2014 SEAMAAC's Get Out the Vote

8/10/2019 2014 SEAMAAC's Get Out the Vote

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Articles from Philadelphia Public Record

Philadelphia Asian Activists Practise Get-Out-The-Vote Skills2014-11-28 10:11:49 ed itor @p r

BY T ONY WEST/ Philadelphias f ast -growing Asian et hnic communit ies arelear ning how to f lex their muscle at t he polls.

SEAMAAC, a social-service agency f ounded 30 years ago t o address t heneeds of South Philadelphias Vietnamese and Cambodian immigrants, hasseen an explosion of ot her Asian newcomers since f rom China and Korea,f rom t he Philippines and Indonesia, f rom Myanmar and Bangladesh, f rom Indiaand Pakist an. Asians and Pacif ic islanders soared f rom 74,000 to 107,000 f rom

2000 t o 2010. Many of t hem have since become cit izens.

But t heir concerns are more likely to cat ch t he ears of public of f icials if t heyvot e. And just because a person has been granted cit izenship does not meant hey know how to vot e.

There is so much misinf ormat ion and disinf ormat ion out t here, said T hoaiNguyen, SEAMAACs CEO. Even naturalized citizens dont always know their way around t he syst em.

SEAMAACS vot er-t urnout t eam leaderswer e, f rom left , Victor Yang, Amy Jones andT ho ai Nguyen.

T his f all, SEAMAAC launched an innovat ive outreach program t o see if it couldget more Asian American vot ers t o t urn out f or t he Nov. 4 general elect ion. Itwas working jointly with our Asian American organizations in New Orleans,
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Bost on and Chicago.

T he t arget was simple: t o get Asian American occasional voters to make it t ot he polls t his year.

Data f rom t he nat ionwide Vot er Activat ion Net work can ident if y everyregistered vot er and which elect ions t hey have act ually vot ed in. T his list was

checked against a dat abase of common Asian surnames. SEAMAAC workerst arget ed every pot ent ial Asian vot er between Broad St reet and t he DelawareRiver, Vine St reet and Ritner St reet f or canvassing; t hey made phone calls allacross the cit y.

In this group, t hey concentrat ed t heir f ire on vot ers wit h mid-t o-high-propensit y vot ers rather t han hist orically disengaged ones. T hese are t hevot ers where intensive outreach is likeliest t o increase t urnout, explainedVictor Yang, SEAMAACs civic-engagement coordinator.

And intensive it was. SEAMAAC turned out 50 volunt eers f or phone-bankingand door-knocking. These met hods are by a long shot t he most -ef f icient wayt o increase t urnout, Yang said. Decades of research have shown they canincrease vot ing by 20% among t his populat ion, as opposed t o maybe 1% bymailers. The volunt eers worked t he phones and st reet s during t he last t woweeks bef ore the elect ion, not ching 3,300 vot er-communicat ion at t empt s.

They wont know how well they did, though, until March 2015, when VANf inishes processing the dat e f rom t he 2014 elect ions.

To Nguyen, these volunteers were a precious harvest in themselves. Many of t hem were underage st udents or were not citizens. Some of t he youths wereour most -passionat e volunt eers, he related. Theyd t ell t he elders, I canteven vote but Im so mot ivat ed Im asking you to vot e.

Vot ing is just t he culminat ion of a holist ic process of civic educat ion t hatSEAMAAC has long been pursuing. We work with existing ethnic communitiesas well as our individual client s, said Amy Jones, SEAMAACs direct or of

health and social services. Elder groups and youth groups are part icular t arget s, she noted.

Just because a person knows some English does not mean t hey know enought o underst and vot ing rules, f ollow polit ics or underst and t he issues. Elect ionmat erials in languages ot her than English and Spanish are rare even whenst at e law mandat es t hem. SEAMAAC at t empt ed t o plug t he gap t his f all bydeveloping a Mandarin-language informat ion sheet highlight ing policydiff erences bet ween Gov. T om Corbet t and his opponent T om Wolf . Therewas such a craving f or t his mat erial, Nguyen report ed.

However, Nguyen not ed, We do not want t o say anything remot elyresembling a part isan st and on any issue or f or any candidat e. All our volunteers tell their contacts is its important that their voice be heard.


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Educat ing Asian Americans on the democrat ic process is challenging. T heyrepresent hundreds of diff erent cult ures and languages. And while some comef rom vibrant democracies, others emigrat ed f rom nat ions where t he wisecit izen keeps his head down and pays as lit t le at t ention as possible t o whorules them. T hey need t o learn about t he rough and tumble of Americanpolit ics, where its t he squeaky wheel that get s t he grease.

Language is at t he heart of Asian American vot er-prot ect ion issues. When Asians with poor English run into a problem at a polling place, t elephonet ranslat ors are supposed t o be made available t o t hem. But t his of t en doesnot happen. Some of t hese vot ers have learned earlier that t hey had certa inrights but are unable t o express t hemselves in t ense conversat ions wit h pollworkers on election day.

T he elect ion is over; long live t he elect ion. T he spring municipal primary is justsix months away now. SEAMAAC is already st udying it s approach to t his

election.Well be in t he t renches for t he next decade, Nguyen summed up. But wellget bet t er at it .
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2014 SEAMAAC's Get Out the Vote