Last week, 63 percent of Asian Americans nationwide voted for Obama — and that was no accident. In addition to the Obama campaign’s outstanding Asian American vote program, AAA-Fund and a number of APA groups and leaders went to the mat for Obama.AAA-Fund joined up with Governor Gary Locke and Secretary Norman Mineta of the America’s Opportunity Fund, and placed a nationwide full-page ad in the World Journal on the Saturday and Sunday before Election Day. (World Journal is the leading Chinese-language newspaper in the country.) Our ad encouraged readers to vote for Senator Obama and offered several policy reasons why he was a better candidate for the Chinese-American community. It also included the names of leading Chinese-Americans who were supporting him, including cellist Yo Yo Ma, playwright David Henry Hwang, Governor Locke, Secretary Mineta, and others.
During the last weekend before the election, we also placed full-page and half-page, in-language ads in three leading Vietnamese newspapers, two leading Korean newspapers, and a leading Filipino periodical, all with wide circulations in the battleground state of Virginia.
We also helped to fund an independent GOTV effort in the Filipino community in the battleground state of Nevada, during the last weekend leading up to the election.
On Election Day, both Virginia and Nevada went for Obama.
Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders played a critical role in making it happen.
