ATLANTA—The Asian American Legal Advocacy Center Inc. (AALAC) invited Asian refugee children to become the faces of its innovative billboard campaign, Vote For Our Future, which was unveiled Sept. 24 on the eve of National Voting Day in Gwinnett County, a suburb of Atlanta, Ga. An estimated 200,000 people will pass the billboards each day.
Many Asian immigrants come to America for their children’s futures, yet in one way they fail their children, according to Helen Kim Ho, executive director of the AALAC of Georgia—the first nonprofit law center dedicated to Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) in the Southeast.
The idea behind a billboard campaign was to spark civic excitement in naturalized citizens by tying voting to the welfare of the next generation.
“We just went to a naturalization ceremony and registered 140 new Americans,” said Ho in a phone interview. “They were so excited; that’s how we came up with the idea.”
First–generation immigrants “feel like they are investing in their children,” according to Ho. They work hard, save, and make sure their children get an education.
Ho described an attitude among immigrants that voting and full civic participation will be part of the fruit the children will harvest from their parents’ sacrifice, yet she said that it is not the right attitude. The parents think that they can leave the voting to their American–born offspring, but if children are raised in a home where parents do not vote, it is likely that they also will not vote.
Ho said this conversation about civic apathy and Asians has been going on for at least 32 years, as Asian-Americans have had the lowest voter turnout of any other group.
Despite the stereotype of being highly educated and an affluent model minority, some Asians are isolated.
“I hate the statistics that show Asians as a huge monolith, because it hides these disparities,” said Ho.
In Gwinnett County, 225,489 people, or 11 percent, of the county’s population is Asian, according to the 2010 census. Georgia has the highest foreign–born population of any southeastern state.
“The South experienced the fastest Asian population growth in the country, and Georgia and Gwinnett County in particular have been the locus of that growth,” stated Ho in a press release.
Victor Lee of Dream Photography Studios took the pictures for the billboards, CBS Outdoors created the design and discounted the rental, and a foundation funded the project.
Ho said, “We had such beautiful photos,” and she was relieved that the designers chose the finalists; for her it would have been too tough to choose.
The motto Vote For Our Future appears in several Asian languages on the billboards. “We want them to feel, this is your country, this is your state, with their own languages and faces,” said Ho.
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