City Council Member Linda Lee, the author (photo: Emil Cohen/NYC Council Media Unit)

Despite being thefastest-growing immigrant group within New York City, the Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) community still severely lacks representation in government. In New York City, only 5% of my fellow City Council Members identify as AAPI, while none

"Tell Asian Stories" (photo: Don Pollard/Governor's Office)

As Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) women, May is a month of celebration. It is also a time to highlight Mental Health Awareness and commemorate Mother’s Day. But while many of us are celebrating, some are coping with a gaping void left by those who died by suicide in the past year.

Though updated suicide statistics for 2022 are not yet available, we’ve seen the stories reported by community media outlets of individuals in our community who are no longer with

Organizing efforts in Queens (photo: @johnchoe4nyc)

City Hall is a fascinating place where you can easily transform to be an “anti-racist,” if you know how to seize the opportunity. In December 2022, a member of a non-profit organization made racist remarks casting Asians as unwanted foreigners during a City Hall hearing. Sandra Ung, the Chinese-American City Council Member from Flushing, quickly jumped to condemn this person’s hurtful remark, portrayed herself as a staunch fighter against bigotry, and, one month after the incident, wrote an...

City Council Member Sandra Ung, the author

During a New York City Council hearing last month, a person affiliated with a local nonprofit group stated that Asians aren’t real New Yorkers, saying “it’s not their neighborhood, because they’re from China, they’re from Hong Kong. We’re from New York.”

While this incident has largely disappeared from the public discourse, it brought to the surface a pernicious stereotype about Asian New Yorkers as we come off another year when hate crimes against the AAPI community continue to be a

A community event in Sunset Park (photo: John McCarten/City Council)

The decennial redistricting process in New York created a new “Asian opportunity” City Council district in Brooklyn, and three candidates have declared their intentions to run for the seat in the fast-approaching June primary.

Asian Americans were the fastest growing population in New York City between 2010 and 2020, according to the U.S. Census, accounting for more than half of the increase in the city’s population. South Brooklyn is home to one of the

Lester Chang, left (photo: Chang campaign website)

Though Democrats maintained supermajorities in the State Senate and Assembly after the midterm elections, they lost ground in several communities across the state and ceded several seats to the Republican Party in the State Legislature and in Congress.

One of the most notable Republican flips came in Assembly District 49, an Asian-majority district in Southern Brooklyn which covers parts of Bay Ridge and Borough Park and much of Dyker Heights and Bensonhurst. There, 36-year Democratic incumbent Peter Abbate Jr. narrowly lost to Republican Lester Chang,

Co-author Grace Lee, center, with supporters (photo: @graceleefornyc)

As New York Democrats continue to assess our stunning midterm losses – including two state legislative seats in Southern Brooklyn with high concentrations of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) voters – our party must reckon with the fact that we have failed AAPI communities when it

Assemblymember Ron Kim (photo: @rontkim)

November 30, 2022 - Max Politics Podcast: Ron Kim on How Democrats Can Win Back Asian Voters

Queens Assemblymember Ron Kim, fresh off a narrow reelection win, joined the show to discuss how Democrats can win back Asian voters who have been moving toward Republicans in recent election cycles, what's wrong with the Democratic Party in New York, and more.

Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think, on Twitter @TweetBenMax. You can listen to the show through the embedded

Getting out the vote (photo: @SandraForNY1)

Asian Americans are the fastest growing racial group in the United States andin New York City. Yet for too long, Asian Americans have faced challenges participating in elections. We now make up over 17% of New York City’s total population, making us a significant part of the city’s racial diversity, cultural

Yuh-Line Niou & others at a Lunar New Year celebration (photo: Darren McGee/Governor's Office)

No one said it better than Congresswoman Grace Meng when, after the 2021 elections, she tweeted of Democrats, “our party better start giving more of a shit about #aapi [Asian-American and Pacific Islander] voters and communities. No other community turned out at a faster pace than AAPIs in 2020.”

Meng, the first Asian American elected to Congress from New York, was reacting to significant swings by Asian-American voters

A portion of the Unity Map proposal for new City Council districts

Last month, the New York City Districting Commission released a preliminary map of new City Council district lines, redrawing boundaries across the city based on population changes enumerated in the 2020 Census. Uproar quickly ensued over several of the major changes in the draft maps for the 51 City Council districts across the five boroughs.

In Brooklyn, the commission proposed a new Asian American majority district that could award political power to a growing constituency — what the commission itself deemed an “Asian opportunity district”