“There isn’t as much awareness, yet about the rising political influence of our community, too. I mean, we are still a smaller population relative to African American, Latinos, etcetera, but that’s not an excuse. They still need to be paying attention to us,” said Marita Etcubañez, senior director of strategic initiatives for Asian American Advancing Justice (AAJC).

As a nonpartisan organization, APIA Vote is focused on increasing political engagement within the AAPI community. They’ve released a biannual survey in collaboration with AAJC and AAPI Data since 2012 outlining where Asian American voters stand.

“I think, unfortunately, people are often daunted by the diversity of our community, because you can’t just run ads in one language and reach all of us. So I acknowledge that there are challenges in effectively reaching our community. But that’s not to say that it shouldn’t be done or that it’s not worth their while,” Etcubañez later said. “There have been some really interesting campaigns that have been run by elected officials that, you know, recruit a team and are able to do outreach in multiple Asian languages. And I think that’s really where, people who are seeking elected office, those are the models they need to look at and follow.”

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