AAPI Politics Briefing: Gearing up for 2024

Most recently, it has focused on organizing around climate change, gun violence, and misinformation within the AAPI community.

Some AAPI community members may want to see change through gun control policies, for example, but “they don’t realize that if you don’t go out and vote—and vote for the right people—then actually this may not happen,” Mosberger-Tang added. “So we tried to talk to people about their values and also help them to see the connections between their values and voting.” 

With Emerging Voters active in target states, AAPI Victory Alliance “as a constellation will connect to these groups and direct resources to them and add their voices to national campaign strategies for the party as well as for candidates who are running in those districts,” AAPI Victory Alliance's board chair Katie Nguyen Kalvoda told The Yappie.

The Victory Alliance’s nationally harnessed resources will funnel into a “50-state strategy” that prioritizes community engagement and building a pipeline at local levels, Kalvoda noted—something they hope will bolster “subpar” Investments in AAPI communities.

In the 2020 presidential election, Asian American voter turnout increased by 47% since the previous election, a rate higher than any other racial and ethnic group, according to analyses by the nonpartisan organization APIAVote. The demographic served as the margin of victory in several battleground states.

In the 2022 Senate election in Georgia, AAPI voter turnout was also key to the re-election of Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, with 78% of AAPI voters backing him in the runoff election, Vox’s Li Zhou reports. 

Despite an increase in AAPI candidates in state and local elections, progressive political operatives have said the Democratic Party continues to neglect the community’s power as a voting bloc.

To combat that, AAPI Victory Fund teamed up with the Latino Victory Fund and The Collective PAC in 2021 in a similar bid to pool resources and better support candidates of color.

Harris and President Joe Biden have pushed to prioritize community policing as the number of mass shootings per year continues to rise. Both continue to call on Congress to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, require strict and safe storage of firearms, mandate background checks for all gun sales, and end gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability. 

On our radar: The Justice Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives has proposed a rule to reduce the number of guns sold without background checks by requiring people who sell firearms online or at gun shows to hold licenses and run background checks on their buyers.

In the absence of Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin, the two leaders established the creation of the India-U.S. Global Challenges Institute, a collaboration between the Council of Indian Institutes of Technology and the Association of American Universities, to promote growth in the fields of science and technology.

Yes, but: Many Indian Americans see Modi as pushing a Hindu nationalist agenda and have protested Biden’s largely amiable relationship with the leader, whom activists allege has violated numerous human rights and religious freedoms.

Officer Kevin Dave was driving at 74 mph when he hit Kandula at a crosswalk. Fellow officer Daniel Auderer, who responded to the scene, can be heard laughing while claiming Kandula’s life had “limited value” and that the city should “just write a check.”

The footage caused widespread outrage and spurred several Indian American Congress members to demand justice and accountability. Auderer, who serves as vice president of the Seattle Police Police Officers Guild, has since attempted to claim that he was satirizing the legal negotiations that would follow Kandula’s death.

The Indian Consulate in San Francisco later issued a statement referring to reports of the incident as “deeply troubling.” The consulate noted on X, formerly Twitter, that it has “taken up the matter strongly with local authorities in Seattle & Washington State as well as senior officials in Washington DC for a thorough investigation & action against those involved in this tragic case.”

Federal investigators found over $480,000 in cash, as well as gold bars and luxury items, in Menendez’s home, which they allege were bribes for assisting three New Jersey businessmen and the Egyptian government.

A former Obama aide in a national security role, Kim defeated incumbent former Rep. Tom MacArthur (R) for the House seat in 2018 in a close race, becoming the first Korean American in 20 years to be elected to Congress.

In a heated 2022 re-election campaign, Kim depicted himself as more moderate and pushed for bipartisanship. The predominantly white district he represents voted for Trump in both 2016 and 2020.

Kim was the first among New Jersey’s congressional Democrats to call for Menedrez’s resignation. A 2024 senate campaign was “not something I expected to do, but NJ deserves better. We cannot jeopardize the Senate or compromise our integrity,” Kim said on X.

That includes expanding general and per-country limits on available visas to accelerate their processing.

In their words: “In the aftermath of war and genocide in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, many Southeast Asian American families were separated in their escape to safety … the Reuniting Families Act would ensure that SEAA families are made whole again and make the US immigration system more humane,” Southeast Asian advocacy organization SEARAC said in a statement.

Chu first introduced the bill in 2018 before re-introducing it in 2019. The third iteration scaled back earlier attempts to remove per-country immigration limits entirely, and Chu said that some provisions have already been “incorporated into bipartisan legislation.” All 36 of the bill’s current co-sponsors are Democrats.

Within a week of 9/11, the New York Times reported the killings of a Sikh gas station owner in Arizona, a Pakistani grocery store owner in Dallas and an Egyptian man in California.

The number of reported anti-Muslim assaults reached a new peak in 2016, shortly before then-President Donald Trump signed an executive order temporarily banning nationals of several predominantly Muslim countries from U.S. entry.

“In the years since 9/11, our Arab, Muslim, Middle Eastern, South Asian, and Sikh communities have endured persistent racism, xenophobia, and discrimination,” co-sponsor Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) said in a statement. “It’s long past time for our government to acknowledge the trauma it has and continues to inflict on our communities.”