Politics: Targeting the AAPI Vote for the 2012 Presidential Election

July 16th, 2012 by Latoya Peterson

Maya Soetoro-Ng, Obama’s Asian American sister, and her husband Konrad Ng, are Obama campaign veterans, and currently are campaigning on their brother’s behalf, something Obama wasn’t shy about addressing at the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies (APAICS) annual gala address.

Mai Uy, an OFA Nevada volunteer, noted, “His sister is half Asian, so when he talks about the AAPI community, he’s talking about us as family.”

But this won’t be an easy fight–2012 won’t be without its challenges for online and field organizers for the campaign.

There’s still a large segment of the AAPI community that is not registered to vote (taking into account that there is still a large number of immigrant voters who have not yet naturalized and can become eligible to vote in this election). Research shows that naturalized immigrants, when registered, vote at higher rates than the native-born.

Another challenge OFA will take on is harnessing online activity (use of apps and social media) and translating it into field work– meaning registering people to vote, getting AAPI communities to mail their absentee ballots, and increasing turnout to the polls in November.

OFA has the most sophisticated data and metrics-driven programs that even the D.C. Beltway has ever seen, and it will still take some work to capture the vast AAPI community online. Fortunately, according to the Pew Research Center, English-speaking AAPIs’ civic engagement is among the highest of all racial groups on mobile and the Internet. But how this looks when disaggregated by ethnic groups and in native Asian languages can get super technical.

The energy from the 2008 campaign may not be the same. The average Joe or Jane may not be creating their own “Barack the Vote” shirts to wear at the next hot party, or playing Obamagirl YouTube videos with their friends just yet, but a strong passion for volunteerism and getting involved in community through the campaign remains.

Mai Uy, a single mother and nurse, started volunteering for OFA, and after one meeting has dedicated more and more time to organizing her community, while also coordinating phonebanks in Las Vegas. “For me, I have seen President Obama take a real stand on issues that mean the most to me. … Because of the Affordable Care Act, my daughter can stay on my healthcare insurance plan and my friend’s children can stay on theirs– a point I bring up with my friends all the time. As of now, I haven’t met that many AAPIs in my community who are engaged in the election, but I’m hoping to change that. That’s why I organize; this is my way of helping hundreds and thousands have their voices heard. I believe President Obama has stood for our communities; it’s time we stand united with him.”

Volunteers like Uy hope to contribute to making history a second time in November to land Obama a second presidential term.

We shall see what color Nevada will be on November 6.

Note: The Romney campaign was contacted to interview for this article. We await a response and hope to feature them in a future article.

Full disclosure: Erin Pangilinan is a Filipina For Obama. She was involved in Filipinos For Obama in 2008.

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Bio: Erin is a prolific writer and has worked as a Philippine News Correspondent for over six years and as a Change.org Immigrant Rights Cause blogger. She is excited to join the Hyphen magazine staff, contributing to the Politics section, of which this is her first contribution. Read more work from Erin at erinjerri.com

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Posted in Uncategorized, asian, asian-american, politics, youth | 2 comments

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  • LK

    I’m glad that Asian Americans are getting more political visibility but please don’t do it at the expense of accurate statistics abut Pacific Islanders, who are a totally different and far less represented pan-ethnic, pan-national group than Asian Americans. It took a long fight to finally disaggregate the census category, and there is no such thing as an “AAPI” racial or ethnic group and little evidence of a political coalition. The 48 % non-voting statistic you reference is about Asian Americans. The PI stats might be better or worse, but from this we’d have know way to know.

  • NK4

    Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders are not a group. If you want to speak about your own community you can do it without presuming to speak for people who have nothing to do with you.