Four years ago, Kamala Harris became the first vice president of Asian American descent, when she and President Joe Biden were elected in the 2020 election. The California native’s rise in politics comes as Asian American politicians have increasingly begun to seek the opportunity to hold public office including locally in San Diego. It’s clear that Asian American politicians and voters alike are playing a growing part in the political process. 

Asians are the fastest-growing racial group in California and the United States as a whole, and thus represent a growing portion of the electorate. However, the exact implications of this demographic shift are still emerging.

“I don’t feel like Asian American voters necessarily have a lot of agreed upon unique issues,” said Casey Tanaka, who currently trails by a narrow margin in the race for mayor of Coronado.

While Asian American voting issues may not be immediately apparent, Asian American political candidates can offer insight into what their communities might want. Many say that Asian American voter issues may not differ from issues that the entire community faces — regardless of race. 

“Our mindsets are the same, the American spirit is the same: a good sense of freedom, tolerance for one another, and we all want to better ourselves financially. That’s no different than any other culture around here,” said Kevin Shin, who currently holds a substantial lead in the Carlsbad City Council election.

While Asian Americans might generally care about typical voting issues — small businesses, affordable housing, road infrastructure — Asian Americans may see these issues uniquely because of their culture. Kent Lee, a City Council member representing San Diego’s sixth district, said that politicians needed to acknowledge “nuances” that concern the Asian American community. 

In one example, Lee said that affordable housing for Asian American communities should look unique due to the widespread cultural practice of a multigenerational household, where grandparents, parents and children all live together in the same house.

Even as there is a wide variety of policy issues that Asian Americans care about, one issue was consistently discussed among candidates, voters and other political figures: representation. 

Many interviewees believe Asian Americans are underrepresented in San Diego government positions. According to Lee, he is the fourth elected official of Asian descent in the city of San Diego’s history, and the gap between the first and second (Tom Hom and Todd Gloria) spanned nearly 50 years. Further, some ethnicities that fall under the broader umbrella of Asian American and Pacific Islander may not be represented as well as others. 

“It’s getting better that we have more representation, but I don’t know of a single elected Pacific Islander in San Diego County,” said Indroneal Bannerjee, president of the Asian American and Pacific Islander Democratic Club of San Diego. Bannerjee also called for increased efforts to obtain disaggregated data, a term used to describe data that differentiates between specific ethnicities within the Asian American and Pacific Islander community. 

In contrast to the other Asian American politicians, Tanaka said that while the Asian American population is growing in San Diego, Asians are still a minority of the population, meaning that high representation in government bodies is unlikely. 

“Democracy is a numbers game, and I would be more concerned if Asians were 30% or 50% of the population. It’s just that our numbers aren’t that big. If your numbers aren’t that big, it’s not unusual to not have your group represented in greater proportion than your demographic in the county,” Tanaka said. 

Still, representation is important to many Asian Americans because it is a chance to showcase themselves as leaders. 

“If a candidate can’t do something legislatively, they can do something socially, and if they can’t do something socially, they can do something culturally,” Bannerjee said. “It’s fair to say there are certain things you can’t fix. What I think you can do is lead. You help people see our communities and normalize that.” 

Shin believes that if he and other Asian American politicians are elected and govern well, they can inspire the next generation of Asian Americans to be leaders in their communities as well.

“As an Asian American, we need to demonstrate what effective leadership is, and that requires us to use our own ethics, character and integrity, and make decisions that will make the community proud.” 

Lee is a junior at The Cambridge School and lives in 4S Ranch.