Asian Avenue magazine

Asian Americans getting involved in the political race.

From August 25-28, downtown Denver will be bustling with a projected 50,000 visitors from across the nation taking part in one of the hottest elections in decades. According to the City of Denver, the Democratic National Convention will be the largest event in Denver’s history, with approximately 1,500 special events during its four-day span.

The convention will be held at the Pepsi Center, wrapped around an environmentally conscious, greening theme. The goal is to make this the greenest convention in history, with environmental standards, recycling areas, and partnerships with local restaurants to provide healthy dining options for convention guests.

The city’s 38,000 hotel rooms are filling up and an additional 12,000 people are looking for lodging elsewhere. From Littleton to Boulder, local residents are subleasing apartments and homes in late August for up to $2,300 per night (in LoDo) on Craigslist.

The convention will bring huge economic opportunities for metro Denver and the mountain region. With the welcoming of Senator Barack Obama, members of the Democratic Party, political leaders and delegates, comes an estimated impact of more than $160 million to Denver’s economy.

The DNC is…
So what exactly is the DNC? The Democratic National Convention is held every four years to nominate and confirm the party’s candidate for President and Vice President. It signifies the formal end of the primary election period and the beginning of the general election season.

The presidential nominee is chosen in a series of state caucuses and primary elections prior to the convention. Delegates from all 50 states attend the convention to cast their votes for the party’s candidate. In addition to the confirmation of its nominees, the goal of the convention is to adopt a comprehensive campaign platform and unify the party.

Barack Obama plans to accept the Democratic presidential nomination on the last night of the convention. In a break from tradition, he will speak at Invesco Field, the 76,000-seat stadium, instead of the Pepsi Center. John F. Kennedy was the last presidential candidate in either party to deliver an acceptance speech in a large outdoor stadium before a crowd of tens of thousands. He accepted his nomination at the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1960.

What this means for Denver
The convention is a perfect chance to showcase Denver to the world. Governor Bill Ritter says in a statement, “The convention will have a significant economic impact not just on Denver, but it will have a ripple effect across the entire state and the West. This will be great for Denver and great for Colorado. A major reason we were able to compete against a city like New York and ultimately win… is because Denver made important investments in infrastructure.”

Elbra Wedgeworth, president of the Denver Office of Economic Development and chair of the Denver 2008 Convention Host Committee, says, “What’s so exciting about this convention is that we’re going to have over 15,000 media people that are here, some folks for the first time and some international folks that will be promoting Denver, writing stories about neighborhoods, businesses, and other activities.”

“And we might have a corporation head that says, this is a great place, I might want to move my corporation here. So we’re looking at the long term impacts of this, And also it’s opening up doors for other conventions that people previously thought we couldn’t handle because we didn’t have the hotel rooms or so forth, but now we can prove that we can host 35,000 people, have major events, and have other activities to promote Denver and the region.”

More exposure and revenue
The planning committee is organizing efforts to give local businesses more exposure and revenue from the event.

Wedgeworth explains, “What’s really exciting about this convention is that it will be the first time in the history of the party that we’ll have a vendor directory online. Any vendor can apply to be online through our website. We’ll share all the services anyone is looking for. Paperless, it is a greening initiative.
“We feel based on estimates from Boston (where the 2004 Democratic convention was held) that this can generate between 160 to 200 million dollars in direct spending for parties, vendors, and hotel stays. A lot of people come before and hopefully stay after (the Convention).”

Asian American activism takes flight
With so much political energy in the air, Asian Americans have started to get involved nation-wide, by creating Asian American-specific organizations to support both Obama and McCain.

On a local level, students involved with Next Generation Voices established a get-out-the-vote effort and spent the last weekend of June at the Hmong Colorado Radio Festival in Westminster and Cherry Blossom Festival in Denver, registering Asian Americans to vote.

Why is it so important for Asian Americans to get politically engaged this year? According to Archipelago (www.archipelago-inc.com), a Seattle-based apparel company, millions of Asian American voters are largely ignored by the media. The company hopes to draw some attention to this largely-overlooked voting bloc with its newest t-shirt designs.

The shirt, which bears a flag-like design, declares in big, bold letters “Represent. Recognize. The Asian American Vote.” Between the lines of the main text are listed the many ethnic groups that comprise the Asian American community.

Apart from educating the mainstream, Archipelago also seeks to raise awareness within the Asian American community, says Filipino-American Carina de Leon, Archipelago’s CEO. “Our goal was two-fold: to inform mainstream America that Asian American voters also exist and matter, and to encourage fellow Asian Americans to make our voices be heard by participating in the election process,” de Leon says.

To help get the word out about the importance of voting, the company is also offering wholesale packages and free postcards to Asian American activists and organizations involved in get-out-the-vote campaigns.

The Asian American vote
“Our community members must make it a point to vote in this election… because of our strategic positioning in key swing states, which provides us a rare opportunity to decide who will be our next President,” says Shandon Phan, Delegate and Founder of Asian Americans for McCain.

“For example, Virginia will be a key battleground state and there’s a strong APA presence in the state. It is widely recognized that Senator Jim Webb (D) was able to defeat former Senator George Allen (R) thanks to his receiving an unusual outpouring of support from the APA community. APAs overwhelmingly went for him (more than 75% voted for Webb.) The APA vote will be a key factor that determines the outcome of Virginia, and to a certain extent, it could be said to decide the outcome of this election.”

Alvina Yeh, Program Coordinator for APIAVote, adds that Asian Americans need to be involved in every election, not just this year. “I think it’s important for AAPIs to vote every year - not just in presidential cycles. There are important races right in your own city or town. Oftentimes people feel the impact of the local elections more than they can relate to a larger presidential or senate race.

“I think it’s important because it’s our duty,” she says. “Think about others before us who have fought for this right and even those in other countries who would die for a chance to have a say about what’s going on. I know it’s not a perfect system, and it’s one that disenfranchises a lot of people but we’ve got to try to fix it by voicing our vote. It’s one of the strongest ways you can let the leaders know how you want things run.”

Ramey Ko (far right), founder of Asian Americans for Obama, along with other Asian American Texans campaign for Senator Obama.

That visibility is key, says Ramey Ko, delegate and founder of Asian Americans for Obama. “Unless Asian Americans vote, we provide no incentive for anyone to pay attention to our concerns. That isn’t to say that there aren’t wonderful voices out there speaking up for us regardless of what they get out of it, but we’d be very naive to think that that’s enough to produce real change.

Ko personally feels that the great-est issue for the Asian American community is overall invisibility. “Until our community and our perspective are given respect and consideration in the public square, in political debates, and in the mass media, we will continue to be ignored on a whole host of issues. There have been Asian Americans here going all the way back to before the founding of this country.

“It’s time for us to stand up and be heard.” This election year, more than ever, Asian Americans are getting involved in the political arena.

Written By Annie Guo
Asian Avenue magazine