Shooting aftermath: Biden and Harris meeting with AAPI leaders 'very somber;'

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President Joe Biden was moved after listening to AAPI leaders of Georgia.

President Biden's trip to Atlanta was originally supposed to be a pep rally to encourage people to take the coronavirus vaccine and that hope was on the way. The shootings on Tuesday changed all that.

Since he took office, Biden has acted as the consoler-in-chief to those who lost loved ones to the pandemic. Friday, he returned to the familiar role to offer solace to the Asian American community that has been under attack for a year and condolences to the families of the people who lost their lives to a gunman.

He was an hour late for his speaking engagement at a local university because he let his and Vice President Kamala Harris' meeting with Georgia's AAPI leaders run longer than his schedule allowed.

After apologizing and explaining why he was late, Biden said, “I know they feel like there’s a black hole in their chest [...] and that things will never get better.

“Our prayers are with you, and I assure you, the one you lost will always be with you. And the day will come when their memory brings a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eye, as unbelievable as that is now.

“It will take a while, but I promise you it will come. When it does, that’s the day you know you’re going to make it.”

The President continued: "Too many Asian Americans have been walking up and down the streets and worrying, waking up each morning the past year feeling their safety and the safety of their loved ones are at stake. They’ve been attacked, blamed, scapegoated, and harassed. They’ve been verbally assaulted, physically assaulted, killed.

"It’s been a year of living in fear for their lives just to walk down the street. Grandparents leave — to leave — afraid to leave their homes. Small-business owners targeted and gunned down. Attacks on some of the most vulnerable people in our nation — the elderly, low-wage workers, and women.

"In fact, Asian American women suffer twice as many incidents of harassment and violence as Asian American men. We’re learning again what we’ve always known: Words have consequences. It’s the coronavirus. Full stop," referring to the previous administration's frequent use of terms that linked Asians to COVID-19.

"The conversation we had today with the AAPI leaders, and that we’re hearing all across the country, is that hate and violence often hide in plain sight. And it’s often met with silence," said Biden. 

"That’s been true throughout our history, but that has to change — because our silence is complicity. We cannot be complicit," he stressed. "We have to speak out. We have to act."

Biden and Harris were careful not to call the shootings a hate crime but they noted that whatever the motivation of the shooter, the killings are part of the surge of rising hate crimes against Asian Americans in the U.S.

"Racism is real in America and it has always been. Xenophobia is real in America and always has been -- sexism too," said Harris, the first Asian American to be Vice President.

“Asian Americans have been attacked and scapegoated. People who are perceived as Muslim know what it was like to live in our country after 9/11,” Harris said. “For the last year, we've had people in positions of incredible power, scapegoating Asian Americans. People with the biggest pulpits spreading this kind of hate.”

Biden urged the passage of a bill sponsored by Sen. Mazie Hirono and Rep. Grace Meng. The COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act would direct the US Department of Justice to focus on hate crimes against Asians and establish better reporting of such crimes as well as a public education campaign.

Earlier in the Day Biden listened to the concerns of AAPI leaders. The meeting was described as "very somber."

Trump's name came up often during the meeting, said Stephanie Cho, CEO of Asian Americans Advancing Justice. 

"I would like to see the Biden administration come out just as strongly but in support of Asian Americans," to counteract the four years of Trump's harmful rhetoric.

AALDEF survey: Georgia's AAPI voters come through for Democrats

Asian American voters played no small role in the election of Georgia's two new senators, according to a preliminary report by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Georgia's Jan. 5 runoff Senate elections in which the Democratic challengers upset two Republican incumbents is the result of a multi-racial coalition of Asian Americans, Blacks and Latinos.

According to preliminary results of the AALDEF multilingual exit poll on Jan. 5, Asian American voters in Georgia favored both Democratic candidates 2 to 1 over their GOP rivals. Rafael Warnock earned 64% of the vote and Jon Ossoff 68% in the Jan. 5 Senate runoff elections.

AALDEF Executive Director Margaret Fung said: “Asian American voters played a critical role in electing Warnock and Ossoff in two extremely close races that will result in Democratic control of the U.S. Senate. Asian American voters must no longer be ignored in the political process.”

By flipping the two Senate seats, Democrats will have the majority in the Senate. There will be 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans. Vice President Kamala Harris will cast the deciding vote. With control of the Senate, it will be easier for Democrats to pass Biden's policies, most of which would undo or correct Donald Trump's policies particularly on climate change, immigration, health care and foreign relations.

