Chinatown Voting By Yuxuan Jia
“
Excuse me, are you a citizen?” This is the opening sentence when an AAU (Asian American United) volunteer approaches someone on Chinatown’s streets. The majority of them are high school students, and the reason they are doing this is because they are trying to increase the voting rate in Asian immigrants community. AAU is a youth Asian American group base on Philadelphia, and they started doing this voting mobilization activitie since last February. “Asian American is a minority group in this society, and the only way we can get the resources we need is by making our voices, which is through voting,” Xu Lin, Youth Organizer of AAU said, “unfortunately, the voting rate in
Asian American community is really low.” Therefore, they try to change this situation by encourage people to vote, explain the voting process and help them finish the voting. They have couples ways to do it, one is called “tabling”, which means they will set a table on Chinatown and answer people’s confusions about voting. The second one called “door nocking”, and they will go to the Asian American families, nock their doors, and persuade them to vote. Sometimes they will also send volunteers to the street, stop people and encourage eligible voters to vote. Then finally, couple days before voting date, they will call everyone who leave phone number to them and remind voters to vote. “At the first time we were out, there were
not much people listen to us,” Wei Chen, Student Organizer and the leader of the volunteer group, said, “but now is getting better and better, because people know what we are doing now.” During the Midterm Election last year, they even brought out a polling machine and put it on the street, so that they could show people how to use it. They also keep updating their “convincing technics.” “We used to start with introducing ourselves, but soon we found out that people are not really patient enough to listen, so we make our opening short and simple,” Kai Tieo, a volunteer said. Recently, because the Philadelphia Major Election is coming, they started to working on it. Right now, they are mainly do-
Wei Chen, and the voluteers were having a meeting before the went to the street.
ing street convincing. After April, the door knocking will start too.
also provides food and water to the volunteers many times.
They are also getting supports from the community. Zi Chen, the owner of Joy Tsin Lau Chinese Restaurant, offered her place for them to do tabling on April 7, and she
Even though they are working really hard on the street, but because of the language barrier many Asian immigrants have, and the lack of necessary support from the govern-
ment (such as provide enough translators at the polling spot), they are facing a lot challenges. But they are not thinking about stop, they will keep doing it until people can hear the voice from the Asian American Community.