Gesturing to a political flier, Eric Chen, junior, educates Asian Americans outside PanAsia about the importance of voting.
“Throughout all of America, Asian Americans are one of the least represented minorities, especially in polls,” Chen said. “In the political space, a lot of us tend not to vote.”
Chen helped in an event run by the Civic Fellowship program, part of the Asian American Civic Scholars (AACS) organization. AACS is a youth-led organization educates and engages the St. Louis AAPI community.
“I feel like it’s really important for people to be more engaged in our community, whether that’s Asians or other minority groups,” Chen said. “I think it’s for a really good cause, and I’m glad they added it to their set of initiatives.”
The program was created to improve Asian American voter turnout, and students like Chen host events at Asian-centered locations such as the Hindu Temple, the Lyndell Institute taekwondo center and the Islamic Foundation of Greater St. Louis.
Erin Sullenger, AP Government teacher, said political efficacy is when citizens believe their vote matters.
“That when I cast my vote, I have the ability to make a change within government or within society,” Sullenger said.
Sullenger said the majority of her AP Government students are juniors, so they can’t yet vote. To still get them involved in the election, Sullenger created a voter guide project, where students endorse a presidential candidate, a senate candidate and a house of representatives candidate.
“I had them do this project because in a presidential election year I think it’s important to pay attention to what’s going on and how particular candidates could affect the future of our nation,” Sullenger said. “If the people that they endorse end up winning the offices, I’m hoping that they’ll pay more attention to whether or not those promises they made during the campaign actually come to fruition.”
Juniors Grace Dai, Manaswini Gunturu and Brendan Yn are part of the Civics Fellowship program after completing the mandatory training, and they worked the PanAsia event with Chen. Being too young to register voters, they created a system for people take a pledge to receive reminders about registration and voting dates.
Chen said he has experienced voting disinterest in Asians firsthand, as his parents weren’t interested in politics so Chen and his brother took them to the polls and educated them on the candidates.
“The more I mature, the more I age, the more I realize that it actually really is important to vote. I still take them to the polls every year, and I plan on doing it this year,” Chen said.
Yn said he has also witnessed this disinterest in his family, which motivated him to join this initiative.
“I wanted to help out my community and support the Asian population,” Yn said.
Along with setting up educational events, Yn interviewed impactful Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) figures in the community about their involvement in voting and the government for the Civic Fellowship’s podcast “American but Asian.” One example is JoAnn Lam, a Chinese-American voting advocate.
Dr. Min Liu, AACS faculty adviser, was approached by a 501(c)(3) organization asking to support an initiative related to civic engagement.
Dr. Liu said 2018 was the first time AACS got involved in voter education, and their work continued in 2020, 2022 and 2024.
“I think in St Louis in particular, we, the Asian community, is primarily first generation or second generation, so they oftentimes are disconnected with the history of people 100, 200 years ago having to fight for those rights. So it’s very likely that your parents, or people of my generation, are taking these rights for granted,” Dr. Liu said.
The program is composed of nine students from three different high schools.
“One of the most exciting things is that they represent diverse language, faith and culture, communities,” Dr. Liu said.
Dr. Liu said there are many statistics where a vast majority of Asian voters say they have never been contacted by either a party or non-partisan group such as the Civic Fellowship.
“I wanted to make sure that we corrected that,” Dr. Liu said.
In the district, Dr. Liu said 6% of residents are Asian, with this being the highest percentage in Missouri. This makes the election even more crucial.
“This is an important voting time, and we need the Asian voters to come out and vote,” Dr. Liu said.