Biden's biggest challenge, though, will be taking control of the coronavirus pandemic that has been ravaging the country and the rest of the world. Trump's mishandling of the virus has resulted in 363,000 deaths due to COVID-19.

The allies of young Black, Latino and Asian American progressives turned Georgia, usually a Republican stronghold, into a battleground state by awarding it's electoral votes to President-elect Joe Biden last November and this Jan. 5, giving the state's two Senate seats to Democrats Warnock and Ossoff.

Key to the new powerful coalition was waking up the Asian American and Pacific Islander electorate, getting them interested in Georgia's politics and getting them excited enough to vote in droves. About 22% of the AAPI voters cast their ballot for the first time.

Many AAPI voters live in the counties north of Atlanta, areas that were among the last to be counted. The results from those suburban voters put Ossoff and Warneck ahead of their GOP opponents where they stayed up until the final count.

AALDEF has conducted its Asian American Exit Poll and monitored polling places in every major election since 1988. This year, AALDEF’s Exit Poll and Poll Monitoring program faced many challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic, mail-in voting, and early voting–all of which created challenges for interacting with voters in real time on Election Day, as has been done in past elections. 

In the Georgia runoff elections, AALDEF volunteers polled more than 270 Asian Americans in Gwinnett, DeKalb, and Fulton counties.

Jerry Vattamala, AALDEF Democracy Program Director, said, “One issue we observed in the runoff elections was that hundreds of voters of color, including Asian American voters, were turned away and told they were at incorrect poll sites. This was particularly egregious where the site to which they were directed was closed. We will continue to work with election officials to investigate these serious voting problems.”

Of all of Georgia's AAPI voters surveyed:

• 29% were Korean, 23% were Asian Indian, 14% were Vietnamese, 13% were Chinese, 8% were Bangladeshi, 4% were Pakistani, and 8% were an Other Asian ethnicities and nationalities.

• 23% were native-born U.S. citizens and 77% were foreign-born naturalized citizens.

• 22% were first-time voters and 78% had voted in previous elections.

• 44% were registered Democrats, 24% were registered Republicans, 28% were independant voters, and 4% were enrolled in another party.

• 33% of all voters were limited English proficient (LEP) and 67% were English proficient.

• 53% were female and 47% were male.

Increased Support for Democratic Senate Candidates in Runoff Elections

Asian American support for Warnock and Ossoff this Jan. 5 appears to have increased from the support that given to the two challengers and Joe Biden received in the November 2020 Presidential election. 

In AALDEF’s Exit Poll in Georgia in November 2020:

• Asian Americans decisively chose Joe Biden over Donald Trump by a margin of 62% to 36%.

• In the U.S. Senate races with identical candidates in November, Asian Americans voted for the Democratic candidates over the Republicans by a margin of 61% to 34%.

• All Asian ethnic groups in the state supported Biden over Trump except for Korean American voters (60% for Trump and 39% for Biden).

• Among voters not enrolled in any party, the breakout was 63% for Biden and 30% for Trump, and among voters affiliated with other parties, 60% for Biden and 20% for Trump.

• First-time voters supported Biden by a wide margin of 61% to 36%.

AALDEF will release a more detailed analysis of its exit poll numbers soon, with specific data related to ethnicity, gender, age, language ability, and nativity, among other data points. Special thanks to all of our volunteers and community partners, particularly the Center for Pan Asian Community Services (CPACS) in Atlanta, for their many years of service to the Asian American community.

Stephanie Cho, executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice’s Atlanta chapter, told the Post that Asian Americans are the "new electorate." She believes the AAPI vote helped the campaigns of Ossof and Warnock in upsetting the Republican incumbents.

"Us, along with Black women voters, along with Latino voters, along with young people, really have changed the trajectory of what Georgia looks like," said Cho.

Georgia On My Mind: AAPI voters could decide who will rule the U.S. Senate

NPR

ANALYSIS:

Asian American voters played a key role in battleground states, according to exit polls taken during the Nov. 3 elections, according to an analysis by a an AAPI advocacy coalition. They can again play a crucial role in Georgia's Jan. 5 runoff elections for U.S. Senate.

Georgia's two senate  runoff between the GOP's Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Democrat Rev. Raphael Warnock and Republican Sen. David Perdue against Democratic challenger Jon Ossoffs could determine which party will have the majority in the U.S. Senate during Joe Biden's first term as President starting Jan. 20, 2021.

