ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a preliminary examination of the roles that some mobilization agents have played in affecting the shape of Asian American political participation over time. These are, specifically, political parties, ethnic community organizations, and ethnic media. Focusing on persons originating from Asia, the chapter examines the shape, the source, and the effect of political participation of Asian Americans as a group and as compared to other racial and ethnic groups in Southern California. In the pluralistic American democracy, political parties and immigrant groups both have good reasons to become cordial bedfellows. By comparing the meanings of panethnic and specific ethnic group identity, using Korean Americans as an example, the chapter aims to advance our understanding of the dynamics between ethnicity and political participation. Like political parties, ethnic political organizations have a strong desire to articulate interests and/or to recruit members and to socialize or mobilize them for political action.
