APASA announces new voter registration drive
The Asian Pacific American Student Assembly announced plans for a month-long voter registration campaign at Tuesday night’s Undergraduate Student Government meeting. The campaign will take place from September to Oct. 17 and focus on political empowerment within the Asian Pacific American community at USC.
Working together · USG holds their weekly meeting Tuesday night which featured a presentation by APASA to launch new voting initiatives. – Carol Kim | Daily Trojan
APASA Executive Director Kaylee Ho planned and organized the campaign.
“Asian Americans are known for our lack of political participation. We wanted to show our constituents why voting matters,” Ho said.
In an email to the Daily Trojan, Ho said that Asian American political apathy is often blamed on preoccupation with socioeconomic status, as well as a preference for Asian politics rather than American politics. However, she said there is evidence suggesting these assumptions are incorrect.
Ho cited an April 20 article in Diverse Magazine, which found that Asian Americans vote at similar rates to the general population once they are registered. The article also suggests that few organizations make the initial effort to mobilize and register the Asian American community.
To counteract this trend, APASA applied for and received a $1,000 grant from the Los Angeles branch of Asian Americans Advancing Justice to conduct their voter awareness campaign.
APASA is hosting the campaign in collaboration with two of its member organizations, the Student Coalition for Asian Pacific Empowerment and Troy Philippines.
The campaign will be on National Voter Registration day, Sept. 23, at Tommy Trojan. A social media campaign will also take place.
Ho said that one of the main challenges in the campaign is addressing myths associated with voting in the Asian community.
“A lot of [Asian Americans] don’t register to vote because they want to avoid jury duty,” Ho said.
Ho says that in many states, jury pools are drawn from income tax returns and DMV registration rather than voting registration. APASA hopes to counter the effects of such beliefs with its voter awareness campaign.
APASA Assistant Director Sean Zhong said that the campaign is designed to fight unfamiliarity with voting regulations and empower the Asian American community.
“Asian Americans aren’t aware of their own political power,” Sean Zhong said. “On the political stage, we can be downplayed a bit.”
APASA represents students from the Asian Pacific American community, a category that includes 45 distinct ethnic groups who speak over 100 dialects.
“We’re extremely diverse, and it’s really hard to get everyone together to fight for the same cause,” Ho said.
She suggests the diversity of Asian Americans can be better acknowledged and accommodated if Asian Americans are politically empowered.
“[All Student Count Act] just shows statistics about Asian Americans not, for example, Chinese Americans,” Ho said. “We’re all lumped into the same group of people, and it’s something we’re trying to change.”
Editor’s note: this post has been updated to correct a fact stated in a quote.