Bloomberg News quoted  Sam Park, the first Asian American Democrat elected to the Georgia General Assembly: “There’s a saying that the Asian American community has gone from being a marginalized community to being the margin of victory.That could be very true here in Georgia.”

New data released by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) noted the importance of the AAPI vote in Georgia and three other battleground states: Pennsylvania, Michigan and Nevada.

“Asian Americans, especially new voters, were part of the record turnout of communities of color in the 2020 elections. Asian American voters played an important role in close races in several battleground states, and our voices must not be overlooked in the political process,” said AALDEF Executive Director Margaret Fung.

Except for the Vietnamese and Hmong communities, all other Asian ethnic groups and nationalities voted overwhelmingly for the Democratic ticket of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris over the Republican incumbents Donald Trump and Mike Pence.

The four states in the survey, which for voted for Trump in 2016, flipped and went Democratic earlier this month.

The states were among the last counted and their electoral votes pushed Biden-Harris over the top, giving him enough electoral votes to proclaim the Democrats victors in the closer-than-expected presidential contest.

Georgia's flip is a tribute to the groundwork in registering voters by Stacey Abrams, a former member of the state's House of Representatives and who barely lost in her gubernatorial bid. 

None of the state's top-two vote-getters in the Senate races achieved more than 50% of the votes so by state law, a runoff is necessary. Survey findings may give an indication how Georgia's AAPI electorate will vote in the Jan. 5 runoff. 

The Asian American population has soared in counties surrounding Atlanta in recent years, drawn to the area by jobs in tech, science and medicine. The surge in AAPI voters -- almost a quarter million registered voters, or about 5% of the total voters -- have made them a critical demographic for politicians and marketers.

Highlights of the AALDEF survey of AAPI voters in Georgia:

• Asian Americans decisively chose Joe Biden over Donald Trump by a margin of 62% to 36%.
• In the U.S. Senate races, Asian Americans voted for Democratic candidates over Republicans by a margin of 61% to 34%.
• All Asian ethnic groups in the state supported Biden over Trump except for Korean American voters (60% for Trump and 39% for Biden).
• Among voters not enrolled in any party, the breakout was 63% for Biden and 30% for Trump, and among voters affiliated with other parties, 60% for Biden and 20% for Trump.
• First-time voters supported Biden by a wide margin 61% to 36%.

For the Presidential election, AAPI voters turned out in historic numbers. Despite facing a pandemic, hours-long lines at the polls, language barriers, and heightened fear and intimidation about voting, Asian American and Pacific Islander communities overcame unacceptable barriers to exercise their right to vote. 

Leaning heavily towards Democrats, the chief concerns of AAPI voters are in line with most other Democrats centering on economic issues income inequality and the call for higher taxes on the rich, pollsters say.

They heard the racist rhetoric from the White House and aware of the rise of attacks against their kids in school, the flagging economy shutting down their businesses and the toll the coronavirus has taken on healthcare providers.

Early voting was favored by many of elderly who had to overcome their fear of contracting COVID-19 in order to cat their ballots. 

"Being able to cast my vote with an absentee ballot means my voice still counts.” said 76-year-old Ok Hui Kim, who chose to vote absentee to decrease the risk of being exposed to the virus

The high vote total among AAPI can be attributed to an aggressive and unprecedented multi-lingual registration and get-out-the-vote drive. In the three months prior to the November vote, Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta (Advancing Justice-Atlanta) dialed 92% of the estimated 238,000 eligible AAPI voters across the state. 

AAPI communities across Georgia showed up to vote early and began Election Day having already flexed our power - 50% of registered Asian American voters had already cast their ballots, increasing turnout by 141% since 2016. In Gwinnett County alone, there were three times more AAPI early voters than in 2016, over 30,000 compared to 9,500. Of those, 43% did not vote in 2012, 2016 or 2018, according to Advancing Justice. 

Besides having an impact on the Presidential and Georgia's U.S. Senate races, the huge turnout helped elect Marvin Lim, the first Filipino American to the state legislature. Lim won the primary with 62% of the vote and since the GOP didn't have a candidate to run against him, Lim's Nov. 7 victory was a foregone conclusion.

Lim will represent House District 99, an Atlanta suburb comprised of 85% minorities, 53% of whom are immigrants.

The nation's attention will be on Georgia this Jan. 5, 2021. Both Republicans and Democrats are mobilizing their people and devoting resources to the runoff contest. Already, 6e00,000 voters have requested absentee ballots, tweeted Abrams.

