Asian-Americans Seize Political Spotlight in 2012 Presidential Campaign You can tell politicians are feeling the heat when they haul out the relatives. Case in point: President Obama met with big-money Asian-American donors in Silicon Valley on Thursday. They likely heard the same line Mr. Obama delivered a couple weeks ago when he made his first appearance before the big Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies gala in D.C. "When I look at this community," he said, gazing upon the ballroom with an affectionate smile, "I see family." That's a reference to his half-sister and her husband, and his own childhood in Hawaii and Indonesia. Although it underscored the president's absence from previous "Asian Proms" - like saying, You're my peeps, even if we do always go to my in-laws for Thanksgiving. Still, his presence signals an increasing recognition that Asian-American/Pacific Islanders may be a critical sliver of voters this fall - especially in battleground states like Virginia, Nevada, and Florida. In a metrics-driven community, APAs finally have numbers on their side. The 2010 census anointed APAs the fastest-growing racial minority. The field of Asian-American/Pacific Islander candidates has exploded in this political cycle. Twenty-five of them are campaigning for seats in Congress - triple the 2010 field. "It's our time," says Christine Chen (no relation), acting executive director of APIAVote, a nonpartisan civic engagement group. We are at where the Latinos were in 2000. We're looking forward to having the candidates talk and engage with our voters. Surrounded by an exploding Korean community in Annandale, Va., small-business owner and activist Dave Han tells me that local pols get it. We've definitely seen more visitors. More politicians come to see us in the last four or five years," Han says. They want to hear from us. President Barack Obama waves at supporters during a campaign event in Redwood City, California on May 23, 2012. Jewel Samad, AFP / Getty Images They do? As a former network journalist who's spent plenty of time with politicians and the Asian-Pacific-American community, this was a surprise. In my 16 years with CNN and CBS, APA voters rarely (okay, never) got a blip of consideration as worthy of news coverage. Outside a few major West Coast centers, they never figured in the political equation. It's not just that news organizations didn't care; for a long time it wasn't clear the community wanted or was organized enough to earn that kind of attention. No one ever pitched me on writing about Asian-American voters. In my 16 years with CNN and CBS, Asian- and Pacific-American voters rarely (okay, never) got a blip of consideration as worthy of news coverage. If they had, I probably would have demurred, citing favoritism toward my half-Chinese/half-Japanese heritage. But do African-American and Hispanic reporters decline stories about their voting communities? Isn't the point of recruiting diverse writers to your newsroom the opportunity to bring new stories to light? Which is why in my post-news life I've become active in pushing APA voter stories on my reporter friends. It's a somewhat uncomfortable role for me, as it is for many APAs to try to draw attention to themselves or their causes.