Asian American voting power is breaking through in southern Brooklyn
For Asian American politicians in New York, the past two decades have held a series of historic firsts.
The first first was John Liu, who was born in Taiwan and was elected to a New York City Council seat in Queens in 2001. Also in Queens, Jimmy Meng, who has Chinese and Taiwanese roots, became the first Asian American elected to the state Legislature in 2005. His daughter, Grace Meng, became the first Asian American elected to Congress from New York in 2012.
In 2014, Nancy Tong, whose family immigrated from Hong Kong, became the first Asian American elected to office in Brooklyn when she won a Democratic district leader post in southern Brooklyn. It took another eight years to send other members of the area’s growing Chinese American community to higher offices.
Compared to Queens, southern Brooklyn is somewhere near the beginning of its journey – a “new frontier” for Asian American political power, Democratic consultant Trip Yang called it. For the first time, Asian American elected officials represent heavily Chinese neighborhoods like Bensonhurst and Sunset Park in both chambers of the state Legislature and the City Council.
https://www.cityandstateny.com/politics/2024/05/asian-american-voting-power-breaking-through-southern-brooklyn/396314/?oref=csny-homepage-top-story
