Dino Rossi is running for governor because he wants to change the way state government deals with important issues facing Washington. Christine Gregoire has worked in government for 38 years and, unfortunately, has too often become part of the problem instead of the solution.

We need to elect Dino Rossi, a leader who will take the lead on issues such as transportation, education, the economy, public safety and health care. Dino will be pro-active and work to address problems before they get out of control, while his opponent has been re-active, waited for situations to become crises before doing anything.

Dino asks that our Asian Pacific American community help elect the grandson of an Italian immigrant, Black Diamond coal miner, Silvino Rossi, and the son of a half Irish, half Tlingit Alaskan Native waitress beautician mother, Eve Rossi.

Dino wants to ensure that everyone has the same opportunity to succeed, regardless of their ethnic background. His goal is to reform Washington into an entrepreneurial state where people with the American dream can achieve their goals.

Dino Rossi knows our APA community can decide this election. Over the years, people from our community have graciously opened their homes, their businesses and their lives to Dino and made him feel like he was a part of our community.

When I was chair of the 43rd Legislative District GOP (Capitol Hill, U-District and Wallingford), I first met Dino Rossi and was impressed as he enthusiastically volunteered to help manage former state Rep. Michael Ross’ campaign for King County Council. Dino then became more active with community service.

In 1996, Dino was elected to the State Senate, representing the 5th Legislative District. While serving in the State Senate from 1997 to 2003, he helped lead a variety of bills through the legislative process. Ultimately, Dino became a leader on state budget issues and was chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee in 2003, when our state faced the largest dollar deficit in history.

In this leadership position, Dino worked across party lines to balance the state budget without raising taxes, while still protecting the most vulnerable.

Dino wants to make sure everyone has the opportunity of a great education, access to affordable health care and that our communities are safe.

His focus is on making sure everyone has the opportunity to get a job, and will do so by creating a nurturing atmosphere for small business. Small business creates 49 percent of the jobs in Washington.

Dino Rossi’s many endorsements from organizations include:
Hong Kong Association of Washington
King County Police Officer’s Guild
Seattle Police Officers’ Guild
Washington Association of Realtors
Washington Restaurant Association

I invite you to compare Dino Rossi’s record and his ideas for change and new leadership and make your own decision about our state’s future at www.dinorossi.com.

It’s time for change and new leadership, Dino Rossi for governor, for Washington state.

— Ted Choi Tam
Co-chair, Washington Asian Pacific American Republicans

To editor:

Gov. Chris Gregoire made commitments to support significant investments in the API community when she entered office. We believe she has honored those commitments by providing community health services, support for API small business, naturalization services, employment training, and other programs for refugees and immigrants.

For example, Gov. Gregoire initiated and supported capital projects benefiting our community by investing more than $13.5 million to complete the financing of construction projects for Asian Counseling and Referral Service, the Filipino Community Center, Korean Women’s Association, Nisei Veterans Committee and the Wing Luke Asian Museum.

Gov. Gregoire even went one step further in helping minority- and women-owned businesses by boosting the Linked Deposit Program from $50 million to a full $175 million in 2005. This important program provides women and minorities with access to much-needed capital to start a small business. APIs have the highest rate of small business per capita of the various ethnic groups, so this too is a vital resource for our community.

And while predatory banks, mortgage companies and short term lenders have sought to take advantage of minority groups, Gov. Gregoire stepped up to protect us. She took on Countrywide Home Loans for their predatory lending practices and fined the company $1 million for discriminatory lending practices. Also, as the state’s attorney general, Gregoire brought the full weight of the state down on Countrywide to rewrite home loans for minority borrowers. In contrast to the crisis at the federal level, she made protecting the hard-working consumer a top priority.

In addition, Gov. Gregoire approved funding for a statewide study of the academic achievement gap of students of color, specifically addressing concerns of API students. This is just another example of the governor’s commitment to provide excellent education for all of our children.

Gov. Gregoire has demonstrated strong leadership and has honored her commitments to the API community. She has earned our support to govern our state for four more years.

