GOTV Door Knocking with VietLead

With this weekend being the final push before election day on Tuesday November 8, VietLead dispatched a team of volunteers to door knock in Southwest Philadelphia encouraging residents to get out to vote. I joined the team as an independent volunteer, as did two other people, but there were also four first year Swarthmore Asian Organization students, two representatives from the Asian Pacific American Labor Association in D.C., and four VietLead members, including the president of VietLead Nancy Nguyen.FullSizeRender 16 Continue reading

Cathy Dang of CAAAV on “New Conversations on Race and Asians”

On October 25, the Bryn Mawr College Asian Students Association invited the president of CAAAV: Organizing Communities Cathy Dang to speak on the current state of race relations and CAAAV’s record of helping Asian Americans in the New York City community. CAAAV is one of the most established Asian American activism organizations in the New York area, and their dedication to lobbying for housing rights, workers unions, and police reform can be traced back to the early 1980s.unnamed-2
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Phone Banking & Debate Watch Party ft. Constance Wu

On Wednesday October 19, I participated in my first phone banking on behalf of the Democratic National Party. The event was hosted by Pennsylvania AAPI for Hillary (AAPI = Asian American Pacific Islander), and the goal of the night was to get registered Democrats in Philadelphia to volunteer for the campaign. Volunteer efforts include door knocking and phone banking to encourage people to vote. ABC Series Fresh Off the Boat star Constance Wu was also present to cheer us on and to talk about her support for Hillary. The phone banking event was followed by a debate watch party, also with Constance, at the Field House.IMG_5816 Continue reading

Grassroots AAPI Voter Registration

This past Saturday, I attended a voter registration workshop hosted by Asian Americans United, APIAVote, Cambodian Associations of Greater Philadelphia, and VietLead. The goal was to increase voter participation among Asian Americans in Chinatown. I had never registered anyone else to vote except myself, so I was curious what the process looked like on the grassroots level.14332973_10154900397662923_7923699760315469717_n Continue reading