if he gets to be mayor, we won’t have to explain many of the challenges in the Asian American community to him,” says Jo-Ann Yoo, executive director of the Asian American Federation in New York. “His candidacy is exciting to many because they think he’s someone who can see what we’re going through. (Entrepreneur Art Chang is also on the primary ballot, but he’s garnered less support in polls so far.) The historical weight of this prospect has Asian American voters grappling with whether Yang offers the type of visibility they’d like to see.Īccording to internal polling from Yang’s campaign, many Asian American Democratic voters are supportive: A June survey shows him with 41 percent of the group’s vote the next two candidates behind him in the survey, Dianne Morales and Scott Stringer, showed a split in the progressive vote. The New York City primary is taking place on Tuesday - and if Yang wins (he appears to be in second place, according to an Ipsos poll released this week), he’d move on to the general election and likely become the first Asian American mayor of the largest city in the country. Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images When there is so little representation in national politics, these gaffes - by a tech entrepreneur who has never held public office - can feel personally embarrassing, as some Asian Americans have noted.Īndrew Yang and his wife Evelyn Yang greet supporters before the first in-person televised debate on June 2. This has especially been in focus since he’s campaigned to become New York’s mayor - including an awkward meeting in which he tried to compliment LGBTQ attendees by calling them “human” and when he planned to show up for an Eid event after expressing solidarity with Israel following airstrikes against Palestine. “It’s a perspective that seems really removed from how Asian Americans have been treated in this country, at least that’s how I feel.”īroadly, too, there is the problem of his tone-deafness and a sense that he is out of touch. “It’s this obliviousness that’s not really reckoning with your own race in a way,” says New York-based public defender Hana Le. Many pointed out how this played into the trope that Asian Americans are seen as “forever foreigners,” and put the onus on them to conform to a made-up ideal to be viewed as Americans. “We Asian Americans need to embrace and show our American-ness in ways we never have before,” he argued in the Washington Post, calling on Asian people to “volunteer” and even wear “red, white and blue” to demonstrate their contributions to the US. Then there was his op-ed several months later that also offered a concerning view of how Asian Americans should present themselves in response to anti-Asian incidents and sentiment related to the coronavirus. It’s a comment that relies on the model minority myth, a misleading idea about Asian people’s success that ignores the economic realities of many Asian Americans and renders discrimination against them invisible. When he was running for president in 2020, Yang quipped in a debate about how, as an Asian person, he knows a lot of doctors. One poll last month showed Yang getting the support of 28 percent of voters surveyed, a more-than-double-digit lead over the next-most-popular candidate, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, according to Politico.Andrew Yang has long been a divisive figure among Asian American voters.įirst, there was his penchant for amplifying stereotypes. Though there’s still more than three months remaining until the mayoral primaries, Yang has emerged as an early frontrunner in the race to replace term-limited Mayor Bill de Blasio with a campaign centered around making New York an “anti-poverty city” with policies like universal basic income and COVID relief. “Asking whether that person is an authentic New Yorker, I think New Yorkers will answer that question, and so far we have more donors than any other campaign and more volunteers,” Coffey said, citing the “outpouring of support for Yang.” “I spent all of 2020 in NYC, living with THREE generations under one roof, AND running a campaign from home,” nonprofit executive Dianne Morales tweeted after Yang’s admission. Yang’s comments were widely mocked, including by his fellow mayoral candidates. “And so, like, can you imagine trying to have two kids on virtual school in a two-bedroom apartment, and then trying to do work yourself?” “We live in a two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan,” Yang told the New York Times in January. Shortly after entering the race, Yang came under fire for admitting that he and his family had spent more time in their second home, in New Paltz, than in New York City during the pandemic. It’s not just because of his tweets, either.
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