Georgians who didn’t get signed up in time to cast ballots in the Nov. 3 presidential election now have until Dec. 7 to register to vote in the Jan. 5 runoffs. Early voting for the runoffs starts Dec. 14 after a record of nearly 5 million Georgians voted in the general election. Qualified voters can register online with a valid ID through the Georgia Secretary of State’s office.

Democrats worry that without Donald Trump on the ballot to motivate anti-Trump voters, it will be difficult to energize Democratic voters for the Jan. 5 runoffs. Historically, conservative voters tend to turn out more in extra-inning contests.

Andrew Yang, a Presidential candidate during the Democratic primaries, said he'll be going to Georgia to help drum up excitement in the January election. “It looks like Democrats have an uphill climb in Georgia,” Yang told Yahoo Finance Live last week. “It seems like it’s because Democratic voters actually need a little bit more awareness raising to the fact that there is a special election on January 5, and conservatives are more plugged in to voting in Georgia.”

“The case to make in Georgia is exactly identical to the case that was just made with Joe at the top line,” continued Yang. He argues that the Democrats message should be getting a functional government.  “In this case, we need to deliver a Senate that will actually be looking to pass laws and not have a replay of Mitch McConnell being the obstructionist during the Obama years.”

 “AAPI communities are showing up at the polls and redefining what Georgia’s electorate looks like, said Stephanie Cho, executive director of Advancing Justice-Atlanta. "As the nation’s fastest growing population of immigrants eligible to vote, AAPI communities in Georgia will continue to grow in influence. We are only just beginning to come into our power. We will continue to show up and vote up and down the ballot for our issues, our rights, and our communities.” 

Coronavirus causes shift in outreach for 2020 Census

The stay-at-home mandates imposed by the threat of the coronavirus has forced the way the 2020  Census is reaching out to US residents.

Local agencies reaching out to the AAPI communities have turned their efforts to a more digital strategy, using PSAs, viral videos, and social media to encourage individuals to fill out the 2020 Census.

"For a community that includes undocumented immigrants and individuals in mixed-status households, we know some are still hesitant about completing the census so we are doing all we can to give them reassurance that we are here to support them through our census hotline, census pledge, and numerous resources on the website," says Terry Ao Minnis, senior director of census and voting programs for Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC.

Asian Americans Advancing Justice launched the CountUsIn2020.org website one year ago as the central hub for Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander individuals, and organizations in communities across the nation. 

The website has resources in 23 different languages from factsheets and PSAs to webinars and toolkits to help people understand the importance of the census and locally help our communities be counted fairly and accurately.

"The census is our opportunity as a community to be counted and seen, gain representative power, and get our fair share of resources," says Aarti Kohli, executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Asian Law Caucus. "

"The Asian and Pacific Islander community is poised to be the largest immigrant group, but we are so much more than a political label," Kohli continued. "We are diverse in cultures, languages, histories, with unique challenges and needs. Participating in the census is one of the most important tools of democracy available to us to announce our growth, and diversity in this country."

The best time to fill out the census is now when COVID-19 has forced people indoors for their safety. It only takes several minutes to fill out the census. As we all share concern for the health and safety of our family, friends, and neighbors and worry about the economic impact of this pandemic, we can do something now to contribute to our long-term economic and community prosperity by filling out the census.

"We understand the concern on everyone's mind to remain healthy, and for that reason, it's best to respond online, over the phone or by mail as soon as invitations are received," says June Lim, demographic research project director for Asian Americans Advancing Justice - LA. 

"Simply follow the instructions in your preferred language to answer the nine questions. Amongst other languages, you are able to complete the census online or by phone in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Tagalog, and Vietnamese. The Census Bureau has printed visual language guides available in 59 language options and video guides to completing the Census online in 63 languages."

The 2020 Census will determine many aspects of our lives, children, and neighbors for the next 10 years, including voting representation. In some parts of the country, the outcome of the census data is the difference between a gain or loss of seats in Congress. 

Through the data collected, the Census could determine the allocation of more than $1.5 trillion in annual federal funding determines where new schools are built, financial aid for college students, and where new roads and businesses are located.

"Each of us has a role to play when it comes to the census. Every household matters. We need census data to advocate for the resources and representation our communities deserve. If we don't respond now, we risk limiting this powerful advocacy tool and we could feel the impact over the next decade," says Stephanie Cho, executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Atlanta.