Obama: The First Asian-American President

Back in July 2008, Jeff Yang wrote a column titled, "Could Obama be the first Asian American president?" Yang, of course, was building from the well worked notion of Clinton as the first Black president. As Toni Morrison put it in 1998:

White skin notwithstanding, this [Clinton] is our first black president. Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetime. After all, he displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas.

The jist of Morrison's argument (and of Yang's as well), is that racial or ethnic identity is not determined solely (or even mostly) by skin color or some other genetic characteristic, but instead is cultural. There is, moreover, a clear implication in this view: cultural values influence our outlook, attitudes, and behavior. From this perspective, Obama almost certainly is our first Asian-American president. This is not to say, I should emphasize, that Obama's other identities--African-

American, multiracial, American, and so on--are less important or less valid, for we all have multiple identities. But it is to say that Obama, in a very meaningful and even profound way, represents Asian-Americans.

From a practical political perspective, this means he recognizes that Asian-Americans are an integral part of the United States. This is reflected in his refusal to treat Asian Americans as mere tokens in his administration. Indeed, he is the first president to nominate more than a single Asian-American to a cabinet post. To date, in fact, he has nominated three: Eric Shinseki for Secretary of Veteran Affairs, Steven Chu for Secretary of Energy, and, most recently, Gary Locke for Secretary of Commerce. In addition, the most senior members of his congressional team (when he was still serving as a senator) are Asian-American: his Senate chief of staff was Pete Rouse, whose mother is Japanese American, and his legislative director was Chris Lu, whose parents come from China (Lu is now Cabinet Secretary and Rouse is now a Senior Adviser).

Most likely, Obama did not necessarily "see" these individuals as Asian-Americans; but, this too, is part of the point: until Obama, Asian Americans, no matter how qualified, were largely invisible. They no longer are.

Addendum: Obama's recent nomination of Harold Hongju Koh as the State Department's top legal advisor continues the president's pattern of recognizing Asian-Americans.