The Wing Luke Museum in Seattle’s Chinatown International District hosted a voting party on Oct. 19 to educate voters about four statewide initiatives on the November ballot. These initiatives could lift restrictions and mandatory taxes that would likely impact climate policies, cut funding for education, eliminate long-term care, and raise costs for families.
The event, held last month, was an opportunity for non-native English speakers to learn about the proposals via their first language. Written and audible translations were available in Cantonese, Khmer and Vietnamese.
According to the Pew Research Center, Asian Americans are the fastest-growing group of eligible voters in the U.S. However, many still face barriers.
Local organizations, including the South Seattle Emerald and the Seattle Public Library, collaborated with the pan-Asian Pacific American museum on the program. The managing editor at the Emerald, Rosette Royale, believes making voter information accessible in various languages is a critical service.
“If you are foreign-born, you could try to find a community organization that you have engaged with before and ask them what resources they think would be essential for your individual community,” said Royale. “Like here, knowing that we wanted to have translators is really important.”
Royale said the translations are necessary in part because ballot initiatives are often presented to voters in convoluted language.
“Often when I read an initiative on the ballot, I’m like, what is this ballot trying to say to me?” Royale questioned. “Then it asks me to say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ and I’m not sure what would happen if I say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to this initiative.”
Another speaker at the event, Tobias Coughlin-Bogue, works with Royale as a freelance journalist. Together, they fostered conversations with the audience on each initiative, defining confusing language and addressing common misconceptions.
“One of the big kind of blind spots of the ballot initiative process is you get about a paragraph on the ballot to explain it to voters,” said Coughlin-Bogue. “There’s always more to it than just the paragraph. Some of these have huge cascading effects on state policy and planning.
He noted it is worth asking who will benefit from ballot initiatives and who stands to lose something.
“In the case of many of these initiatives like 2066, the people who stand to gain tend to be richer people, tend to be groups like the Building Industry Association of Washington, who actually put this one on the ballot,” said Coughlin-Bogue.
Initiative 2066 would loosen natural gas restrictions for large utilities like Puget Sound Energy, allowing customers greater control over energy choices. It could also raise energy bills and undermine clean energy efforts.
Voters can find some of this information on their voters’ pamphlet and the secretary of state’s website, sos.wa.gov, where arguments for and against initiatives are listed alongside a fiscal impact explanation.
These spaces also provide information in languages other than English, including Spanish, Chinese and Vietnamese.
The policy manager at the Asian Counseling and Referral Service, Joseph Shoji Lachman, said the websites for the museum and King County Elections are also good resources for non-native English speakers.
He added: “It’s always good if you feel like there’s a big enough language need in your community to tell King County Elections because they may respond by just making the materials more available before it’s required by something like the Voting Rights Act.”
This federal act requires translated election materials, but the provision does not cover all Asian languages or dialects.
Coughlin-Bogue said that reading local journalism is an alternative for voters who may not have time to sift through all the information found in these resources. Journalists do the research and present it in a way that is easier to access and understand.
“Some people don’t even have the time to vote,” he said. “A lot of stuff gets by because of low turnout, low participation, and low voter engagement. People are depending on you not to show up to events like this, not to read articles on the internet, but you should.”
Royale went on to say, “Please spread the word about how folks can learn more about the initiatives, find out information, and also stand up and be a resource for your community and your family.”
Social practice and fiber artist Aram Han Sifuentes contributed to the event, collaborating with attendees to create traditional Korean folk banners. Each one displayed handwritten messages dedicated to voter rights and activism.
Sifuentes has created other voting artwork, particularly for the disenfranchised. One featured at the museum is “The Official Unofficial Voting Station: Voting for All Who Legally Can’t.” The installation is part of an ongoing project she started in 2016 when she was a non-citizen immigrant.
“I think about being an Asian American and how long we’ve had to fight for the right to vote and that access, and how a lot of us are still fighting for that,” Sifuentes stated. “So, if we have it, we have to use it. My hope is that we can then push for even more of us to vote.”
