Meet AAPI Women Working to Diversify the Ballot

Although regarded as the fastest-growing demographic group in the United States, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) are grossly under-represented in the nation’s elected offices. Accounting for less than 1% of all elected leaders, this disparity is greatly visible in the criminal justice sector, according to a report.  

A report from the Reflective Democracy Campaign recently revealed that AAPI members made up just 0.9 percent of elected leaders across all levels of government, but 6.1 percent of the population as of mid-2020. In the current Congress, AAPI representation includes Democratic senators Mazie Hirono of Hawaii and Tammy Duckworth of Illinois and 15 representatives, nearly evenly split between men and women.  

Even within the community, Asian American women hold elected office at lower rates than Asian American men. The reasons for such drastic under-representation are often attributed to existing power structures that favor men and male candidates of color. It has also been argued that there is a severe shortage of symbolic representation—where AAPI women rarely see themselves reflected in political leadership.  

AAPI female candidates say that they encounter rampant sexism and racism when running for office. Michelle Au, a Chinese American democrat, was elected to the Republican-controlled Georgia State Senate in 2020 and, to date, remains the only Asian American woman in the State’s senate. Au is one of only 77 state legislators who identify as female AAPI in the entire country, accounting for one percent of the nation’s total 7,383 state legislators. “There lies a huge responsibility in the way I serve in this role, and can sometimes feel like a burden because you feel that a lot of people are looking up to you and counting on you from your community,” Au said.  

Sonia Chang-Diaz, a Massachusetts State senator, who is Latina and Asian American, also voiced her concern over how marginalized people often encounter negative feedback when they step up to run for office. When Chang-Diaz set foot in the Statehouse as the only Asian American over a decade ago, she felt the lack of support and the imminent need for it. In her initial days, she looked for “fellowship and sisterhood” around her as she felt like a lone tiger in the race. The Statehouse now has seven AAPI legislators.  

Bee Nguyen became the first Asian American woman in the Georgia State Legislature in 2017. As she was preparing for the election, she realized that many voters would be seeing an AAPI candidate for the very first time. “It was imperative for me to build relationships with voters in my district, and to have those open conversations, so they could see me, and be one with me, and I could lend them a listening ear,” Nguyen said. 

Now, as she prepares herself to run for office as Georgia Secretary of State this month, Nguyen says she is ready to take on the scrutiny that women of color indiscriminately face compared to their white counterparts. She says that they are still considered ‘foreigners’ and don’t trust them withholding government offices.