Signed,
Ellen Abellera
Alex Borromeo
Ron Chew
Cheryl Chow
Debadutta Dash
Rich Gurtiza
Kay Hirai
Michelle Huynh
Michael Itti
Helen Kay
Hyeok Kim
Ruthann Kurose
Marie Kurose-Woo
Tony Lee
Bettie Sing Luke
Paul Mar
Diane Narasaki
Quang Nguyen
Mark Okazaki
Lua Pritchard
Bob Santos
Sili Savusa
Dolores Sibonga
Al Sugiyama
Sue Taoka
Gloria Lung Wakayama
Michael Woo
Mei-lin Wu

Editor’s note: Ryan Pangilinan is one of Northwest Asian Weekly’s reporters. He was assigned to report on Asian female Palin supporters. Pangilinan couldn’t find enough individuals to support a full article and thus, he reformulated his experiences into this commentary, which consists of only his opinions and is not Northwest Asian Weekly’s official stance.

I like challenges. It’s the reason why I am addicted to “Jeopardy,” trying every year to be a contestant on the show whenever they hold open casting on the Internet. That being said, when Northwest Asian Weekly assigned me to track down Asian American women who identify with Alaskan governor and Republican vice president nominee, Sarah Palin, I jumped at the chance.

Part of taking challenges, however, is accepting the possibility of failure, which is only true in a technical sense for the purpose of this article. Let me explain.

This article was a natural extension of a blog post I made in another publication two weeks ago, in which I asked the family members I know who are registered Republicans, why they were going to vote for Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin.

In the post, titled, “The Open Challenge,” I urged my family to make a list of the top 10 reasons why they were jumping on the McCain/Palin bandwagon, without mentioning their church or God. Maybe it was a little cruel, but it seems to me that McCain/Palin supporters seem to be people who forget that there’s a constitutional schism between church and state.

I think that this is particularly true of Gov. Palin, who rides on the Christian coattails more so than Sen. McCain. To wit, I didn’t think I would have any difficulty finding Asian American women who wanted to share their 2 cents on why they liked Gov. Palin. My litmus test for this was my mother, who said that she liked “Palin’s attitude.”

When I mentioned that Gov. Palin also forced women who were rape victims to pay for their own rape kits, she simply shrugged and said that she wasn’t going to vote because her church does not support voting.

Still, I thought I would have more luck with my assorted aunts who belong to a Baptist church in Lynnwood — the same ones who were mentioned in the post that spawned this idea to begin with. Yet when I spoke to one of my cousins last week, he mentioned that his mom — a longtime Republican — was voting for Obama and Biden.

Hope wasn’t completely lost, though. In researching interviewees for another article, I came across an API Republican delegate from New Jersey. Surely she would explain to me Gov. Palin’s appeal, not just to women, but specifically Asian American women. Like all the rest, those calls were never returned.
None of this made sense to me until I took a step back and looked at Palin’s platform. I thought a lot about the interviews she was giving and how she carried herself in the recent vice presidential debates. Many people call her an embarrassment, dumb or misinformed. She might be all those things, but in my opinion, I just think that she’s narrow-minded.

Gov. Palin’s platform is that she’s appealing to the so-called “average American” or “Joe Six-Pack,” as she calls them. I suppose, strategically, this seems like a good idea. Americans, in general, find intellects to be somewhat threatening because people want a leader they can relate to.
The problem with Palin’s take on the average American is that white Protestant Americans are diminishing, according to a census projection. In 2042, minorities will collectively be the majority, as the white population will fall under 50 percent.

To assume that nobody outside of the current majority exists is ridiculous. This is the reason why I feel like my search for female API supporters for Gov. Palin has been a complete wash.

While Asian American Republicans do exist, no one wants to admit that they are undermined and not recognized by one of the major leaders of their party. I’m sure that many people will read this and tell me that I didn’t try hard enough; the truth is that nobody wants to throw their support behind someone who will not consider them, party loyalty or not. At least Sen. McCain has recognized APIs, even if it hasn’t been in the most flattering of references.

The truth is that APIs have been marginalized for years, especially API women, and for all her hockey-mom charm, Sarah Palin doesn’t represent us, nor does she recognize that we’re growing in numbers — not just in terms of a population of people, but also as a politically and socially active group. Gov. Palin might be a hockey mom, but I’ll take mahjong any day, and I bet my aunts would, too.

