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New research underscores the voting power of women of color

Wmc Features Sung Yeon 042619
Sung Yeon Choimorrow, executive director of the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum, one of three groups that commissioned a groundbreaking poll of women of color in the U.S. Photo courtesy of NAPAW.

In 2018, women of color voted in historic numbers in pursuit of rebooting the promise of building a more perfect union. Their turnout doubled from 6.8 million in the 2014 midterms to 11.5 million, representing 10 percent of the electorate, according to Target Smart, a Democratic data firm. 

Earlier this year, Intersections of Our Lives, a collaborative of national reproductive justice organizations for women of color, commissioned the nation’s first multilingual poll to find out what issues women of color hold as their truths. And while African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latinas all are diverse communities unto themselves, shared themes of social justice emerged. The pollsters contacted 2,663 women who voted in 2018. Oversamples were done in Florida and Texas, where the political race for governor and senator, respectively, were deemed bellwethers.

“We thought it was critical to understand what motivated this powerful voting bloc to turn out and why,” said Sung Yeon Choimorrow, executive director of the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum. “What we found is that there is an intersectionality to our beliefs and that our collective experiences motivate us to demand that our elected officials act now for justice and equity for our communities.”

Conducted in English, Korean, Mandarin, Spanish, and Vietnamese — the most-spoken languages in the country — the poll found that the 10 issues that respondents believe are most important for Congress to address include:

  • ending racial/ethnic/cultural discrimination
  • locking in policies to guarantee insurance coverage for people with pre-existing conditions
  • safeguarding access to clean water
  • ensuring access to affordable health care
  • protect the country from terrorism
  • delivering high-quality education for all children
  • making sure women have agency over their own bodies and lives
  • enacting better gun laws
  • safeguarding the environment
  • stopping the separation of immigrant children from their parents

 “When we did this poll, it’s not like we said, ‘OK, folks, tell us your intersectional things,’” said Marcela Howell, president and founder of In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda. “People just came out with it. Said why they voted for who they voted, what were the issues of most concern to them, and those issues are those intersectional issues that are bigger than just reproductive health — although those things did come up.” 

The collaborative is composed of In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda, which focuses on abortion rights and access, contraceptive equity, and comprehensive sex education; National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum, whose policy areas are reproductive health and rights, economic justice, and immigrant rights; and National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, the only national reproductive justice organization dedicated to advancing health, dignity, and justice for the 29 million Latinas, their families, and communities.

On April 23, the leaders of the three organizations met with lawmakers and their staff members in D.C. to advocate for policies that shatter the road blocks that impact the lives of women of color, who today number 63 million.

“We’ve begun briefing congressional offices about the findings in the report and the issues women of color want to see progress on,” said Choimorrow. “Specifically, Intersections of our Lives is focused on advocating for policies that ensure women can continue to have abortion access and affordability; advance sexual and reproductive health equity; end violence against women of color; protect Immigrant rights and health; ensure economic and environmental justice for women of color; and expand the right to vote to ensure women of color can have their say in our democracy.”

The past offers wrenching history lessons, and historically, the most oppressed pull society forward. Politicians will fare well if they listen to women of color, said the three leaders.

“We’re looking at certain bills that they’re introducing, we’re looking at where they stand on different issues when things come to the floor,” said Howell.

“We want to get this out to the media and grass-top leaders and partners so that they have this tool that they can use and reflect on their own work,” said Jessica González-Rojas, executive director of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health.

A large majority of the women, 75 percent, said they feel “negatively about the way things are going in the country,” with a plurality of each group feeling disgusted, including four in ten Black women. And 88 percent said that they had voted because “the stakes were too high not to.”

Other notable numbers:

  • A majority of women of color voters, 74 percent, “doubt the country will be safe for the next generation of those who share their race/ethnicity.” This sentiment is significantly stronger among Black women voters, at 85 percent.
  • “The seeming disregard for facts and truth alarms nine-in-ten women of color voters,” said the report.
  • A majority, 62 percent, will watch what their elected officials do in Congress more closely than they have in the past.

More information about the poll is here.

“Oftentimes our communities are talked about as being apolitical or more conservative,” said Choimorrow. “I knew we were more progressive, but I didn’t think it was going to be as progressive as it came out in the polling.”

The poll also shows that candidates fail to connect with women of color voters on issues important to them and need to acknowledge that women are not a monolith. A solid majority of women of color voters want their representatives to recognize how their priorities and experiences differ from those of white women.

Howell points to politicians such as Barbara Lee, D-Calif.; Judy Chu, D-Calif.; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., as champions for women of color.

“All of them are stepping forward on some of the more intersectional issues we all push as reproductive justice organizations — the economic pieces, the environmental pieces, things that we got from this poll and other polls that show that women of color are concerned about civil rights, ensuring that people with pre-existing conditions get good health care, and about clean water,” she said.

González-Rojas said the work to keep the issues at the forefront for a majority of elected leaders is ongoing. “We’re regularly on the hill,” she said. “People rarely look at women and women of color as a voting bloc.”

Although the poll was geared to inform elected leaders, the results are also valuable to funders of organizations that work with women, said Choimorrow. “This is really a way to speak out and be visible about how we as women of color are leading in terms of voter engagement and the role we’re playing in changing the course of this country, albeit we’re still smaller in numbers, but trajectorially we’re not going to stay that way. And we really believe that this is the moment to invest in women of color leadership.”

In the end, it’s policies that shape the heart and soul of a nation.

“Women of color so overwhelmingly in 2018 said we voted for these candidates because they were speaking to our issues,” said Howell, pointing to voting rights and women’s agency over their bodies. Seven in 10 of those surveyed supported Democratic candidates. “The issues that [candidates] were talking about resonated with women of color voters. These candidates running right now in the Democratic Party need to be cognizant of that; you cannot talk about economic disparities without talking about racial disparities.”



More articles by Category: Politics, Race/Ethnicity
More articles by Tag: Women's leadership, Women of color, Intersectionality, Activism and advocacy
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