Pakistani-Americans or American-Pakistanis?

Hyphenating affiliations or national origins is as American as base-ball and apple-pie, and most definitely mother-hood. We are living in very interesting times. This article hopes to generate a discussion about the role immigrant-Americans, especially Pakistani-Americans will play in the outcome of the upcoming US Presidential elections. The role will be that of a very minor importance (purely due to the numbers) but one has to start somewhere.

Most immigrants and members of the minority groups in the US have traditionally voted Democrat. An exception to that rule is the Latinos, a group more divided because of religious reasons (Catholicism and abortion, etc. and more recently Immigration reform initiatives, and minimum wage legislations). Pakistani-Americans are divided as the Latinos, albeit for different reasons, and to a much lesser extent. The affluent ones tend to vote Republican while an overwhelming percentage goes for Democrats. There are only a few Pakistani enclaves in the US where they tend to vote as a block (the one I am familiar with is in New York City), as a good percentage of Pakistani-Americans live across the country and are integrated into the society at large. There is little data available as to the urban-suburban breakdown of Pakistani-Americans. A Pakistani living in Fairfax Virginia may be living next door to an Albanian-Americans or an Italian-American, while another Pakistani living in New York may have his cousins for a neighbor. In addition to that, Pakistanis are a relatively more recent group of immigrants and there is no clear trend of their voting in the past, say, 5 presidential elections. Clear patterns will only start emerging with two generations of US born Pakistani-Americans. It is safe to say that by year 2020 a clear picture on their voting preference will materialize. They may form stronger ties to Democrats (as African-American community) or with the Republicans (as, say, the old white ladies or the Cuban-Americans of Florida).

Pakistani-Americans are slowly baby-stepping into the political process. Where I live, there are often times Pak-Am candidates contesting for local office such as the City Council and Community Boards. These local public offices do not require a candidate to be a born US citizen (only the President and the VP are required to be born citizens). It may be a while until we get our own Bobby Jindal, but we are certainly making progress in that direction. Just as there are British Pakistani MPs in the UK, time is not far when we will have two Pakistanis in the House and one in the Senate. If not during our lifetime, most certainly during our children’s.

At the neighborhood levels, I have met many Pakistani-Americans actively involved in Parent-Teacher Associations (PTA) at their children’s school. While PTAs offer an excellent opportunity to get involved in educational matters, the scope of such an activity is fairly limited, as I speak from experience.

As with much other baggage, Pakistanis also brought with them their sibling rivalry with Indians. I have met Pakistani-Americans voting for a candidate that the Indian-Americans may oppose (I do not mean to generalize, this may be only an isolated case). Indian-Americans tend to vote their conscious (of course unless the candidate if one of their own). Remember Sanjay on American Idol? The guy couldn’t sing a Dr. Seuss poem even if his life depended on it, but he made it to the top 10 or something. It was due mainly to mobilization on part of the Indian-Americans. The Pakistani families that I know in New York, tend to vote Democrat, but vote also only in major elections. Sadly, they don’t take as much interest in primaries and elections for smaller offices.

So much of the outcome in the elections has a direct impact on immigrants, hence their interest in participation. All immigrants look for economic prosperity, education, healthcare, so their concerns are any not different from other Americans. Pakistani-Americans have the same concerns as Italian-Americans and Indian-Americans. In addition to the regular misgivings, they are also concerned about the events taking place in their homeland. They want an American President who can end the war, and who can bring some stability and peace to their native regions. An American President who is willing to work with the Pakistanis in a mutual and a joint fashion as opposed to “with or without� fashion. There are no guarantees that any President will change the course, but Pakistani-Americans can at least send a message that collectively their vote is up for grabs. Often times mosques in the community can subliminally tell Pakistani-Americans to vote which one way. It happened during the 2000 Presidential elections, and again in 2004. Pakistanis in New York voted pretty much like one block. Care to guess who they overwhelmingly supported in 2000? Yep, G Dubya.

In the end, it is not important which way the Pakistani-American community votes, what is important is that it votes. It is my hope that Pakistani-Americans will be part of the USA as much as Jewish-Americans and will play a much bigger role in decades to come.

God bless Pakistan
God bless USA