Ryan Pangilinan can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.

By Stacy Nguyen
Northwest Asian Weekly

Do celebrity endorsements really make a difference?

Oprah has certainly captivated the whole nation, but will that translate into actual votes? Many celebrity endorsements — like publicity hound Heidi Montag’s endorsement of McCain — don’t warrant much more than a fleeting thought.

Warren G. Harding is widely credited by historians as the first president to have utilized celebrity endorsements. He was backed by film stars like Lillian Russell, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and Al Jolson.

Perhaps most famous of all is John F. Kennedy’s association with the Rat Pack and stars like Marilyn Monroe and Marlene Dietrich.

Though historians debate over how much celebrity endorsements actually affect campaigns, one thing is true — our society has never been more obsessed with Hollywood, and celebrity endorsements can potentially inspire more young people to go the polls than ever before.

Obama’s endorsements

It’s not surprising that Obama made more of splash in liberal Hollywood than his opponent McCain. Compiled here are famous Asian American endorsements for Obama, though Obama does garner the endorsements of many other famous individuals.

Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-HI), the first U.S. Senator of Native Hawaiian ancestry and currently the only Chinese American member of the Senate went on record saying, “I want to add a different voice to those who believe Senator Obama would make a fine President. He is the antidote we need to cure Washington of the uninspired, partisan politics that has plagued our country far too long.”

Famous Chinese American novelist Maxine Hong Kingston said, “I trust Barack Obama, who was raised in Indonesia and Hawai’i, to have in his heart the values that Asian American and Pacific Islander people hold dear — family, beautiful community, aloha.”

Other endorsements include:
Eric Byler, director of “Americanese,” a film based on Shawn Wong’s novel.
Margaret Cho, comedienne and political activist
Kelly Hu, actress known for her role as Lady Deathstrike in “X2”
Jin, first Asian American rapper to be signed to a major record label
Daniel Dae Kim, actor known for his role on ABC’s “Lost”
Ken Leung, actor whose breakthrough performance was in the film “Shanghai Kiss”
Lisa Ling, television journalist and former “The View” co-host
Lucy Liu, actress known for her role in the “Charlie’s Angels” films
Derek Lam, fashion designer from San Francisco
Indra Nooyi, CEO of PepsiCo
Kal Penn, actor most famous for starring in the film, “Harold and Kumar go to White Castle”
M. Night Shyamalan, award-winning director of “The Sixth Sense”
Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, actor known for his role in “Memoirs of a Geisha”
Alexander Wang, famous fashion designer
Vera Wang, famous fashion designer

McCain endorsements

McCain is not as popular a candidate within Hollywood as Obama, though he does garner the backing of some notable names, both from some people of color and white celebrities. He does, however, lack in Asian American celebrity endorsements.

Steve Forbes, the editor-in-chief of Forbes magazine and himself a former presidential candidate said of McCain, “More and more Americans will be impressed by John McCain’s efforts to reform our convoluted, growth-retarding, anti-opportunity tax code.”

Actor Erik Estrada, known for his role as Francis “Ponch” Poncherello on the late 1970s TV show ChiPs, said, “I always admired him and I consider him one of my heroes because of what he has been through, the fact also that he is a loving father, terrific husband from what I hear. And he’s a good man, he’s a man’s man and I want to support him and I want him to be my next president. And I will do what I possibly can.”

Other endorsements include:
Daddy Yankee (Ramon Ayala), Latin recording artist
Pat Boone, singer and popular performer during the 1950s
Dean Cain, quarter-Japanese actor best known for playing the titular character in “Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman”
Robert Duvall, Academy Award-winning actor
Clint Eastwood, Academy Award-winning actor and director
Elisabeth Hasselbeck, co-host of “The View”
Lorenzo Lamas, actor best known for his starring role in show “The Renegade”
Arnold Palmer, former PGA player
Joan Rivers, comedienne and award show commentator
Nolan Ryan, Hall of Fame baseball pitcher
Tom Selleck, actor better known for his role on show “Magnum P.I.”
Sylvester Stallone, actor best known for his titular roles in the “Rocky” and “Rambo” film franchises
Jon Voight, Academy Award-winning actor

Stacy Nguyen can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.

