The Asian American and Pacific Islander electorates are poised to play a pivotal role in tomorrow’s election. Despite historically low voter turnout numbers (often due to structural barriers to voting), data suggest that the AAPI electorate are highly enthusiastic this year. With early voting already underway, Asian American voters have already cast half a million more ballots than in 2016.
To help encourage AAPI voters in 2020, the Asian American Pacific Islander Civic Engagement Fund (AAPICEF) launched the #VotingTogether program, which provides funding to artists to create bilingual artwork that could be shared digitally to help turn out the AAPI vote. Thirteen artists were selected through to AAPICEF’s open call to receive $1,000 to create their projects, which includes songs, dance, and digital artwork.
“Art is a powerful tool to move the hearts and minds of people to take action and turn out to vote between now and election day,” said Tanzila Ahmed, senior narrative specialist of the AAPI Civic Engagement Fund. “When it comes to the electoral process, the Asian American and Pacific Islander community is often ignored and sidelined. AAPI communities specifically need artist symbols, music and visuals that will move us both in-culture and in-language to go vote November 2020.”
The full #VotingTogether multimedia project as well as the full list of artists can be viewed here. All videos can be viewed as a single playlist here.
