***'Asian Americans, even though they are citizens, are still perceived as
foreigners. As part of an anti-immigrant sentiment that seems to be on the rise
there is hostility and some sense that these people are newcomers and don't
belong,' she said.
***Mau migrate ke AS, pikir matang dulu.....
Asian Americans voters face discrimination
Fri, Jan 11, 2008
Reuters
ATLANTA - ASIAN American voters fear the discrimination some faced at
polling stations in 2006 could resurface as they cast ballots in November's
presidential election, a civil rights group said on Thursday.
Laws that enable Asian Americans from countries including China, Korea, Vietnam
and the Philippines to get language and other kinds of assistance with voting
were often flouted at the 2006 mid-term congressional elections, according to
the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund.
The group cited examples of Asian Americans being asked to provide more
identification than other citizens, in contravention of federal law. Those not
on voter rolls but still eligible to vote were often not given provisional
ballots to complete, it said in a report.
Under the landmark Voting Rights Act and a subsequent act, election officials
in districts with more than 10,000 registered Asian Americans, or ones where
their voting population exceeds 5 per cent of a district's total, are mandated
to provide certain help.
The provisions also apply in areas where there are low levels of literacy and
people speak an Asian language, and mandate help such as translators and
translated ballots and registration forms.
'Our major concern is that there is going to be a large number of newly
registered Asian voters (in 2008) and many of the problems we have observed in
2006 will not have been fixed,' said Ms Margaret Fung, executive director of
the fund.
She said that on polling day in 2006 there were many examples of 'racist and
intimidatory' remarks to Asian Americans such as: ''How come you don't speak
English?', 'Why don't you go back to your home country?' and 'You're turning
this country into a dump.''
The group said it registered 200 complaints during monitoring of 172 polling
sites and a multilingual survey of over 4,700 Asian American voters in nine
states.
The Asian American community is predominantly immigrant and some 670,000 are
covered under the provisions of the Voting Rights Act. The majority live in Los
Angeles or elsewhere in California. The next largest group lives in New York,
followed by Hawaii, Houston and Chicago, Ms Fung said.
Mandarin or other Chinese dialects are the largest language group, Ms Fung said.
Exit polls taken in nine states in 2006 showed that four out of five Asian
Americans voted for the Democratic Party but Ms Fung said she did not know if
the problems some encountered were an attempt to disenfranchise them for
political reasons.
'Asian Americans, even though they are citizens, are still perceived as
foreigners. As part of an anti-immigrant sentiment that seems to be on the rise
there is hostility and some sense that these people are newcomers and don't
belong,' she said.
The economy and jobs were the most important issues for Asian Americans,
followed by health care, the war in Iraq and education, she said, citing a
survey. Many Asian Americans were also concerned about long waits to process
paperwork needed to bring family members to the United States, she said. --
REUTERS
http://news.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne%2BNews/World/Story/A1Story20080111-44608.html
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