Northwest Asian Weekly

The two issues that concern most Americans regarding health care are the number of uninsured and affordability. About 47 million Americans, or nearly one in six, are uninsured.

Compared to many other developed nations, the number of uninsured in the United States is embarrassingly high. As health care costs rise, the number of uninsured individuals threatens to increase.

Health care costs have skyrocketed in recent years. In the past eight years, employer-based premiums rose 100 percent. The cost to the worker for health coverage rose 143 percent; 10 percent in the past year alone.

Not only has the price for coverage outpaced the increase in employee pay and inflation, but the out-of-pocket costs (deductibles, co-pays, etc.) have also gone up 115 percent since 2000. The U.S. spends more of its gross domestic product on health care than almost any other developed country.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, Asian Americans are generally in better health and are less likely to have chronic disease than other ethnic groups. But of the 13 million Asian Americans in the United States, 18 percent (or 2.4 million) do not have health insurance. This is greater than the uninsured rate for white Americans at 12 percent. Asian Americans are also less likely than white Americans to have employer- sponsored coverage.

Sen. Obama’s plan

The heart of Obama’s plan is the development of the National Health Insurance Exchange which will include a new, public insurance plan as well as government regulated offerings from private insurers. Americans and businesses will be able to purchase one of these private plans or enroll in the public plan.

This plan will ensure eligibility for the millions of uninsured as well as offer the freedom to keep your current provider if you are already insured. While government oversight over the health insurance industry is daunting to some, the intentions are to lower costs and improve efficiency and portability.
Obama’s plan will not, as some have suggested, design a single payer system. Rather, it will allow competition among private insurers but guarantee benefits for ordinary citizens.

Rolling out a new government program has considerable expenses. Sen. Obama promises that by repealing President Bush’s tax cuts on people making more than $250,000, as well as the decreased expenditures associated with improved efficiency, this plan can be implemented without raising taxes for 98 percent of Americans.

Sen. McCain’s plan

McCain’s plan does not include a large new government initiative like the National Health Insurance Exchange. His goal is to put money back into the hands of Americans by offering a $2,500 tax credit to individuals who purchase health insurance ($5,000 tax credit for families) and encouraging them to shop the insurance marketplace across state lines. He believes that with cash in hand, competition for your dollars will lower costs, improve quality and thereby reduce the number of uninsured.

The marketplace does not traditionally make guarantees to serve all people. As such, there will still be some Americans that will not be able to acquire coverage. For these individuals, Sen. McCain proposes a Guaranteed Access Plan that would allow states to develop local models to ensure access for all people.

In the spirit of limited federal intervention, these plans would primarily be state regulated but McCain promises the cooperation of the federal government, as well as subsidies, to facilitate the process.

The actual benefit to individual voters depends on a number of dizzying calculations. Income, pre-existing health conditions, current insurance status, whether or not you own a business, your employer’s response to the proposals and other variables will determine your total out of pocket cost and insurance coverage. Even so, a recent analysis by the Lewin group may help guide your decisions.

Both plans would significantly reduce the number of uninsured across almost all income brackets. Obama would insure an additional 26.6 million while McCain would insure 21.1 million. Obama’s plan would promote a slight increase in employer-sponsored coverage while McCain’s plan would likely see a loss, as employees shop for more affordable private insurance.

Under McCain, the number of people under private insurance will increase while Obama will drive more people into public insurance. The average family’s health care expenditures will decrease under both plans but McCain’s plan will save three to five times as much Obama’s.
For example, a family making $50,000 to $75,000 will save $483 under Obama and $1,927 under McCain. A family making $30,000 to $39,999 will save $148 under Obama and $1,410 under McCain.

Either plan is likely to be helpful to most Americans as they are both departures from the current, broken insurance paradigm. Ultimately, your vote may depend on how you see the role of government.

John McCain will emphasize the free market economy and give you back more money to let you make your decisions. Barack Obama will move the private sector under the umbrella of the federal government to better regulate the industry. One candidate emphasizes choice; the other security.

Peter Jo can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.

Northwest Asian Weekly

After nearly three decades of living, working and going to school in this country, I finally took the oath of citizenship earlier this year. To my great astonishment, my parents were not far behind. What took us so long? Why had we waited until this past year to apply for citizenship?

