Asian-Americans scored critical victories in US legislative elections as they rode on the wave of a Democratic comeback and displayed political clout beyond traditional strongholds in California and Hawaii.
As victorious Democrats regained control of the House of Representatives and Senate in Tuesday's polls, the Asian-American community added another crucial seat in the House and expanded their influence in state legislatures.
Democrat Mazie Hirono, a Japanese-American former lieutenant governor, beat a state senator in Hawaii to become the seventh representative from the Asian-American community in the House of Representatives.
She will be the first Japan-born American to serve in the House.
Several other Asian-American lawmakers scored big victories to retain their seats, including sole senator from the community, Daniel Akaka, a Japanese-American, in Hawaii.
Others included House law-makers Chinese-American David Wu in Oregon as well as Japanese-Americans Michael Honda and Doris Matsui in California.
Bobby Jindal, who became the first Indian-American in 2004 to enter the House of Representatives, also retained his Republican seat with ease in Louisiana.
"This election underscores a new reality in American politics," said Toby Chaudhuri, spokesman for Campaign for America's Future, a think tank.
"Asian Americans can run for office and win -- not just in traditional Asian-American population centers like Hawaii and California, but in states like Ohio, Iowa, Texas and Kansas," he said.
Numbering 14 million, Asian-Americans make up only about 4 percent of the 300 million US population but their votes were seen critical in about 100 of the 435 congressional districts, said William Marumoto, president of the Asian-Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies.
The US Census Bureau says the community's population could jump to 40 million or more in the next 50 years.
"The numbers don't lie -- our community is growing and becoming naturalized at higher rates than years past," said Christine Chen, executive director of APIAVote, a non-partisan group championing greater participation by the community in the electoral processes.
"However, unless we mobilize our community to participate in the political process, these numbers will not transfer into political empowerment," she said.
In Connecticut, political novice William Tong wrested a traditionally Republican seat in the state legislature while in Maryland, Pakistani-American Saqib Ali gained his maiden victory to the legislature.
Indian-American Kumar Barve, the majority leader in the Maryland legislature, regained his seat to become the community's longest-serving lawmaker.
Asian-Americans also stamped their mark in Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio and Texas, where lawmakers coasted to re-election.
But in one of the most closely watched congressional races, Tammy Duckworth, a Thai-American US Army helicopter pilot who lost both her legs in Iraq, failed to wrest a traditionally Republican seat in the suburbs of Chicago.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
RSS