Why don't Asians vote Republican?

[phk]

Same reason Jews don't vote GOP: A more communal ethos and a distaste for Christian nationalism.

Interestingly the two most anti-Semitic groups in America, Muslims and Blacks are pretty strong Democratic.

[phk]

Same reason Jews don't vote GOP: A more communal ethos and a distaste for Christian nationalism.

Interestingly the two most anti-Semitic groups in America, Muslims and Blacks are pretty strong Democratic.

Black antisemitism is largely anti-white bigotry. Jews and Muslims seem to vote much the same in America.

From my admittedly limited experience, they also seem to get along pretty well on a personal level, though that's largely due to the fact that both American Jews and American Muslims are disproportionately members of the professional class, and that both groups value education highly and attend the same elite colleges.

People are different in a professional environment than they are in their own communities.

Compare Muslim voting from 1996 to 2000 to 2004 and the religious affiliation of the D's VP nominee in 2000.

[phk]

How many Hispanic/Latino Republicans are serving in Congress? Four, I think, and they're Cuban Americans and some have said that they don't really qualify as real Latinos. (Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the Diaz-Balart brothers, and Mel Martinez).

Who?

They maintain the Spanish language at higher rates than Mexicans and have a lower rate of defection to Protestantism/Mormonism.

In terms of Mexicans, as a Mexican-American becomes middle class and beyond they don't hang around other Mexicans as a rule. Sort of th opposite of Cubans who have stronger ties to the Cuban community as they move up the ladder.

[phk]

For most Indian groups there is likely a correaltion between time in America and GOP friendliness.

[phk]

For most Indian groups there is likely a correaltion between time in America and GOP friendliness.

Perhaps. Shouldn't downplay how bad candidates like Bush (representing fundamentalist Christianity) play with Indians though. But maybe not in Fresno, I dunno.

Thing is that the Central Valley's Indian community largely consists of Sikhs in agriculture that now have a century's standing in the Americas. Which is unique amongst Indian groups whose big wave started in the 1990s.

I'm not sure it has much to do with Christianity per se. For example, Bush was the fundamentalist Christian candidate in 2000 and he likely carried the Muslim South Asian vote easily (Gore running behind Bush and Nader is realistic for obvious reasons).Of course Gore could have ran more on Kosovo/Bosnia more and didn't [reasons why Gore basically fought Bush to a draw could write a book].

Bush likely did decently with the rest of the groups too (45% could be realistic). But that was a different time so... The rare moment when Muslim South Asians being more GOP than the rest.

Of course to achieve the 2004 result (massive Muslim swing and a lesser Hindu/Sikh swing) means that 9/11 fundamentally changed fundamentalist Christianity in a way that made it less amenable to other religious groups excluding Orthodox Jewry (who really had the mirror flip of Muslims). This is really a good topic of study on its own.

[phk]

For most Indian groups there is likely a correaltion between time in America and GOP friendliness.

Perhaps. Shouldn't downplay how bad candidates like Bush (representing fundamentalist Christianity) play with Indians though. But maybe not in Fresno, I dunno.

Thing is that the Central Valley's Indian community largely consists of Sikhs in agriculture that now have a century's standing in the Americas. Which is unique amongst Indian groups whose big wave started in the 1990s.

I'm not sure it has much to do with Christianity per se. For example, Bush was the fundamentalist Christian candidate in 2000 and he likely carried the Muslim South Asian vote easily (Gore running behind Bush and Nader is realistic for obvious reasons).Of course Gore could have ran more on Kosovo/Bosnia more and didn't [reasons why Gore basically fought Bush to a draw could write a book].

Bush likely did decently with the rest of the groups too (45% could be realistic). But that was a different time so... The rare moment when Muslim South Asians being more GOP than the rest.

Of course to achieve the 2004 result (massive Muslim swing and a lesser Hindu/Sikh swing) means that 9/11 fundamentally changed fundamentalist Christianity in a way that made it less amenable to other religious groups excluding Orthodox Jewry (who really had the mirror flip of Muslims). This is really a good topic of study on its own.

I am quite interested in how the Punjabis in the central valley vote. Hard to figure out though. They seem and act like a Republican group of course.

Interestingly enough, I wouldn't be surprised if Indians who actually are surrounded by fundamentalist Christians, whether it be in the Central Valley or Texas, are going to react against it less. Sitting here in the Bay Area or the NYC area, that culture is going to seem foreign and one that can seem as attacking non-Christians (and verbally many do).

It could probably be your line of work too.

A lot of the non-agricultural Indians in the Central Valley are doctors for example and are exposed to patients of varying backgrounds.

