Asian Americans and the Politics of the Twenty-First Century

We begin our review with research related to the racial formation and racial position of Asian Americans. How we define this fast-growing group and how it is situated in the broader racial landscape are critical to understanding its politics. We then turn to research on the history of Asian American civic engagement. These two research areas provide important context for the rest of the review, which covers three additional themes: ( a ) political participation; ( b ) partisanship, vote choice, and issue orientations; and ( c ) political representation. The last section returns to the theme of racial position, including its role in contemporary Asian American activism and its centrality to future research in the field.