With Shinseki Gone, Hirono Is Highest-Ranking Asian-American Public Official

The resignation of Veteran Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki means that, for the first time since the Clinton administration in 2000, “there will be no Asian-American members of the Cabinet, a marked shift for a minority community that was once disproportionately overrepresented.”

That’s according to this article in The Daily Beast, which says Asian-American groups are largely shrugging off the news.

“The uninterest in the issue also demonstrates the lack of Asian-American political power in 2014,” according to the article. “Though they represent roughly 6 percent of the country’s population, the community is dispersed across a series of different ethnicities, languages and cultures.”