Accounting for 20% of Fort Bend eligible voters, Asian Americans are shaping county politics

From Houston Public Media:

It’s a Sunday afternoon in Sugar Land and the town square is filled with people, perusing vendors, watching dance performances and supervising children running around a bounce house on the lawn.

They’ve come to celebrate Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights.

Dipal Parekh came to the event from nearby Rosenberg. An immigrant from India, she moved to Fort Bend County nearly 30 years ago.

“The culture, the community, the diversity here – it feels (a) little more like home,” she said.

From 2010 to 2020 the number of residents of Asian descent grew by about 83%, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

And with a growing community, they’re seeing increased political power.

Asian Americans count for nearly 1 in 5 of all U.S. citizens over the age of 18 in Fort Bend County – or almost 20% of residents who are eligible to vote, recent U.S. Census data shows.

Parekh said she supports the Republican party, primarily its immigration policies.

“If (a) Republican was in charge, it would have been (a) lot different than what we’re going through right now,” she said.

With the upcoming presidential election, high numbers of AAPI Texans are expected to vote.

A recent poll conducted by the nonpartisan organization Asian Texans for Justice found that 84% of AAPI Texans indicated a “strong motivation” to vote this year.

That’s up from 64% in the 2022 midterm election.

According to the poll, jobs and the economy rank as the top issues for AAPI voters this year, followed by inflation and cost of living and healthcare access and costs.

“Just hearing from all my titas and titos, it’s a lot about women’s rights,” said Jennye Gorrosquieta of Missouri City.

On a recent Saturday, she came to Sugar Land’s Constellation Field, where crowds of people packed the stadium for the Houston Filipino Street Festival.

They watched dancers, looked through Filipino flag-themed merchandise and waited in long lines under the hot sun for a bucket of lumpia — or Filipino egg rolls.

Gorrosquieta said her family is divided on the abortion issue and she sees both sides.

“But I really truly believe it should be a woman’s right so that’s the side I would lean more towards,” she said.

Fort Bend was once a solidly red county. But in 2016, Hillary Clinton won 51% of the vote, marking the start of the county’s leftward shift.

Even though that prompted Republicans to re-draw the state’s districts to dilute the Asian American vote in statewide and congressional races, it doesn’t weaken their voting power in local city and county elections.

Richard Murray is a senior research associate at the University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs.

He said the power of the Asian American vote continues to grow in the county.

“You continue to see Black and Hispanic families moving into Fort Bend, but what really changed in the 21st century has been the huge increase in Asian communities in Fort Bend County,” he said.

Both sides of the aisle are looking to attract these voters.

Lily Trieu is the co-founder and executive director of Asian Texans for Justice. Though she now lives in the Austin area, Trieu grew up in Fort Bend County and still has family there.

In her work, Trieu emphasizes a need for more outreach to AAPI voters across the state. But in Fort Bend County, she said she’s been seeing more outreach to Asian communities.

“In addition to seeing candidates do it, I’m seeing a lot of advocacy organizations and nonprofit groups do outreach in Fort Bend County,” she said.

Sugar Land resident Nabila Mansoor is the executive director of Rise AAPI, a progressive organization focused on mobilizing Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Texas.

Mansoor said “relational organizing” works particularly well in Asian communities.

That’s when people reach out to family members and friends to inform them and encourage them to vote.

“It’s just a much more effective get-out-the-vote tactic than someone that you don’t know at all calling you,” she said.

Michael Liu is a precinct chair for the Fort Bend Republican party, representing part of Sugar Land.

He said the party has worked to recruit Asian precinct chairs, who are in turn seeking out people in their communities to volunteer with the Republican party.

“(The) Asian vote will swing … who will win the campaign,” he said.

While Harris County has a larger Asian American population, they make up a higher percentage of Fort Bend County residents.

Sujatha Srikanth, who lives in Sugar Land, helps mobilize South Asian voters.

“Because it’s a more concentrated, smaller geography, you find South Asians easier to reach,” she said.

At the Diwali festival in the Sugar Land Town Square, Vijay Kane manned a booth for an online university. He said he’s been taking time to understand candidates’ positions.

“Before voting, we all are obligated to educate ourselves on ‘Exactly, what are we voting for? What do these people stand for?'” he said. “So that’s what I’m trying to do.”

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