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ASIAMS.NET |
ASIAN AMERICAN ISSUES
Is the D.C.-Baltimore Area the Center of Asian American Conservatism?
he greater D.C. metro area (including Baltimore and Northeastern Virginia) is not only the seat of the national government but the center of the U.S. defense establishment. The contractors and the large intelligence agencies -- most of which are headquartered there -- are easily the biggest employers of the region's affluent science and engineering professionals. An estimated 22% of these technologists are drawn from the 400,000 AA who make up 8% of the region's 5 million residents. This heavy concentration in the defense sector makes the area's Asian Americans not only the nation's most affluent, but also the most politically and socially conservative.
Home of AA Conservatism?
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The Asian influx into the D.C. area is largely a post-Vietnam
War phenomenon. The capitol's small but comely Chinatown on H Street between 6th and 8th boasts about 20 restaurants and a number of shops but they cater mostly to tourists and the lunch-hour crowd. Currently only about 1,000 Chinese live in Washington D.C. -- and that number has been shrinking steadily. Most live in the suburbs of northern Virginia (46,000) and southern Maryland (52,000). The D.C. area hosts only the 10th largest Chinese American population but a high percentage are degreed science and tech professionals with security clearances.
Similar credentials are found among the 110,000 Corean Americans who make up the area's largest Asian nationality. They enjoy access to 53 Corean restaurants, mostly in Annandale, Arlington, and in Aspen Hill in Maryland's Montgomery County. The vast majority of Coreans here are staunchly Republican -- not surprising since their fortunes turn on the dollars allocated to defense spending.
Vietnamese are another Republic-leaning Asian nationality with a heavy D.C.-area presence. Virginia is home to the nation's third largest Vietnamese population (40,000), mostly in the state's northeastern part. Less than half that number make their home in Maryland and D.C. combined. They do manage to support a nascent Little Saigon in Wheaton.
Indians, who received over half the H-1B visas issued to foreign tech workers beginning in 1992, have been drawn by the area's defense sector. In 2001 the 52,000 Indians living in Virginia surpassed Filipinos as that state's most numberous Asian nationality thanks to a 143% increase since 1990. An equally large number of Indians have immigrated to take advantage of Maryland's abundance of science and tech jobs.
Another good indicator of the D.C. area's political conservatism is the relative scarcity of Japanese Americans who have traditionally skewed strongly in favor of democrats. Neither Maryland nor Virginia ranks among states with the top 10 JA populations.
Is the D.C.-Baltimore area really the home of AA conservatism? Or have the more recent waves of young AA newcomers begun embracing the more liberal values of the Clinton era?
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WHAT YOU SAY
[This page is closed to new input. --Ed.]
(Updated
Tuesday, Apr 1, 2008, 06:06:34 PM)
How is NOVA anti-asian?
There's a thriving community of Asians in NOVA, from the very rich and affluent in McLean/Great Falls to the Koreatown in Annandale to the Vietnamese Eden Center shopping complex. If NOVA's such a hate machine, why would so many Asians choose to make it home? Why do so many Asians.. young, old, American born, immigrant... choose to make it home?
BTW, Blinders On, do you know what border constitutes the Mason-Dixon line? MD/Penn... MD was a Confederate state. That was 140 years ago, so the only real point to that is that you may not be as educated as you think.
DC2NYC
Thursday, June 13, 2002 at 09:54:25 (PDT)
Blinders On:
If you are living in Montgomerry or PG, do your part and help defeat Connie Morella. Otherwise we would continue to have Virginia rednecks such as Reps. Virgil Goode and Jo Ann Davis in decision making roles and the super-trash Rep. Tom DeLay would be lording over the rest of us.
Novasian
Wednesday, June 12, 2002 at 12:54:03 (PDT)
To Blinders On
"NOVA has always been anti-Asian. Take a look around and you will feel the
hostilities eminating from the ground. I think that's how bad it has been. Sorry to ruin the Asian pride in the region. Power to those who are from Maryland, the state that chose to fight on the side of the Union and not the Confederacy during the Civil War, unlike Northern Virginia, Southern Virginia, and everywhere Virginia south of the Mason-Dixon Line."
I don't really feel much Asian pride in this area. I just think that it isn't some apartheid/Jim Crow land for Asians.
As for the Civil War . . .
(1) In Baltimore, Maryland, check out the Union Army fort at Federal Hill. Please note the direction the cannons are pointing. Kind of unusual for a harbor fortress to point its cannons at the city it was meant to defend against Confederate invasion wouldn't you think?
Baltimore and Maryland as a whole was a hotbed of Southern sympathy. The first Union troops marching through Baltimore on their way to battlefront were actually attacked by a pro-Southern mob in the city. Maryland stayed part of the Union during the Civil War because the Union Army occupied the whole state on day one. Not b/c Maryland (where slavery was just as legal as in VA) was any more egalitarian or less hostile to black people than VA.
(2) As for all of Virginia south of the Mason-Dixon line being pro-Confederate.
The state we presently call "West Virginia" (most or all of which is below the Mason Dixon line) used to be part of Virginia. During the Civil War, West Virginia broke off and became its own state and joined the Union.
Man of Lha-sa(mancha)
Wednesday, June 12, 2002 at 11:18:00 (PDT)
Cosmo,
"I am convinced, by reading your prior messages, although somewhat valid, that
you are an Asian Uncle Tom (Read Uncle Tom's Cabin--it's a good book), or it
could be that you are White, from another region . . . "
I assure you I am not some white person messing around with the posters here.
If you think that I'm an Uncle Tom because I'm asking people to dsecribe why they think NOVA has an anti-Asian hate system and tell me some actual incidents rather than some vague conspiracy theories (which can't be proved or disproved), well believe what you want.
"Everything else may sound logical to a naive mind, but to a veteran of NOVA
and of its arcane expression of anti-Asian hate, not a chance. Get out of town--no pun intended. It's just a waste of time attempting to educate a
"washed" mind. No offense."
No offense taken. Since you can't actually relate even ONE incident of Anti-Asian discrimination that you have personally encountered, I'll consider my questions answered.
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To other NOVA/MD/DC residents:
Am I blinded and white-washed b/c I don't see the effects of the local "anti-Asian hate system" here?
Are you guys all being slurred once a week? Are Klansmen at your door with crosses burning? Do skinheads acost you at the grocery store? Are Asian churches being burned? Are Asian restaurants and grocery stores being vandalized? Has a boycott been called on Asian convenience stores in the city? Has a rioting mob burned down Asian businesses? Do employers ask you if you know English (or C++)?
In all sincerity, I ask my fellow posters to please let me know what are the present conditions here that are so bad that we can call it an "anti-Asian hate system?"
Man of Lha-sa(mancha)
Wednesday, June 12, 2002 at 11:00:27 (PDT)
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