Asian Americans voters face discrimination

As this year’s election heats up, it’s disturbing to read this Reuters article on “Asian Americans voters face discrimination“:

“ATLANTA (Reuters) – 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… 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… “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.“

Obviously, this is disturbing to read during this election year. As the illegal anti-immigrant sentiment and rhetoric heats up, I can definitely see how the overall negative sentiment is growing against legal immigrants.