Why Are Asian-Americans Such Loyal Democrats?
There is one issue, race or ethnicity-based affirmative action, on which Asian-American loyalty to the liberal agenda is more conflicted.
More than 60 Asian-American groups have filed complaints with the Department of Justice and the Department of Education charging that preferences for African-Americans and Hispanics at Harvard and other selective colleges have reduced the number of Asian- Americans accepted. The complaints are based on the fact that Asian-Americans as a group have substantially higher standardized test scores and grades than competing demographic groups, including whites.
.. “Asian applicants are the biggest winners if race is no longer considered in admissions” at “three highly selective private research universities” which the authors declined to identify. The Asian share of those accepted at such institutions would grow from 23.7 percent to 31.5 percent, they wrote.
.. Asian-Americans, according to the Pew Research Center, “are the best-educated, highest-income, fastest-growing race group in the country.”
.. The percent of out-of-wedlock births among Asian-Americas in 2013 was 17 percent, just over half the 29.3 percent rate for whites and far below the 53.2 rate for Hispanics and the 71.5 percent rate for African-Americans.
.. In this respect, Asian-Americans are similar to another minority voting group with strong Democratic ties, American Jews.
.. Asian-Americans share with blacks, Hispanics and Jews an experience of previously marginalized status and social exclusion. These four constituencies also share a belief that a commitment to hard work and self-reliance does not conflict with a belief in a strong government and a reliable safety net.
Such views stand in direct contrast to those of the Tea Party and Wall Street wings of the Republican Party, both of which see self-reliance and big government as antithetical to each other.