GBM: Elections Discussion

7:02 PM meeting called to order.

How many Asian Americans do you know in politics?
(list)

Why do we not know about these people? Why do we not care?
• people don’t want to start trouble
• illegal immigrants don’t want to cause trouble/draw attention to themselves
• there are so many Asian Americans who aren’t registered—why? not enough bilingual information at voting places, people turned away because of name confusion, signs turned upside-down . . . voting barriers make it too complicated for many people; we need to educate the people who run the voting places to teach them how to make things more accessible

Who do you think Asian Americans will vote for? 2/3 of the Asian American community votes Democrat, but Hillary or Obama?
• most people are voting Hillary; they liked the previous Clinton Administration; Obama is good too because he is trying to reach out across ethnicities, but he gets more young voters
• Hillary has been realizing how much money Asian American voters give
• Obama in one of his speeches made racist comment against Asian American community; Asian American associations in California made campaign against him?
• People see Hillary did a good job before
• carry-over from before: people don’t want to rock the boat, and Obama’s campaign is so about radical change that people don’t want to go for it
• coasts: most Asian Americans on the coast
• Hillary Clinton: hard worker; distanced from her husband (sort of)
• lots of famous young Asian Americans are very supportive of Obama: Kelly Hu, Eric Byler (we brought him last year), etc.
• hierarchy of race supercedes numbers
• Asian Americans used to be more conservative? Family values mesh better with Republican views
• I’ve realized that there’s a rising Asian American population who wants their voices to be heard—I never realized it before; I’m becoming less apathetic
• maybe the conservative ideals stem from affirmative action issues—our parents want us to go to the top schools; today, we want our voices to be heard and this is a really radical thing
• Asian Americans enter the workforce but still face a glass ceiling; they are never in executive positions; Asian Americans are valued for being silent and being hard-working

Is being an activist the new way of assimilation? Is it the “new thing”?
• but there have been tons of Asian American activists before, in the 60s . . . it’s not new, per se
• but it’s more mainstream now – more people are doing it
• people of color in general: their parents want them to have stability, so of course their parents aren’t going to want them to work for nonprofits or be activists over doctors or lawyers
• we are turning into a consumer culture—being a citizen = the ability to consume, we ignore politics, we are so much more apathetic now than we used to be
• civil work among college students has increased


People are pissed because of the war.
• but then why aren’t there more rallies against Iraq? There are, but the coverage there isn’t nearly as big as the Darfur-related movement
o that’s because any humanitarian issue is “easier”—it’s always a red flag, you don’t have to know as much about the issue to protest

there’s also censorship of the media – all letters from Iraq censored by government

huge increase in electronic media—this is our outlet, instead of rallying in the quad; blogs and online debates have replaced the previous discourse

7:58 PM meeting adjourned.