For me the reason was simple. I had permanent resident status. With the exception of voting and serving on jury duty, I failed to see any immediate tangible benefits to obtaining citizenship.

In short, spending the time and money on becoming a naturalized citizen was simply not as high a priority as it probably should have been. Though I am a bit ashamed to admit it now, more immediate materialistic desires took precedence.

Mr. Shahzad Q. Qadri, an attorney who specializes in the area of immigration and naturalization at Adorno Yoss Caley Dehkhoda Qadri in Bellevue, Wash., acknowledges that “some clients wait only the minimum of five years before applying for naturalization, while others reside in this country for 20 to 25 years or more before applying.” The reasons for this range are as diverse as his clientele.

For many, applying for U.S. citizenship means relinquishing citizenship status from their country of origin. For instance, in the past, immigrants from India would lose their property rights in India if they chose to gain citizenship status in the U.S. Imagine gaining the right to vote, only to lose your land or house in your country of origin.

However, Qadri concedes that many are motivated by the recent changes in the U.S. immigration policy to get their applications in before the requirements become more stringent.

It is interesting to note that for many immigrants in this country, the cost of applying for citizenship is becoming increasingly out of reach. According to the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), a nonprofit research group, in 2007, 34 percent of immigrants lacked heath insurance as compared to 13 percent native born citizens.

Furthermore, CIS’s analysis of the March 2007 U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey (CPS) shows that 40.1 percent of immigrants live in or near poverty. Clearly, when faced with supporting a family or meeting day-to-day needs of food and shelter, the importance of citizenship falls by the wayside.
With the dramatic rise in application fees, from $330 to $675 (including fingerprinting) on July 30, 2007, many immigrants who would otherwise have been complacent with their legal status rushed to submit their application for citizenship before the fee increase.

According to Qadri, wait times for processing of citizenship applications currently average about nine to 12 months in Washington state. In the past, it had only taken about six months to process. He also notes that processing times on the East Coast may be longer due to different servicing centers.
So, for a husband and wife, the total application cost to apply for citizenship prior to July 30, 2007, would have been $660 ($330 doubled). However, presently it would cost that same couple $1,350 to apply for citizenship ($675 doubled).

Aside from the obvious right to vote that citizenship affords, Qadri believes that some of his clients ultimately apply for citizenship due to the perception of greater protections and “security” under the law that it affords.

As a permanent resident, it is possible to be deported by judicial order if one commits a “crime of moral turpitude” (such as murder, kidnapping or robbery) within five years of entry.

In addition to the new fees, all applicants who file their Application for Naturalization on or after Oct. 1, 2008, now have to contend with a newly redesigned naturalization test. Qadri voices his concern that for many non-English speaking immigrants, “While it may or may not be their intention, the new test could serve as an effective tool to deny citizenship.” However, as the changes have just taken place, it is too soon to tell what effect the new test will eventually have on the rates of citizenship in this country.

This is why Northwest Asian Weekly is endorsing Senator Obama in the 2008 Presidential Election.
We did not arrive at this endorsement lightly. It’s not about the glitter and the glitz — it doesn’t matter to us if he’s a “rock star.” It’s not even about our pride, our secret hope to see a person of color as our president.

Rather, it’s about integrity, intelligence and empathy — the fact that one man has the ability to move and inspire an entire generation of young people like no other. It’s about looking around at our current state of disarray and having a leader that makes every one of us Americans — rich, poor, man, woman — believe that the possibilities are limitless, that there is no wall that can confine us, that “change” is really here.

There is a misconception floating about — and that is when one minority group is strong, another is weakened. If a Black man becomes president, somehow Asian Americans will become minimized. There is no logic in this. It’s an irrational fear, and we cannot allow ourselves to vote based on fear. We ought to vote based on hope, on the possibility of what America can become.

We will not back someone who voted against raising the federal minimum wage, who is pushing a bare-bones health care plan, who has no plans to curb government spending at all. According to a report by the non-partisan Tax Policy Center, McCain’s tax plan is an extension of Bush’s tax cuts, which will end up raising our national debt by 50 percent over the next decade.