___________________________________________________________________________
Btw, this could be a leap of faith here on my part but I recently put some thought into it. Let me know what you think.

A few factors are at play here:

1) Southerners excluding Goan Catholics (who'd be overshadowed by Telegus and Tamils anyway) would be a more natural D constituency.
2) Gujaratis and Punjabis are naturally not really left-leaning to begin with even in Indian politics and could see more GOP friendliness through that. They had a good showing as a % of the South Asian community before the Southern wave.

Leading up to...

3) The tech bubble in the late 1990s and into 2000 increasing the proportion of Southerners in the US Indian community.

More down the line, I take back my idea of more time in the US leading less D loyalty but more that Indians as apart of assimilation probably mimic the area around them.

Of course this assumes that more recent Indians are heading to D-dominated areas to begin with than earlier rounds of Indians. I'm not sure if this is true or not.

This reminds me of a phenomenon in Seattle, where we can have odd situations where people vote against a bill to raise taxes on the wealthy as well as having a D+10 victory at the same time.

So it could be the case that where even if Indians are conservative on certain issues they can simply take it out on various ballot measures and than comfortably vote D at the top.

[phk]

I'm not sure if you've noticed this but there's more well-known Indian Republicans than Indian Democrats, even though the community is mostly D (at least now).

Republicans
Dinesh D'Souza - Writer
Ramesh Ponnuru - NRO
Reihan Salam - NRO*
Razib Khan - Discover*
Raj Bhakta - Contestant on The Apprentice, Ran for Congress, I think Phil and Flyers seat.
Bobby Jindal - Governor of Louisiana
Nikki Haley - Governor of South Carolina

Democrats
Sonal Shah - Some Obama Appointee
Aneesh Chopra - Some Obama Appointee
Huma Abedin - Hillary's Assistant
Eboo Patel - Some Obama Appointee**

Have no Idea
Fareed Zakaria (He comes off as a Liberal Hawk so...)

*Bangladeshi
**I'm assuming he's a Democrat, not sure.

[phk]

In fact, if you Look at Indian-Americans, they should be strongly Republican.  They're primarily middle-class or small buisness owners, they're deeply religious, and are fairly well integrated into American society.  But they don't . . . because they're Liberal.

I've never met a Hindu who could be described as "deeply religious". At most they're mildly religious, and that's in the first generation only.

Only deeply religous Hindu I have met was a Rajasthani  Brahmin, I'm sure there's more but not many.

[phk]

Why would southern Indians be more D friendly? If they are then it's mostly because of the sorts of professions they are in. That is another factor to keep in mind. A guy who runs his own motel or owns his own farm might have a different view of government interfering with business than some guy who might make a comfortable salary but is just a faceless guy working for some big company.

They are more employed in technology which is at least for now a more D friendly occupation. Technology has taken off in more liberal areas to begin with. The only real aberration is biotechnology in Southern Cali. At least in comparison to energy, agriculture, lodging, medicine, etc.

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I could see anti-Islamic rhetoric working with Hindus if there were widespread tensions between Muslims and Hindus/Sikhs. This is true of the UK but not so much in the US. Any tensions are usually just isolated incidents.

65% of US Muslims aren't South Asian to begin with and thus have no substantive opinion of Hindus.This means that Muslims don't have to equal Pakistani.

[phk]

A good amount of Asians are super-Christian, especially Koreans.

[phk]

A good amount of Asians are super-Christian, especially Koreans.

But those super-religious Asians tend to be poorer and less educated than the nation on average, making them more inclined to vote Democratic or, more likely, not to vote at all. 

The more educated, richer Asians tend to be pretty nonreligious and vote Democrat as a result.

Are there many non-Hmongs or non-Laotians in the uneducated cohort?

[phk]

I'm from Mississippi.  To me and my people, an Asian is an Asian.

...

Would you expect anything less from a white conservative Republican in Mississippi?

I just giving you a perspective through the eyes of Middle America...its time to take off the rose-colored glasses called the "East Coast"...

And, do we really have to break down the Asian demographic based on their nation of origin?  When discussing the black vote no one comparing is the voting behavior of Malians and the Gabonese.  Talk about a racial double-standard...

Because most African Americans have been living in the Americas for about 300-400 years. Most Asian immigrants come here very recently, with the oldest communities coming here in the mid 1800s.

Not to mention how you wonderful southerners destroyed African American families thus losing their roots, including the knowledge of where exactly they came from.

The early slave trade heavily involved people from Massachusetts and Rhode Island, hardly Southerners. They also started the triangular trade system.