons of her race to that of Asian Americans.3 Among the fifteen explanations of why Asian Americans do not favor Barack Obama, eleven(73%) made either specific reference to his race or contrasted his racial standpoint to that of AsianAmericans.4 Lisa Takeuchi Cullen, Does Obama Have an Asian Problem?, TIME, Feb. 18, 2008, available athttp://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1714292,00.html.5 Professor Matt Barreto, University of Washington, Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees: UncoveringAmerica: Race, Gender and Politics (CNN television broadcast Feb. 15, 2008) (transcript available athttp://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0802/l 5/acd.0l .html).[Vol. 24:2TIlEASIANAMERICAN VOTEattributes. 6 This contributes to the myth that white candidates succeed inpolitics based on their merits - experience, policies, etc. - rather than anyracial privilege.II. "ASIAN AMERICANS ARE UNCOMFORTABLE VOTING FOR A BLACKCANDIDATE"7: RACED EXPLANATIONS FOR ASIAN AMERICANS VOTINGAGAINST OBAMAIn contrast to the non-raced explanations of Asian American support forHillary Clinton, speculations on why this group did not vote forBarack Obama fixated on race. Many claimed that Asian Americans areoutright racist against blacks. This excerpt from Time magazine cites anAsian American academic to bolster the article's claim that AsianAmericans are racist:"Maybe it's just my cynicism speaking, but you look at thosenumbers and on some level there has to be some element ofrace," says Oliver Wang, a sociology professor at California StateUniversity at Long Beach. While not discounting the myriadcultural reasons that could explain the support for Clinton, "on agut level my reaction is that at least some Asian Americans areuncomfortable voting for a black candidate." 8Besides outright racism, other media explanations cited racial tensionsbetween Asian Americans and African Americans, like this comment fromFay Wattleton, an African American correspondent on CNN:I think there are tensions between African American andAsians around affirmative action issues at the higher educationlevels. And I think we can't ignore those. Now, whether theyshow up in the electorate and how deep those divides are, butthe tensions do exist.9This description exemplifies how the media frames people of color: thedominant pattern is to search for racial reasons to gauge support, or lack ofsupport, for a candidate of color. In this case, the media cites racialtensions between Asian Americans and African Americans surroundingaffirmative action as a potential reason for Asian American non-support of6 Though Clinton's gender is mentioned more often than her race, it is still comparatively less thanindividual-level attributes.7 Cullen, supra note 4.8 Id9 Faye Wattleton, Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees: Uncovering America: Race, Gender andPolitics, supra note 5.2009]ST JOHN'S JOURNTAL OFLEGAL COMMENTARYan African-American candidate, even though, historically, whites are themajor racial group rallying against affirmative action.CONCLUSIONThe news media presents cultural generalizations that pit minoritygroups against one another while perpetuating the myth that whites do notbenefit from the current racial hierarchy. Asian American support forClinton is framed in terms of her merits rather than white racial privilege.The idea that whites have no race, but that all other groups are raciallymarked is a central tenet of critical whiteness studies, which argue"whiteness operates as the unmarked norm against which other identitiesare marked and racialized, the seemingly un-raced center of a racializedworld."'0 The media's rare attribution of racial privilege to whitedominance is a powerful vehicle for perpetuating dominant racial ideology.And while whiteness becomes invisible in terms of race, other non-whiteidentities are all the more racialized by comparison.Not only does the news media frame people of color racially, it alsoframes them as racists. Racial prejudice and racial division are commonframes used to explain Asian American non-support for Obama.Representations of Latino support for Clinton over Obama take a similarroute in citing racism among Latinos. Despite media biases in terms ofciting racial tensions between Asian Americans, Latinos and AfricanAmericans, the recent Obama presidential victory has disproved suchtheories with evidence of overwhelming support for Obama from AsianAmericans and Latinos. Perhaps the news corps will learn a lesson on racerelations from this historical election and rethink its biased coverage of racein political elections.10 BIRGIT BRANDER RASMUSSEN ET AL., THE MAKING AND UNMAKING OF WHITENESS 10 (2001).(Vol. 24:2

The Asian American Vote: The Role of Race in News Media Coverage of the 2008 Democratic Primaries

https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&amp;context=jcred

The Asian American Vote: The Role of Race in News Media Coverage of the 2008 Democratic Primaries

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

St. John's University School of Law