Vote for Our Future

You should vote because:

1. Southeast Asians have been one of the most impoverished groups with some of the highest high school dropout rates in the US with little attention from policy makers.

2. Our government isn’t addressing the fact that Asian American college students think about suicide at higher rates than their white American counterparts.

3. For the current Congress, only 12% of Asians are represented by someone of the same racial or ethnic group.

4. Millennials are the most diverse and progressive generation in America. The policies that will be passed in the coming years will affect us the most, but they’re being passed by people who don’t share our experiences.

5. Though Asian-Americans are still just 4 percent of the overall eligible voting population, their political power is concentrated in important swing states like Nevada and Virginia, where both parties have been building on their efforts to reach out. (NYT)

6. This year, New York’s 65th Assembly District (from Alphabet City to Chinatown to Battery Park) elected its first Asian American Assemblywoman, Yuh-Line Niou. The 65th District is 41% Asian and this is the first (!!) time in history that an Asian American has been elected. Even though Asian voters outnumber white and other voters, too few have turned out to past elections.

& many, many more reasons.

Register to vote here.

(FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images)