As we celebrate Asian and Pacific Islander American Heritage Month, Good Authority American politics editor Nadia E. Brown spoke with Asian American politics scholar Janelle Wong to rediscover lessons uncovered by her research. This conversation offers an opportunity to reflect not only on the evolution of Asian American politics, but also how Wong’s scholarship helps us understand the contemporary political moment. Wong’s rigorous research and extensive body of work have emerged as foundational pillars for the scholarly study of U.S. immigration and the complexities of Asian American life.
Nadia Brown: Janelle, much of your scholarship challenges simplistic narratives about Asian American political identity. What do you think the broader public still misunderstands most about Asian American political behavior and political diversity?
Janelle Wong: The idea that Asian Americans are more invested in education as an issue than other groups is a mistaken belief based on the model minority stereotype. This stereotype wrongly assumes that Asian people have a special cultural value for education. It’s a dangerous idea because Americans across all racial groups value education, of course.
In politics, this stereotype leads campaigns to assume that emphasizing education issues is the way to win Asian American votes. But survey data show that Asian Americans are no more likely to list “education” as an important political issue than Americans more generally. It’s not that Asian Americans don’t care about education, but their views on whether this issue should be a political priority for the government are not what distinguishes them from others.
You are right that Asian Americans are very diverse in terms of national origin, language, and histories. But despite that diversity, we see remarkable convergence among Asian Americans on some big issues. Compared to other Americans, Asian Americans are much more likely to support stronger gun control laws and environmental regulations, and government-sponsored health insurance. Some people might be surprised to learn that Asian Americans are more likely to be “environmental voters” or “gun control voters” than “education voters.”
You have been studying Asian American communities for the past two decades. What are the most important developments or surprises connected to Asian American politics over this time?
I began studying Asian Americans and politics in the late 1990s. At that time, the group was characterized by very low levels of political participation, including at the polls. Since then, we have witnessed tremendous growth among Asian American populations. Even though there is still a lag in turnout between Asian Americans and Black and White eligible voters, Asian Americans are registering faster than other racial groups. Over the 1990s and first two decades of the 2000s, Asian Americans were the racial group that moved most dramatically toward the Democrats when it came to presidential vote choice. By 2012, exit polls showed Asian Americans voted for Barack Obama at a slightly higher rate than Latinos.
But the most critical development is not their voting patterns. It’s the important role of Asian Americans in racial politics. While this is a relatively small group at just 7% of the population and 4% of the electorate today – and a group that leans Democrat – Asian Americans are now playing an outsized role in U.S. racial politics in ways I did not anticipate in the early 2000s.
Let me explain. A little over 10 years ago, I started to see some Asian Americans, particularly Chinese American immigrants, protesting affirmative action policies in college admissions. I was concerned about Asian Americans opposing an element of the civil rights agenda, but never expected the widespread damage that would result from this conservative Asian American activism.
By 2023, Asian Americans had become the non-white face of the anti-affirmative action movement. Asian Americans were featured as the “victims” of race-conscious admissions policies in a lawsuit white legal activist Edward Blum brought against Harvard University. That case, SFFA v. Harvard/UNC, has been cited by the Trump administration’s Department of Education and Department of Justice – and by conservative state legislatures – as the foundation for their attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, successful efforts to defund racial affinity groups like Asian American cultural centers and other student organizations, and executive orders aimed at dismantling minority contracting programs. The anti-Black aspects of the model minority stereotype, especially the false idea that Asian Americans care more about education and work harder than other groups, have been internalized by many Asian Americans.
The big concern – and something to pay close attention to – is how right-wing politicians consistently deploy these messages as a powerful weapon against racial equality and justice in America.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of Democracy’s Promise: Immigrants and American Civic Institutions (University of Michigan Press, 2006). Your first book was transformative – I still really enjoy teaching it! Looking back, what arguments from that book feel especially prescient today, and where do you think the political landscape has changed most dramatically since its publication?
That book was about immigrant political organizing, and structural challenges to that organizing in the context of the early 2000s. My analysis centered on how political parties, with their focus on high-propensity voters, were failing to contact and mobilize Asian Americans and Latinos. I also provided evidence that advocacy organizations, labor unions, social service organizations, and religious institutions that worked with immigrant populations lacked the funding and capacity to consistently mobilize Asian and Latino communities to get these Americans more involved in politics and, ultimately, to improve the government’s recognition of their growing presence in the United States
So, it’s a poignant question. Today, the political landscape is one in which our own government is engaged in a form of immigration enforcement that is spreading deep fears across immigrant communities due to unfair targeting and a focus on mass deportation. This is very real for the estimated one-out-of-eight Asian immigrants that is undocumented today. So, many civic organizations today may be less concerned about getting out the vote among immigrant communities and more concerned with protecting these communities from government overreach and some actions that violate the U.S. Constitution.
At the same time, we are seeing everyday Americans stand up for their immigrant neighbors and this care offers hope. In past eras characterized by anti-immigrant sentiment, this was not always the case. When Black abolitionist and public intellectual Frederick Douglass spoke out against Chinese exclusion laws in the late 1800s, for instance, there were no mass mobilizations against harsh immigration laws, like we see today.
In Immigrants, Evangelicals, and Politics in an Era of Demographic Change (Russell Sage Foundation, 2018), you explored the relationship between race, religion, and conservatism. How should we understand the political diversity within Asian American religious communities, especially given dominant media narratives that often flatten these differences?
Current media narratives often focus on “the evangelical vote” because of the very tight connection between evangelical identity and support for the Republican Party. However, my book revealed that although Asian American evangelicals tend to exhibit more religiosity in terms of church attendance and fundamentalist ideas about Christianity than white evangelicals, they are much less politically conservative than white evangelicals. This group was less likely than white evangelicals to vote for Trump in 2016 and was more progressive on issues like gun control and climate change. The exception was abortion. I am conducting analysis of 2024 data for a chapter in a book on Asian Americans and religions and see similar patterns.
The bottom line is that when we think about religion in politics, we also have to think about race, because, as my colleagues Grace Yukich and Penny Edgell write, “religion is raced” and that is true in the political realm, too.
A final question: During Asian and Pacific Islander American Heritage Month, what histories, intellectual traditions, or contemporary movements do you believe deserve greater public attention right now?
In terms of intellectual traditions, I have long been inspired by our colleague Claire Jean Kim – author of “Racial Triangulation Theory” – who continues to offer new and critical perspectives on the complex racial position of Asian Americans, especially in relation to other racial groups. For an example of the tenacious power of both white supremacy and anti-Blackness, check out her book Asian Americans in an Anti-Black World (Cambridge University Press, 2023).
In 2026, of course, the protection of voting rights has become a critical topic. Voting rights are under attack, as evidenced by state responses to the 2026 decision in Callais v. Louisiana. This month is a good opportunity to highlight Asian American suffragist Mabel Ping-Hua Lee and other Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders who have sought to expand voting rights for marginalized groups.
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