In 1983, McCain opposed creating a holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr. despite it being hugely popular with a House vote of 338 to 90. McCain also voted against the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which granted reparations to Japanese Americans who had been wrongly interned by the U.S. government during WWII.

During this current campaign, where Obama has gone on record supporting same-sex civil unions, giving gay couples the same legal rights as heterosexual marriages, McCain has consistently avoided dealing with the issue, instead opting to leave it up to states.

However, when he has been prodded on whether he personally supported same-sex civil unions, he said, “I do not.” He supported the failed 2006 Arizona initiative to ban gay marriage. Likewise, he’s supporting California’s proposition 8, upcoming in 2008.

As Asian Americans, how can any of us feel right supporting a man who voted against redress? How can we feel right in supporting a man who doesn’t believe that civil rights are a priority? As a group with a deep history of racial discrimination by our own government, how can we feel like we will be heard this time around?

We want a president that values diversity, who will uphold the principle that makes America unique and strong — that all men and women are created equal. The evidence is in Obama’s staff, which is very diverse. McCain’s is not.

To the detractors who harp on Obama’s lack of experience — we only need to point to Bush as an example of how the formula doesn’t always work. For us, we value character and judgment before experience. It’s more valuable to have a leader who makes the right decision for the first time rather than one who makes the wrong one because he has already done it before.

Imagine how America’s image would change internally with a man who is less prone to resort to brute force. Imagine our country led by someone who has refused to stoop down to dirty politics, who tolerated racist mudslinging without retaliating. Imagine how America would look with a man, who built his grassroots campaign from the ground up, who knows us, our lives, our challenges, our dreams.

Northwest Asian Weekly

“We have often been overlooked,” Elaine Akagi, educator and past president of JACL, said. “Due to the small number of API voters, so it is important that all eligible API voters are registered and vote.”

In 1993, when Bill Clinton started shifting the U.S. politics from a Republican to a Democratic administration, many would have described Asian Americans as the “invisible” minority. A group wrought with language obstacles and cynical views of government due to experiences in home countries, Asian Americans did not participate in the American political arena on a significant scale — at least not a scale that would have drawn party interest.

As stated in a report by Leadership Education for Asian Pacifics Inc. (LEAP), language “was the most frequently cited barrier to engagement in the Asian American community.”

Another prominent deterrent cited in the report is the lack of media coverage about “important political and policy issues, especially within the Asian American ethnic media.” Ethnic media is especially crucial to Asian American communities as they are often the only news source for immigrants.

Because Asian Americans sometimes experience a “reluctance to speak up/speak out based on cultural norms,” political and civic engagement activities are sometimes incompatible with cultural norms.

This is changing, appropriately at a time when the nation is on the brink of a history-making presidential election.

“You can’t take the API vote for granted,” said Akemi Matsumoto, who is a Bellevue Community College advisor and an activist. “Asian Americans have learned in the last election that they did not do much in the Bush election. He won and they were shocked. With this election, Asian Americans have to work hard to mobilize their community. You cannot complain unless you do something and participate.”

Asian American civic and political engagement has become a prominent issue because of the group’s population growth. From 1990 to 2007, the Asian American population nearly doubled, going from 7.3 million to 13.4 million. By 2030, the Census Bureau has projected the population to be 22.6 million — 6.2 percent of the population.

According the LEAP’s report, party identification is central in shaping how Asian Americans act on politics. The picture we have grown up with is that the majority of Asian Americans are foreign born (the highest of any immigrant population in the U.S.). Because of this, it can be difficult for this group to develop emotional connections to candidates who do not speak their language or have a shared background. Additionally it is difficult for different Asian ethnic groups to reach out to one another to organize because they don’t speak the same language.

However, as the population ages and grows, the picture tomorrow will have more assimilated English-speaking second and third generation Asian Americans. As this group of Pan-Asians grow, they will become an increasingly important voting bloc.

Here in Washington state, we only need to look back four years to the 2004 governor race between Gregoire and Rossi with Gregoire barely edging ahead by 129 votes. Now in 2008, history is looking to repeat itself with another super-tight race.

“Every vote matters in every election,” said Albert Shen, Board President of NW Coalition of Asian Pacific Americans. “It is even more imperative that APIs take one hour out of their busy lives to vote in this upcoming election on the future of our children and this planet.”

