In Quincy, politicians try appeal to Asians

When Quincy mayoral and City Council candidates appear for a debate at North Quincy High School today, they'll be bringing something they have never had to have before: Each has been asked to bring a translator who can repeat their words in Cantonese.

In this working-class city, where evidence of the wave of Irish immigrants generations ago is fast being replaced by Asian markets and restaurants, the political apparatus is starting to feel the influence. Two City Council candidates this year are Asian, and Asians account for nearly 9 percent of Quincy's registered voters, a doubling of Asian voters since 2001.

To reach them, the campaigns of Mayor William J. Phelan and his challenger, Thomas Koch, have distributed letters and campaign materials in Cantonese, the Chinese dialect spoken by the vast majority of Quincy's nearly 17,000 Asian immigrants. Campaign signs for Phelan hang in several businesses owned by Asians, and Chinese characters on kelly green bumper stickers urge voters to support him.

"He wants to appeal to and reach as many voters as possible," said Dave Murphy, Phelan's chief of operations.

Similar experiences are occurring across the state. As immigrant communities take root, politicians are increasingly seeking to capitalize on the voting power of those new residents. In Somerville, families receive recorded messages from candidates in Portuguese, while in Lawrence political mailings arrive in Spanish and in Dorchester debates are translated into Haitian Creole.

"Just as candidates see the elderly as important or homeowners as important, they are now seeing immigrant communities as important," said Avi Green, executive director of MassVote, a nonpartisan voting rights organization.

"Numbers bring economic and political clout," he said.

The transformation of an ethnic enclave into a political force can take years or generations. Italians started settling in Boston in the late 1800s, but it took them more than a century to elect the city's first Italian mayor. In Quincy, churches have offered Chinese services for as long as 17 years, but the Asian community has yet to emerge as a political power.

"Most Asian Americans, I think, aren't politically active," said Wan Wu, a Quincy business owner. "If they're new immigrants, they're busy trying to make a living."

Although Asian participation in Quincy's local elections has been historically low - 4 percent voted in the city's 2004 election - with two Chinese Americans running for City Council, more are expected to vote on Nov. 6.

"There is strong evidence that shows one way to increase voter participation is to have a candidate from that ethnic group run," said Paul Watanabe, director of the Institute for Asian American Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Boston.

For example, when Boston city councilor Sam Yoon appeared on the ballot in 2005, voter participation in Chinatown peaked. That year, Linda Dorcena Forry's campaign for the Legislature also drove Haitian voters to the polls in record numbers.

There's still a dearth of minority candidates and elected officials in the Bay State. Earlier this year, a study of the 10 most diverse communities in Eastern Massachusetts found that 9 percent of elected officials are nonwhite. Although Asians represent 20 percent of the population in Quincy, one of the communities included in the study, an Asian American has yet to be elected there.

"If 100 years ago you'd said that the Irish and the Italians were going to become dominant political forces and that eventually we'd see an African-American governor, people would have said you're crazy," Green said. "But that's just what happened - they went from being a workforce to a political force."