News

NJ Spotlight News: Kim makes history, confident he can represent everyone

Image for NJ Spotlight News: Kim makes history, confident he can represent everyone
Nov. 5, 2024: Rep. Andy Kim with his wife Kammy Lai and sons Austin (left) and August at his election night headquarters. Credit: NJ Spotlight News.

By Taylor Jung

New US senator, a Korean American, looks forward to the day when he’s ‘no longer unique’

Andy Kim’s victory in the U.S. Senate race makes him the first Korean American elected to the Senate and the first Asian American senator on the East Coast.

While Kim’s win is historic, it is also complex. The question, “What does representation mean?” is one he struggles with himself.

Kim, a Democrat from South Jersey now in the House of Representatives, told NJ Spotlight News that with his win he felt excitement, humility, responsibility and hope.

“I recognize the importance of it, not just for me and my family, but for others. I hear from young Asian Americans telling me how closely they’re watching, how meaningful this is, and that means a lot to me. And I really look forward to the day when I’m no longer unique and I can just be seen as normal,” Kim said.

Kim defeated Republican Curtis Bashaw, a gay Republican hotel owner from Cape May; Kim was declared the winner by The Associated Press shortly after polls closed at 8 p.m. New Jersey has not elected a Republican to the U.S. Senate since 1972.

The next 10 years will be the “most dynamic decades for Asian Americans in politics,” Kim said, and that he’s only one part of it.

...

Regardless of growing population sizes, Asian Americans are still greatly underrepresented in local, state and federal government. In New Jersey, only 5% of the Legislature is Asian American despite comprising over 10% of the population. In the June primary election, 77.4% of Democratic voters in three counties with the highest Asian American populations chose Kim, according to exit poll data by AAPI New Jersey and the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

...

Kim hopes that his election win can help Asian Americans be seen not as a political fringe group that only cares about anti-Asian racism, but as a “fundamental” group that also cares about health care, education and more.

Otherwise, he said, “It’s missing something important about what the experience is of being Asian American, and also for us to understand that being [Asian American and Pacific Islander] is not monolithic,” he said.
###

Read the article here: https://www.njspotlightnews.org/2024/11/congressman-andy-kim-history-making-us-senate-win-first-korean-american-senator/