South Asians Hit the Phones for Kerry
India West, News Report, Ashfaque Swapan, Posted: Oct 16, 2004
Last weekend, from both the east coast and west coast, phone calls went into the homes of registered South Asian voters in Florida with a simple message from callers: Vote for John Kerry.
With pollsters predicting a razor-thin election still too close to call, and Florida once again a toss-up state, the calls may well have a decisive impact. The Kerry supporters hope to reach 20,000 registered South Asian voters in Florida before they are done.
In what could be a first for the community, young South Asian supporters of the Massachusetts senator are getting involved in the nitty gritty of grass-roots campaigning in a U.S. presidential campaign.
"We think for the first time in the history of American politics, it was a phone bank targeted specifically to South Asian American voters, and phone calls made by South Asian Americans," Tushar Sheth, a 28-year-old New York-based attorney, told India-West.
In New York, South Asian volunteers called registered South Asian voters in Florida at a phone bank event Oct. 9.
In San Francisco, in a cavernous property in the Mission District, about 18-20 South Asian volunteers worked the phones Oct. 10 making calls from a database of 6,000 South Asian registered voters in Florida, said Sanjay Wagle, a 34-year-old John Kerry supporter.
The entire campaign is being organized by South Asians for Kerry in 2004, formed in March 2003 to support Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.
Called the Battleground State Voter Outreach Project, the effort "is reaching thousands of South Asian voters across the country, mobilizing the community like never before," said a SAKI press release.
"SAKI believes that mobilization at the grassroots level is the most effective way to ensure a lasting political voice for the South Asian community."
"Throughout this month, we are going to have phone banks all over the U.S. There's going to be New York, there's going to be Washington, D.C., Boston, L.A., San Francisco, Arizona, Philadelphia," Sheth said. "We plan on calling voters in Florida. Once we finish that, we hope to target other major battleground states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Michigan, Wisconsin, as far as we can get, with as many volunteers as we can get.
"We hope to call 20,000 voters in Florida by the time this month is over. Hopefully we can call another 20,000 voters in Ohio and another 20,000 voters in Pennsylvania."
At the San Francisco phone bank event, volunteers called 800 people and either left messages or talked to 250-300 people in Florida, Wagle said.
Shared ethnicity helped, he added. "I think (the fact that the caller was South Asian) caught their attention and that was their entrée for talking. I've done this before with the normal list of registered voters, and I felt I got a lot less resistance."
Wagle said SAKI is planning another phone bank Oct. 23 in San Francisco and wants to get about 100 volunteers.
"We would love to see people turn out on Oct. 23 to help with the phone banking through swing states," he said. "This is not just about this election, although that's extremely important, but it's about the beginnings of geopolitical engagement among the South Asian community. First of all, (it's about) engaging in American politics as citizens and thinking of ourselves as citizens, but also thinking of ourselves as one South Asian community, and we are hoping to continue that after Nov. 2."
Sheth added that volunteers were particularly encouraged by the sense that their contribution helped. "I think we are just absolutely excited about the prospect of getting the community mobilized," he said. "I think people are very energized by the idea that we can actually make a difference. That's exciting."
Wagle said the campaign is also fulfilling because it gives him an opportunity to connect with his community. "I talked to a nine-year-old boy whose parents were out, and I just asked him what he thought about the elections," he said. "I talked to an 85-year-old Indian man, who had an 80-year-old wife who didn't even speak English, but they are both citizens, they are registered to vote, they vote in all elections, and they were supporting Kerry.
"So I talked to someone as young as nine and as old as 85, and it felt like an exercise in democracy, except this time it was with my community - the South Asian community."
Interested readers can find more information about the campaign at www.southasiansforkerry.com.
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