Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Engagement and the 2020 Elections
By: Harvard Ash Center
Tags: Voting, Harvard, Democracy, Elections, Election 2020

The national reckoning on racial inequity, amidst the continued spread of Covid-19, has spurred major efforts to ensure full participation and a strong turnout in November’s elections. This is particularly true among the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community — the fastest-growing minority group and a major voting bloc. The Ash Center hosted a conversation with leading practitioners in the field on the importance and state of current efforts to engage AAPI voters, AAPIs’ role and connection to the Black Lives Matter movement and the stakes of the upcoming election.

Alexis Anderson-Reed, chief executive officer of State Voices, a multiracial, multiethnic and multicultural community of advocates, activists and organizers committed to building people power to transform the lives of our communities:

“Some people think about civic engagement just as volunteering or registering to vote, or getting people out to vote. And yes, that is part of it, but it’s not all of it. It also includes advocacy. It includes issue organizing, leadership development and movement building. And so it’s this intersectional approach that really centers people, it centers communities, in deep authentic partnership and relationship with one another. And I truly believe this is what is key to increasing voter turnout.”

Terry Ao Minnis, senior director of the census and voting programs for Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC):

“For Asian-Americans, more than a majority have a strong preference for voting by mail or absentee. And that’s not necessarily too surprising for a number of reasons, the primary of which is that Asian Americans have a very huge barrier that they face in trying to cast their ballots, and that is the language barrier…and so voting by mail is one way in which limited English proficient voters have found to have greater access to the ballot.”

“We know that historically, Asian American voters have faced challenges and intimidation at the polls simply because of how they look or how they sound. There is the stereotype of Asian Americans being perpetual foreigners. And so the automatic suspicion, simply because of how the voter looks or how they sound, that they must be trying to vote fraudulently because there’s no way they could possibly be eligible to vote.”

Sayu Bhojwani, founder and president, New American Leaders:

“Part of the challenge that Asian American voters face is not just the challenges that exist within our communities in terms of lack of information or language access. It’s also that there is a narrative that suggests that the voters we need to care about are white voters. And so there’s a lot of effort that’s placed in aggregating the white voter population. So that’s white working-class voters, white college-educated women. You hear these sub-groups of white voters being talked about and thereby I think what the message that we get around that is that these voters matter. And then you hear about Asian Americans and Latinos and Black voters without any disaggregation.”

“Why Asian American candidates matter is because they are the key messengers and ambassadors for mobilizing voters, and they’re not just mobilizing Asian American voters, but they’re mobilizing anyone in their district…What we’re seeing is that it’s possible for Asian American candidates to represent any district in America in the same way that a white man can represent any district in America. What we’re not seeing enough of is targeted resources and investment in understanding Asian American voting behaviors and reaching those Asian American voters.”

Watch the full event video