ICYMI: Georgia Democrats Hold “Flip the Senate” Phone Bank with AAPI Affinity Groups

December 19, 2020

Today, Georgia Democrats hosted a virtual call to action event and phone bank with several AAPI affinity groups, including Guajarati, Punjabi, Telugu, South Asian Muslim, Nepali, Chinese, Filipino, Hmong, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese supporters. Anjali Enjeti, co-founder of They See Blue Georgia, kicked things off with call to action remarks on the importance of outreach to AAPI voters, then volunteers contacted AAPI voters to get out the vote for Jon Ossoff and Reverend Raphael Warnock.

This was the first of several AAPI-specific phone banks that will be available every day between now and January 5 that offers affinity group volunteers the opportunity to call voters of the same community. The program also includes options to phone bank in-language in Korean, Mandarin, Vietnamese and Urdu. Such in-language phone banks are part of Georgia Democrats’ efforts to  increase outreach to the AAPI community by reducing language barriers and offering culturally-tailored programming. 

Watch the FB Live event here. Quotes from this event can be found below:

“The kind of work we’re doing here in Georgia is going to set the foundation for years to come. stated AAPI Coalition Director Linh Nguyen. “We’ve been able to demonstrate in the general election how powerful this group and this community is, and we’re going to build on that in the runoff election. AAPI voters, receiving voting information from volunteers of their own ethnicity, not only strengthens community building – it builds momentum among Asian voters to continue the outreach among their peers of utilizing the power of their collective voices at the polls.”

“In the AAPI community, we are trying to connect with our people. We are trying to build relationships within our community that are going to last beyond this election,” said Anjali Enjeti, They See Blue Georgia Co-Founder. “What we are doing here is we are letting these voters know that we see them. We can’t do this work without them. We understand where they are coming from. We understand what issues are important to them. We also understand there are barriers. Some members in the community feel more comfortable talking to someone in-language, or may not trust getting information from someone outside their community. They may not have a long history of voting in Georgia, and it can be intimidating and confusing. When they hear who we are on the phone, they trust us. We end up building a relationship through a conversation.” 

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