Many Indian CEOs are facing visa quota restrictions for their skilled employees, says Murthy Kalkura, president of the India Association of Western Washington. Something that he feels doesn’t get top priority by local elected officials. “In order for the officials to understand our challenges with the immigration quota, or lack of high curriculum standards at schools,” said Kalkura, “it is imperative that we exercise our rights and show them the strength of the Indian constituents. The fact of the matter is, if we don’t vote, we are forfeiting our right to make a difference.”

As a group whose voter turnout (37 percent of Asian American adults vote) has thus far consistently been far below Blacks (where 68 percent of adults vote) and whites (73 percent), there is untapped potential here.

Information for this article was supplied by a report by Leadership Education for Asian Pacifics Inc. (LEAP), with collaboration from the UC AAPI Policy Multi-Campus Research Program (MRP).

Assunta Ng contributed to this report.

Stacy Nguyen can be reached at stacy@nwasianweekly.com.

With a month left before Election Day, I am reminded of my first voting booth experience. Still in elementary school, I accompanied my mom to our polling site in Brooklyn, N.Y., as her translator.

Although the poll worker wore an uncertain expression on her face and hesitated, she obliged as I helped my mom fill out the forms and walked into the booth with her, where I helped my mom vote for the first time. At that age, I had no idea the importance of the right that my mom was exercising as a citizen. Already a frequent translator for my family, I neither understood nor appreciated the significance of my role on that Election Day.

The Democratic Party appreciates my mother’s experience and that of others who need language and other assistance at the voting booth. Democrats understand that to strengthen democracy, we need to outreach to all of our communities.

That is why Obama for America has Asian American Pacific Islander field teams throughout the country registering voters, knocking on doors and making in-language phone calls. That is why the Democratic National Committee has established task forces such as the Asian American and Pacific Islander Voter Protection Task Force, of which I am the Washington coordinator. We work to ensure that all rights guaranteed by our federal and state laws are protected for all voters, regardless of ethnicity or English proficiency.

Asian American and bilingual attorneys can make a difference

As bilingual attorneys, we have a crucial role to serve in ensuring that limited English proficient (LEP) voters are given equal access to the polls. In Washington, Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities make up 7 percent of the state population. AAPIs, along with Latinos, are the fastest growing major racial or ethnic groups in King County, making up 14 percent of its population. More than a third (37 percent) of Asian Americans are considered LEP.

Coupled with the close margins in our state’s recent elections, the need for strong voter protection efforts cannot be overstated. Most illustrative is the 2004 governor’s race with an initial margin of only 42 votes, a margin just slightly more than one-thousandth of a percent of the 3 million votes cast, and a final margin of victory of 133 votes.

Although studies conducted after the 2004 election show that AAPI voters are turning out to vote in unprecedented numbers, many continue to face obstacles at the polls and had problems casting their vote — particularly voters with limited English skills.

Among other reported abuses, AAPI and LEP voters have reported hostile treatment from poll workers, being provided wrong information on voting procedures and rights, or not provided any assistance at all. Whether due to the ineffectual training of poll workers or plain distrust of AAPI or LEP voters, it is clear that there is a particular need in our community for bilingual attorneys to get involved in all aspects of the elections, whether as a poll worker, poll watcher or a resource for voters who are language minorities.

Join our voter protection team

We are seeking other AAPI and bilingual attorneys and law students to join our voter protection team. There are many ways that you can help: become a poll worker or poll watcher, help develop training materials on common problems facing AAPI voters, become a volunteer translator for written materials distributed in battleground states and be a bilingual resource on Election Day.

Please sign up for Barack Obama’s voter protection team at www.barackobama.com/counselforchange.

If you are interested in volunteering to protect the Asian American and Pacific Islander vote, please contact me at liz.lee@democraticlawyers.org.
Join Democrats across the country in helping to elect Barack Obama as our next president. And join me in this task force to ensure that voting rights of all of our communities are protected.

In addition to her volunteer work with the DNC National Lawyers Council, Elizabeth Lee is an attorney with Perkins Coie LLP.

Elizabeth Lee can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.