Why Asians Don't Always Vote For Barry Wong

Are you asking yourself: who the heck is Barry Wong? My friend asked himself the same thing the other day while we were driving, and I — for no apparent reason — gripped the steering wheel with both hands and screamed the name "Barry WO-O-O-NG" at the top of my lungs. My friend nearly jumped out of the car in surprise.

Across the country, elections are just around the corner, and that means one thing: it's campaign sign season. Here in Tucson, these signs touting the names of candidates like Barry Wong grace almost every street corner, sprouting like multi-colored weeds from the fertile sand of abandoned lots, construction sites and traffic medians.

In a state where Asian-Americans represent less than 3% of the population, it often feels like I'm the only Asian American in a two-mile radius. For that reason, I feel an electric thrill whenever I see a Barry Wong sign. Barry Wong was, and is, the only Asian-American in Arizona state politics, and he is running for re-election this year for Arizona Corporation Commission. (Don't know what the the Committee does? Don't worry — neither do most Arizona voters.) Nowadays, it's a ritual for me to scream out my "support" for Barry Wong every time I pass one of his campaign signs — in part because they are hilariously over-sized, and in part because I feel a sense of pride and kinship seeing a fellow Asian-American run for office out here in crazy, crazy Arizona.

In truth, I find myself strangely drawn towards Asian-American political candidates, as if we share membership in an exclusive club. I imagine that a man like Barry Wong — whom I have never met — "gets me" better than his White political opponents. Perhaps he has faced the same racism that I have faced in Arizona? Perhaps he has lamented, like I have, the lack of good dim sum in this town? And, perhaps, that will make him a better representative of me and my point of view?

The belief that candidates who share our race or ethnicity are better representatives of our interests is heavily ingrained within minority communities. In fact, I work with several organizations whose specific aims are to help elect Asian-American candidates to higher office, where our community are woefully underrepresented. But is doing so really necessary? 

Non-minority pundits often pejoratively label these efforts as nothing more than a manifestation of racial cronyism. And certainly, my kneejerk "support" of Barry Wong would seem to support that notion. After all, I don't know anything about Barry Wong other than his name and the elected seat he holds. Before voting for him, I'd certainly want to take a good hard look at Barry Wong and his platform.

But it's a myth that voters of color vote for candidates of color just because they are candidates of color.

In Alabama, State Representative Artur Davis ran to be the state's first black governor, against fellow Democrat Ron Sparks (who is white). For a state in which blacks typically make up more than half of the voting population on the Democratic side, one might predict that Davis would be a shoo-in to win Alabama's gubernatorial primary. And it seemed as if Davis bought into that idea, eschewing endorsements from prominent African-American organizations, believing — erroneously — that his skin color would be enough to sway the average black voter.

It turns out that, contrary to the theory of racial cronyism (which suggest that voters of color, in particular, look no further than the skin color of candidates when casting their ballots), people of color actually think about their votes. Davis found out the hard way that he couldn't take the votes of black Alabamans for granted — he was soundly trounced in the gubernatorial primary by Sparks. African-American voters don't automatically vote for a black face. Even in 2008, when a biracial African-American man was on the verge of making history as being the first United States president of color, black Americans waited to see the relationship that Barack Obama would establish with the black community before throwing their support his way.

In truth, voters of color hold minority candidates to the same standards as their white counterparts. Being minority isn't enough — we want to know that a candidate is interested in championing our issues and bettering our communities. Yes, sometimes we'll vote for someone who shares our race, because such candidates tend to be more receptive to minority issues (though not necessarily just because of their skin color). In other words, like any other voters, we vote for the candidate who will best represent our interests.

So, again, I return to Barry Wong. The fact that, like me, Wong is a Chinese-American living in Arizona warrants a second look. But a second look is all Wong would ever get from me. If I could vote in Arizona (which I can't — I'm Canadian), I still wouldn't vote for Barry Wong. He's a "small government" Republican in a state where Republicans have run our state budget into the ground. He's a guy who advocates cutting utilities to illegal immigrants to make their lives in America even more difficult than SB 1070 could. He's a guy who couldn't be further from me in the political spectrum.

But that's not going to stop me from appreciating the fact that he's running — and winning — year after year, in a state where most politicians look, act and sound like John McCain.

Photo Credit: Jenn Fang