I first moved to the Washington, DC metropolitan area when my twin brother had just been shipped off to Guam where he was to be stationed as part of the U.S. Navy.  We noted the irony that with the two of us living in the nation’s capital and the far-off Pacific Island U.S. territory of Guam, neither of us had a voting representative in Congress.  Delegates Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) and Robert A. Underwood (D-GU) both served their districts and this nation admirably over the years, but they were, quite literally, second class citizens compared to their colleagues in the House of Representatives.  They were able to participate in committees, where some of the important work of legislation happens, but when it came to an actual vote on the laws of the land, they were denied.

Recently, the Senate moved the District of Columbia one step closer to removal of this barrier.  On a vote of 61-37, they approved a measure to provide the District of Columbia with a voting representative in the House of Representatives.  In a compromise for both Democrats and Republicans, in exchange for providing the Democratic-leaning District with an additional vote, the legislation will give an additional vote to the very Republican state of Utah.  The bill as passed in the Senate also included a provision to strip most of the gun-control laws in a city where a major U.S. Supreme Court decision has already had a heavy impact on local autonomy over its own measures to curb gun violence.  The bill now goes to the House of Representatives, where partisanship over gun-control threatens to stall a vote on the issue perhaps indefinitely.  The National Rifle Association has entered the fray on this, and it’s shaping up to be an interesting political battle.

For Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs), the issues of local autonomy and political disenfranchisement are unfortunately nothing new.  Asian Americans who have faced legal barriers to full participation in American public life through alien land laws and the Chinese Exclusion Act are intimately familiar with bans that should be relegated to the dustbin of history.  We know that as they’ve done in the past, laws continue to take local decisions out of local hands.  At the same time, Native Hawaiians and residents of Guam and other Pacific Islands also know firsthand the real impact of lack of political representation and a lesser voice in the very government that makes critical decisions on their behalf. 

For those living currently in the District, despite reputations of Washington, DC as a “transient” town, there are significant populations of our communities who do not have the luxury of mobility.  From enclaves of Chinese American seniors to neighborhoods of Vietnamese American refugees, for better or worse, the District is their home and the irony is that they have no voice in Congress to decide the very issue of giving them that voice.

The good news is that much has changed for AAPI communities in the 10 years (give or take) that I have lived in the area.  When I first became a District resident in the mid-90’s, the local community had a hard time emerging from the shadows of national politics.  Many of those who were most hooked on political advocacy were “getting their fix” in national work on the Hill or in the non-profit sector at national organizations.  Many of these leaders despite their good intentions, simply did not have the resources and institutions to get involved in the very AAPI communities in which they lived.  They may have taken the bus through the Vietnamese community in Columbia Heights, but were largely unable or unwilling to fully engage in the struggles that faced that community there. 

Now, there is a vibrant, local community, anchored in social and cultural institutions and organizations, with an emerging network of direct service agencies that are intentionally working on behalf of the local population and, in some ways, have little care for what goes on just down the road on Capitol Hill and the White House.  Where once AAPIs came from places like California and New York and just used their time in DC to build their resumes and develop skills to help them when they “returned home,” now people come to DC and have real opportunities to stay here and build progressive, sustainable communities and develop an AAPI local agenda.  For these folks, DC Voting Rights is not just a policy issue and a notch on a legislative score card, it is a fight for their home in the here and now- the forging of a path to real political participation for a community that knows what it means to be relegated to the sidelines.

I no longer live in the District proper, but am still a proud supporter of DC Voting Rights.  If anything, it's more important for those of us who DON'T live in the District but support fairness and equality to hold our nation accountable to the rallying cry that is still found on DC license plates:  "No Taxation Without Representation."  For more information, you can go to www.dcvote.org.