In order for Vince Fong to represent his hometown of Bakersfield in California’s 20th District—which encompasses the state’s fervently conservative farm belt—he had to become the first Asian American congressman. Roy Sekine organized fundraisers and volunteered over the course of the previous year.
Japanese American Sekine, a retired supervisor of technology services, said he thinks Fong represents the shifting politics and values of an Asian voter disenchanted with the state’s ruling party and increasingly alarmed by rising crime and living expenses.
The majority of Asian lawmakers are Democrats. The 64-year-old Sekine claimed, “They constantly discuss Trump instead of crime.” “I detest the targeting of older Asians. I desire a well-organized society.
Earlier this month, Fong, a former member of the California State Assembly, took the oath of office as the successor to outgoing House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, giving Republicans a critical six-seat majority in the House of Representatives. Fong campaigned on a firmly conservative platform that called for cutting taxes, increasing law enforcement to combat crime, and reducing fiscal spending. McCarthy and former president Donald Trump endorsed Fong.
Progressives, according to 44-year-old Fong, have “moved in a direction that’s antithetical” to values that are significant to Asian Americans.
One of the reddest congressional districts in California is the 20th Congressional District, which includes a number of inland rural centers from Fresno to Bakersfield, the hometown of Fong. McCarthy served as the region’s representative for districts from 2007 until his resignation as House Speaker in December of last year. To finish out his mentor’s term, Fong—who served as McCarthy’s district director for over ten years—won a special election in May. In the general election scheduled for November, Fong will square off against Sheriff Mike Boudreaux, whom he soundly defeated in the Republican primary runoff. It is anticipated that Fong will win a full two-year term beginning in January.
Fong didn’t see himself as a politician; he was the son of Chinese immigrants who didn’t really care about politics. He claimed that he didn’t get the “political bug” until the summer following his first year at UC Los Angeles, when he worked as an intern for former Republican Rep. Bill Thomas and met McCarthy.
Fong said of McCarthy, “He helped me understand how to create effective public policy.” “He saw qualities of a good leader in me that I did not see in myself.”
Fong made history in 2016 when she was elected as the first Asian American representative for Bakersfield in the state Legislature. This was a significant development in a state where the majority of California’s Asian population lives in urban areas like Los Angeles County and the San Francisco Bay Area, where Asian political representation has traditionally concentrated.
Asian Americans make up just 7% of the population in the 20th District. The Hmongs in northern Fresno, the Filipino farmworkers who launched the historic 1965 grape strike in Delano, and the Chinese immigrants who constructed the nation’s first transcontinental railroad in the late 19th century are just a few of the Asian American generations and communities that have made their mark in the Central Valley, according to Fong. “Being a person to share their story is an honor,” he remarked. “I never imagined myself to be a trailblazer.”
A stronghold of Asian American Republican politics and civic involvement can also be found in California’s agricultural belt. Karen Goh is the first Asian American mayor of Bakersfield. She is a Republican and of Chinese origin. The first Hmong mayor pro tem of Clovis, a city in Fresno County with the second-largest Hmong population in the nation, is Vong Mouanoutoua, a Republican.
Mouanoutoua stated, “While our problems in the Central Valley are not unique, they are amplified due to the supremacy of Los Angeles and the representation of San Francisco.”
According to him, Asian American voters in the Central Valley are typically in favor of reduced living expenses and taxes, better access to water for farms suffering from the drought, and safeguards for free expression and small enterprises. Mouanoutoua stated, “It has nothing to do with Republican or Democrat, right or left,” stressing the importance of faith and family in Asian families’ daily lives. “Values and a sense of right and wrong are important.”
The recent victories of Asian American Republicans in the Central Valley, according to Christine Chen, executive director of the nonprofit organization Asian Pacific Islander American Vote, demonstrate that Asian Americans are primarily independent voters who place a higher value on issues than party identification.
She remarked, “We’ve always said that the AAPI electorate is up for grabs.” “It’s always predicated on issues and voters’ perceptions of a candidate.”
Exit surveys from the previous two years indicate that while the majority of Asian American voters favored Democratic candidates, the percentage of voters who backed Republican candidates rose from 26% in 2018 to 32% in 2022. Since the pandemic began, there has been a 60% rise in the number of Chinese immigrants in San Francisco who are registered as Republicans. A number of first-time GOP Chinese American candidates triumphed handily in San Francisco’s down-ballot races this spring, following a similar pattern in the political sphere.
While there’s no doubt that Asian Americans have moved to the right, most of them are still Democrats, and more research is needed to fully understand the statistics on this change, according to Janelle Wong, a senior researcher at AAPI statistics.
The puzzling aspect, according to Wong, is that as awareness of Republican xenophobic language and Donald Trump increased, so did the number of hate crimes against Asians. “However, compared to 2016, Donald Trump still garnered a larger share of the Asian American vote in 2020.”
In the meanwhile, Fong stated that protecting the border between the United States and Mexico from drug and people trafficking, as well as increasing domestic production of oil, gas, and renewable energy to help the district’s farmers, ranchers, and business owners, are his top priorities as a member of Congress.
“I never would have thought I would be able to represent my hometown in Congress,” he remarked. “The real work starts now.”