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Is Texas' Asian-American political voice at risk?
Section 5 is vital in protecting the voices of minority citizens
By Mustafa Tameez and Mee Moua | February 26, 2013 | Updated: February 26, 2013 8:43pm
As the U.S. Supreme Court considers the constitutionality of Section 5, a key provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, this week in Shelby Co. v. Holder, the need to protect Asian-American voters' rights has never been greater.
We know too well that, more often than not, Asian-Americans are perceived as outsiders or foreigners. In 2009, Texas state Rep. Betty Brown suggested that Asian voters adopt names that were "easier for Americans to deal with" - and laid bare the deeper racial divides and misunderstandings that still exist in our nation. At a campaign rally during the 2004 U.S. Senate race in Virginia, incumbent George Allen repeatedly called a South Asian volunteer for his opponent a "macaca" - a racial epithet used to describe Arabs or North Africans that literally means "monkey" - and then began talking about the "war on terror."
This continuing discrimination and xenophobia is particularly disheartening, if not surprising, with the rising trajectory of Asian-American population and political power. According to Dr. Stephen Klinberg of Rice University, Houston is the nation's most diverse and fastest growing city, and immigrants have always played a vital part in the city's and state's economy, culture and development. In fact, Asian-Americans are a sizeable and rapidly increasing part of Houston's population and the fastest growing racial group in the nation. Similarly, the fastest population growth occurred in the South, where the Asian-American population increased by 69 percent.
It's precisely when groups of minorities move into or outpace general population growth in an area that we see increases in racial tension and more hostility and discrimination against the growing group. We've seen this occur time and time again against Asian-Americans, including in the voting context.
For example, in the 2004 primary elections in Bayou LaBatre, Ala., supporters of a white incumbent running against a Vietnamese-American candidate colluded to intimidate Asian-American voters at the polls. They challenged Asian-Americans at the polls, falsely accusing them of not being U.S. citizens or city residents. The losing incumbent stated, "We figured if they couldn't speak good English, they possibly weren't American citizens." After an investigation found these actions to be racially motivated, the challengers were prohibited from interfering in the general election, and the city elected its first Asian-American to the city council.
It's behind this backdrop of ongoing discrimination and increasing growth of the Asian-American population that Section 5 is needed more than ever to ensure the voting rights of Asian-Americans.
During the last legislative session in 2011, Texas' round of redistricting was no better. Redistricting is often used to carve up ethnic and minority neighborhoods and spread out voters in a way that makes it much more difficult for minority candidates from those communities to win.
Following the 2010 Census, Texas lawmakers sought to redistribute Asian-American and minority voters - who together formed a majority of one district's voters - into three surrounding districts with larger non-minority populations. In doing so, lawmakers eliminated the minority coalition district that had elected Hubert Vo as the first Vietnamese-American state representative in Texas history. Vo ended up in a district with a white incumbent state representative from the same party, making it more difficult for him to run for re-election.
Our communities and organizations spoke out against this injustice, but Texas lawmakers ignored our concerns. It was only because of Section 5 protections that Texas was forced to seek approval of its redistricting plan from a federal court in Washington, D.C. The federal court rejected Texas' redistricting plan because it disenfranchised key minority voting blocs. In effect, Section 5 stopped restrictive and discriminatory voting laws before they ever went into effect.
Asian-Americans wait expectantly for the Supreme Court to rule on Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. At stake is our ability to combat real attempts at disenfranchisement and discrimination.
Tameez is president of the South Asian Chamber of Commerce, Houston, and a senior fellow at the Institute for Sustainable Peace, Houston. Moua is president and executive director of the Asian-American Justice Center, Washington, D.C.