One notable aspect of last week’s Assembly vote was that eight of the chamber’s ten Asian-American members voted for repeal. Vincent Pan, executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action, says that shift from 2014 partly reflects immediate factors: better organizing in the Asian-American community and the also the fact that this repeal affects not only education but also public hiring for positions such as police, fire-fighters and college faculty where Asian communities still feel underrepresented. But he says, the support also reflects a growing sense of shared interest among the many communities of color that often found themselves at odds while the conservative 1990s laws advanced.
