LETTERS

Remember to vote on Nov. 4

Posted

In 2008, as the country’s attention was focused on swing states, I was working in Boston with the Asian Community Development Corporation. Our organization’s offices housed a polling site, right in the heart of Boston’s Chinatown.

I remember that Election Day more than I remember any other Election Day — even when my own name was on a ballot. There were lines out the door at our polling site: thousands of Asian-Americans excited and empowered to vote, because they understood how important it was.

Suddenly, I had an epiphany; Rhode Island can do this, and we can do it better.

Just a year later, I ran for local office in Woonsocket, believing that it would be a way to close the racial gap and give my community a voice. While I was able to develop policies that benefited our most vulnerable communities, I was just one person, and it was hard to get even the most popular ideas past the people in power who liked things the way they were. I left office a year ago, and it’s been a year of tremendous growth and development.

The most important thing I’ve learned this year is that in order to create a real democracy in our state and our country, our most marginalized communities must participate. We must vote.

What makes our country great is our fundamental belief in a democracy, what we need to do as citizens is to practice our right to be involved and have our voices heard. Our government must educate voters in innovative and creative ways.

Southeast Asian-Americans know that our families are hardworking and resilient, yet we remain an invisible community in Rhode Island. As an invisible community, we lack much political power. Nobody has ever encouraged Southeast Asians to join the political process and vote.

This year, the Center for Southeast Asians, where I serve as Director of Programs, partnered with Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote to support our vision of a civically engaged Southeast Asian community in Rhode Island. With this support, we ran a Get Out the Vote campaign, not for any politician, but for our Southeast Asian communities. To date, we’ve called close to 13,000 registered voters through our phone banking efforts, we’ve knocked on doors in Woonsocket, Providence and Cranston, we’ve mailed out close to 10,000 reminders to voters, we made a music video and we even marched in this year’s Autumnfest Parade!

And on October 25, the Lao Americans, a group formed from our civic engagement initiative, organized an event that brought out 150 Laotians for a Get Out the Vote rally. The community was pleased to see many leaders attend the event, including Congressman David Cicilline, Woonsocket Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt, Cranston Mayor and Gubernatorial Candidate Allan Fung, State Representatives Stephen Casey and Michael Morin, Woonsocket Police Chief Thomas Carey, State Senator and Candidate for Attorney General Dawson Hodgson, Candidate for General Treasurer Seth Magaziner, and Woonsocket City Councilors Garret Mancieri and Melissa Murray. For many community members, this was the first time they were able to meet their federal, state and local leaders.

I’d like to thank all of those who have helped and volunteered their time to participating in this important initiative. The real indicator of success will be after November 4, when the election hype ends and the real work towards racial equity continues.

Remember to vote on Tuesday!

Vimala D. Phongsavanh

Woonsocket

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